On Monday in class, we did a short simulation of what the economy looked like in the late 18th century during the "Gilded Age" when industry and manufacturing became the main economic focus. In this simulation, there were a few entrepreneurs, who each had lots of money. Then, there were consumers, who each had different amounts of resources to begin with, but no money. The three types of resources were natural resources, human resources, and capital goods. The goal of the consumers was to turn their resources into an Econos, which represented a product. The goal of the entrepreneurs was to make more money. However, the obstacle for the consumers was that they could not exchange their resources for Econos without the help of an entrepreneur, and the entrepreneurs could not make money without helping with the consumers because the consumers did not begin with money. So, the entrepreneurs would create Econos for the consumers, and would charge a tax of a certain amount of those Econos for their service. What we found out is that the most successful consumers seemed to just be those who started out with the most resources, because the consumers couldn't do much at all. In addition, the entrepreneurs who made the most were the ones who were able to have the lowest charge and get to the most people. There was nothing stopping any robberies or from the entrepreneurs to rip off the consumers.
This models what life was really like then because all of the consumers made up the working class, which was very poor and was pretty much stuck under the control of the entrepreneurs because they relied on them for jobs and the little income they made to survive. The entrepreneurs, while very limited in number, controlled 99% of the wealth and had immense power over the consumers. They could treat the consumers unfairly and have no repercussions because the consumers relied on them and were far too powerless to do anything. What other benefits and consequences came out of this period, the "Gilded Age?"
I think that one benefit of this age was that even though it caused 99% of the population to have to rely on the wealthy, uncaring entrepreneurs for their goods, this inevitably boosted consumerism. Because people had to buy goods and rely on manufacturing jobs and companies throughout the country, this caused a growth in economic activity since people were continuously buying goods, selling resources, and working for companies, which allowed the American economy to surpass those of most European countries combined. However, as we learned by watching history, this was because people actively tried make money and buy goods since these things would actually help them, yet in our economic simulation, this didn't really happen since many consumers weren't motivated to try and earn econos. So, even though our economic simulation was realistic in that we had consumers, entrepreneurs, and dispersed resources and wealth, because people obviously weren't that motivated to earn econos (since they wouldn't help them actually survive like the real people during this time period), we didn't really get to see this benefit of active consumerism in the activity.
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