Big Business and Labor Quiz

The ideas of Laissez Faire and Social Darwinism allowed people to believe that if they were rich or poor it was because they deserved this. Laissez Faire stated the ideas of power to the individual, individuals competing freely in the marketplace, and the marketplace not being man-made. Like we have no control over gravity the government has no control over the marketplace and who becomes rich and who remains poor. The main concept of Social Darwinism was "survival of the fittest". Like in breeding, if all the weak became extinct or had to adapt the breed or race would become stronger. They related this to the people by showing that if all the poor became "extinct" the economic system would become stronger as a whole. In my perspective one of the strongest reasons as to why the people accepted these beliefs was because the Protestant church related it to god. They said god made people rich or poor according to what they deserved and judging by how much work they did. Poor people were believed to be lazy even though they did do more work than the rich. Business owners used these ideologies to their advantage. Without any laws stopping them, they gave their workers very little pay, long shifts, and they had to work with dangerous conditions such as open machinery. One business owner who did exactly this was John D. Rockafellar.