The two major works on infantry tactics used by many commanders during the Civil War were Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics and later Casey’s Infantry Tactics.  For these books and others in their full length, click here.  Hardee and Casey both represent general ideas about moving men around on the field.  As previously indicated tactics generally meant putting men in a formation that would allow them to effectively attack or repulse the enemy.  To this end neither Hardee nor Casey, at least in their works on tactics spent much time explaining when and why to use a particular tactic, but focused mostly on the how.  To that end it is useful to explain the general construction and some important terminology associated with a Civil War era army.

In general (and it is important to remember that virtually nothing remains constant in combat) men were divided into companies.  A company was lead by a captain and had usually about 100 men divided into 2 platoons.  Each platoon had 2 sections and each section had 2 squads.  Some quick math reveals that a platoon had about 50 men, a section about 25, and a squad about 12.  A company usually had one captain, one 1^st lieutenant, one 2^nd lieutenant, one 1^st sergeant, four sergeants and eight corporals.  To save wordy descriptions a number of links are available to more thorough explanations as well as graphics.

The School of the Soldier is an excellent site.  It uses simple flash animation to show many of the maneuvers described in Hardee’s Tactics.

Formations and Ranks in Civil War Units contains a discussion of the various organizational principles, which have been distilled below.

A regiment was composed of 10 companies.  Some new northern regiments were made of two battalions of 8 regiments each.  A regiment was lead by a colonel and battalions, if they existed, were lead by lieutenant colonels.  Additionally a regiment had (in order of rank) a major, two surgeons (a major and a captain), an adjutant (1^st lieutenant), a quartermaster and commissary (both lieutenants), a sergeant-major and quartermaster sergeant.  A regiment also had a color guard that would carry the regimental colors (the flag specific to that regiment.)

A brigade was composed of 3 to 6 regiments.  Brigades were lead by brigadier generals.  A division was made of 2 to 6 brigades and was lead by a major general.  At the beginning of the war the corps system had yet to be introduced.  When it became apparent the war would not be the 90 day affair many people thought it would be, brigades were combined into corps.  Corps were organized under major generals in the north and lieutenant generals in the south.  Each corps usually had between 2 and 4 brigades.  Finally, corps were organized into armies.  An army generally encompassed a geographical theater of operation.  Thus some army names during the Civil War were the Army of Northern Virginia, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Cumberland, and the Army of Shenandoah.  Again, the north put major generals at the head of armies while the south used the simple designation general.

Armies of the Confederacy

Armies of the Union

When on the march or in the battlefield (again, in general) the various units were organized into ranks and files.  Based on the direction the unit was facing, the rank was the horizontal line of men while the file was the vertical line of men.  Additionally when face to face with a unit of men in formation, the distance they covered from left to right was known as the company’s frontage.

A company had a number of maneuvers it might execute during a march, or in battle, but there were two final configurations in which the men commonly ended a maneuver.  The first was to maneuver into a column.  In column of fours the company’s frontage was four men wide, each man standing close enough to the next man to easily touch him.  Thus the company had four files but a variable number of ranks depending on the current size of the company.  This was the common formation for march from location to location.  Other columns such as column of companies also existed depending on what was necessary for a particular situation.  The second configuration was to maneuver into a line.  In this configuration the men formed a line of two ranks.  The frontage was the length of half the company with half as many files as there were men.  This was the common configuration when going into battle.  Both these formations could be extended into something the size of regiment, though on occasion the better part of a whole army would be in a single line or column.

At a tactical level the general officers would order some portion of their command to do something.  The most common orders would be to attack some point, defend some point or feint toward some point.  At this point colonels and captains did most of the work.  They ordered their men forward, moved into columns to take advantage of road or moved into a line of battle in front of an enemy position, gave the order to charge, lie down, fire or attack with the bayonet.

