There were still great unsettled regions and other regions only thinly settled. The country was predominantly agrarian, and prosperity was primarily dependent upon agriculture (whether free or slave). Many industrial products were still imported while foreign trade rose fivefold from 1820 to 1860, imports of manufactured goods rose six-fold. Industry was not highly developed, and it was small-scale industry. The commercial, not industrial, capitalist dominated the scene. Earlier capitalism was still largely in the commercial stage.

This is clearly revealed by a survey of the movement and character of American prosperity, which necessarily becomes a survey of the major aspects of American capitalist development.Ĭapitalism in the United States came to real power with the Civil War and the progressive forces expressed and invigorated by that struggle. What is prosperity? It has three important characteristics: it is always limited in its mass scope, it periodically breaks down, and it cumulatively develops the elements of the decline of capitalism. THE crisis of American capitalism manifests itself as a crisis of prosperity. Lewis Corey The Decline of American Capitalism MIA > Archive > Fraina/Corey Archive > Decline of Am.

Lewis Corey: The Decline of American Capitalism (2.

Capitalism ii system requirements