These were the basic tactical considerations and they were taught by drill and practiced on the parade ground.  Though simple, the goal was to get men to act quickly without thinking too much about the activity.  As previously stated these were the maneuvers the men used but how, why and when to use a maneuver was something a bit more complex.  In further posts I will attempt to explain these considerations based on events that may have transpired during a battle.

In general the prevailing tactics of the day were a form of linear warfare, which, as its name implies, meant fighting in a line.  Before expounding further on this topic it is necessary to diverge for a time and discuss why linear warfare was the predominant form of warfare at the time.  The average person who tries to imagine what it might be like to fight during the Civil War or any number of early modern wars is usually struck by what appears to be the relative stupidity of standing in a line waiting for someone to shoot you.  Indeed a good argument can be made for the stupidity of this particular tactic in a certain sense, especially by the time of the Civil War.  However, linear warfare is a result of the necessities associated with fighting with muskets.

For many years warfare was a comparatively simple affair.  When two armies met they would essentially meet each other somewhere and try to kill one another with blunt or sharp instruments.  Over the years various technologies were used to improve or negate advantage.  Arrows could be used to kill at a distance, shields could protect from arrows and other enemy blows.  Men on horses would charge men, slashing, knocking them down, trampling, etc.  Men developed long spears that they anchored against the ground to stop the men on horses, etc.  Ultimately, by the end of the medieval period groups of soldiers were formed into squares for combat.  This provided a number of benefits.  It kept the men together so they could encourage one another and receive orders.  The square also provided a decent defense against cavalry if the men were armed with pole arms or pikes.  The men could thus maneuver toward some objective with relative safety until they broke so that all men could engage the enemy.

The advent of the musket changed this.  Muskets were very effective in the sense that they allowed a massed group of soldiers to effectively kill other soldiers at a distance.  Aside from breast works and fortification there was no practical form of armor that offered reasonable protection from musket fire except at great distance.  The musket ultimately put an end to the personal armor for quite some time since it became an expense that afforded little actual protection.  The musket did, however, have a few major drawbacks.  First, it was more difficult to use than hand held weapons.  Anyone who can lift a sword can be given a general idea of its use and will work as a passable soldier in a pinch.  Untrained soldiers might have luck with the musket as a club, but that somewhat abnegates its usefulness.  Second, the musket is slow.  For years a highly trained soldier who showed great grace under the pressures of battle might make three well placed shots a minute.  In close combat when the enemy is charging from a short distance the musket was much less useful until the advent of the bayonet.  Third, muskets are inaccurate.  A single man with a musket, even if he has been well trained may not be able to hit another man at long distances.  What he can likely hit is a dense mass of men somewhere between their head and feet at 100-300 yards, maybe.

With this information it is easy to begin to extrapolate why the musket necessitated linear warfare.  Ideally, a few well trained, calm, confident men behind breastworks or other fortifications would fire well aimed shots at a mass of men attacking.  This is roughly the situation in a fort, and without artillery to reduce the fort and plenty of supplies inside to sustain the defenders, this is the ideal situation.  However wars can’t be fought between forts as a general rule, eventually men must come out and fight one another.  The general idea in battle is to make the enemy go away, which is done by killing them or killing enough of them that fighting no longer feels like a good option.  Knowing the inherent inaccuracy of a musket a good commander knows that the more lead he throws downfield the more men will usually die downfield.  To the keen observer it might seem like a good idea for attackers to spread their men so that the whole presents less of a target.  This would be a good idea were it not for three main factors, smoke, noise and fear.

The early musket is a dangerous contraption in general.  The propellant used to push the ball out of the barrel and toward the enemy was a form of black powder.  Compared to modern propellants black powder makes a lot of noise and a lot of smoke when it explodes.  The result is that after a volley or two, particularly on a still day, smoke begins to obscure the enemy combatants.  For men in combat, they are well aware that their musket helps to keep them alive by reducing the number of people firing at them.  Once a battle begins, it is often possible to get the men to fire a well aimed, controlled volley or two.  Once their comrades begin dying, however, men tended to load and shoot as fast as possible.  The result was a constant booming from the muskets and constant smoke.  Under these conditions it is very difficult to give orders as most of the troops can neither see nor hear you.  Additionally the men may be inclined to retire from battle before an effective blow has been delivered.  To this end there are several men, usually Captains, Lieutenants and high ranking NCOs who yell encouragement and keep men from fleeing (called file closers.)  If the men are packed tightly together this may be possible, if they are spread apart it is not.

The infantry square was common and somewhat effective for its time, but it was much less effective for soldiers equipped with muskets.  If attacked by cavalry, men with pole arms in a square formation can defend themselves from virtually every angle.  More over since the enemy infantry might still be some ways off they can focus on one thing at a time, i.e., beating back the cavalry before moving toward the infantry again.  When armed with a musket a square doesn’t provide any of these benefits.  The enemy can now attack the formation at a distance.  Even a musket with a bayonet is not nearly as effective as a pole arm against a cavalry charge.  Additionally, once the soldier discharges his weapon it is very difficult to stay in formation, reload and potentially defend with his bayonet as well.  Additionally, since the musket is a ranged weapon if one square is attacked at its flank and fires at the enemy, they run the risk of hitting their comrades in the square toward their direction of fire.  The ultimate result was that if a group of men armed with muskets is flanked they usually aren’t capable of doing much besides retreating.  These factors lead to the rise of linear warfare.

In late 1862 General Burnside planned to seize initiative from Lee.  Burnside’s troops would be concentrated at Warrenton.  He would make a feint to the west toward a number of potential targets.  His hope was that Lee, unsure of his plan would stay at his present position until he made a more definitive move.  While Lee was awaiting the attack, Burnside would swing quickly to the southeast, cross the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg and make a sudden assault on the Confederate capital via the rail lines linking the two cities.  If all went to plan Burnside would be able to attack Richmond while the lion’s share of the Confederate Army was located substantially to the north.  Thus, these grand tactics lead to the strategic objective of capturing Richmond.

Unfortunately all did not go according to plan for General Burnside.  As he moved toward Fredericksburg his pontoon bridges, needed to cross into the city with his army where not at the front as they should have been.  At this point General Burnside would have been well advised to make a tactical decision to maintain the initiative.  There were a number of fords where the army could have crossed, but the whole army could not cross together.  General Sumner recommended that he be allowed to cross the river, take control of Fredericksburg from the small Confederate garrison and secure the heights near the town.  General Burnside ultimately vetoed the plan based up the concern that if the rains picked up Sumner might be cutoff on the far side of the river and destroyed by a superior force.

The result of this decision was the Burnside waited some 9 days for the pontoon bridges to arrive.  In this time he lost the initiative to Lee who quickly used the opportunity to take up the high ground above Fredericksburg on the far side of the river from Burnside (Marye’s Heights.)  Lee then employed a common grand tactic used in linear warfare.  He anchored his line on the Rappahannock (this meant that the flanks of his line abutted the river.)  This prevented a force from moving around his flank and gaining the advantage (more on this later.)  He also moved his canon behind his defending infantry facing the upward slope any attackers would have to cross to attack his position.

To prevent Lee from occupying Fredericksburg or stopping his crossing of the Rappahannock, Burnside placed his artillery on the heights opposite the city on the eastern side of the river (Stafford Heights.)  This would allow Burnside to safely cross his army across the river; however Lee’s position on Marye’s Heights would be a formidable position to attempt to assault.  These constitute the preparatory maneuvers for the Battle of Fredericksburg.  The next phase of grand tactics is development and crisis.

Development and crisis refers to the generals’ plans for the parts of the army, to either attack or defend.  These plans fall on a continuum between very complex and very simple and may change as the battle develops.  During this phase of the battle a general must consider factors such as terrain, what the enemy may be planning, weather conditions, esprit de corps, etc.  For example, it might be better to attack a portion of the enemy line that is on level ground or exposed as opposed to attacking the high ground or someplace where the enemy has cover or taken advantage of breast works.  A general may make a feint toward one part of the line in hopes the enemy will commit troops there but then attack a different part of the line, robbing the enemy of reinforcements.  Cavalry and artillery could be used to weaken an enemy position before a general attack, with cavalry especially used for flanking the enemy of moving quickly to some location, dismounting and fighting as infantry.

Though there are many potential grand tactics that may be employed the simplest is the frontal assault.  This was roughly the plan used by Burnside at the Battle of Fredericksburg.  A frontal attack, as its name implies means forming a line facing the enemy and charging some point on the enemy line.  By the 1860’s the frontal assault as an infantry tactic was ill-considered at best and at worst a really terrible idea.  In Burnside’s case the latter is how history has remembered it.  Though Burnside did use other forces to demonstrate at other parts of the Confederate line to prevent too many resources from being committed against the main thrust of his attack, this was not enough to gain him victory.

During the development and crisis stage of battle a general should be prepared to alter his plans as the situation requires.  If the opponent’s line is broken a general should commit troops to the newly formed gap.  If the enemy shifts his line to prevent being flanked the general must decide to possibly commit more troops to continue the flanking maneuver or attack the line if it has moved to a weaker position.  Again in Burnside’s case he never developed a new plan but stuck with an ultimately doomed frontal assault.

The final phase of battle is withdrawal from combat.  This phase can be in victory or defeat.  A victorious general must decide if he should pursue the enemy or if it is even possible to pursue.  He may also choose to move toward some other strategic objective.  A defeated general must try and retreat in good order.  This might mean setting a rear guard or retiring to safer place to fight if the enemy pursues.  The losing general ultimately wants to prevent a rout.  In the Battle of First Bull Run, Union forces finally broke after a full day of fighting, much confusion and the appearance of fresh Confederate reinforcements.  This was one of the earliest battles in the war and for many troops it was their first time in combat.  Though many had received some level of training they did not retire well.  Though there was some semblance of order once the line began to break, panic seemed to grip some of the men and what began as an orderly retreat became a rout.  The army could not be rallied before it had made it all the way back to Washington.  Had Confederate forces been better trained it is possible that they could have pursued the Union forces all the way back to the capital.  In this instance, however, the Confederates were as disorderly in victory as were the Federals in retreat.

It is necessary to begin by establishing a martial mindset similar to that of a military novice in mid 19^th century America.  To begin it is important to know the difference between tactics and strategy in the mind of a military leader.  Though these terms, like most terms, tend to change in meaning depending on a multitude of factors this document will generalize.

Strategy refers to an overall plan for the effective execution of war to bring about some end.  In general this end is victory over an opponent.   The aim of the Federal government was ending secession and returning the rebelling states to the Union.  This meant it would be necessary to achieve a traditional military victory.  The North would have to find a way to end the South’s ability to fight.  This might be achieved by so thoroughly defeating their army in combat that continuing to fight would be pointless and occupying Southern territory.  However, this was not the only option.  The same end could be achieved through multiple objectives alone or together.  Fighting a war in the mid 19^th century required gun powder, muskets, cannon, food and other supplies for the military etc., and money.  The Union could stop the flow of necessary supplies into the South or destroy their means of production.  Another common strategy employed for millennia was to capture an enemy capital.  Though this did not always guarantee victory, by 1860 it had a very positive track record.

The South had a different objective, namely independence from the United States.  The South also had fewer bases of production and was only lightly industrialized compared to their Northern counterparts.  Their economy and population were also smaller.  Conquest of the North to achieve their aim would not have been a viable strategy.  Instead the South needed to make the Federals believe that fighting the war was more costly than allowing the Southern States to secede permanently.  To this end the Confederacy could defeat the Union Army, making it impossible to achieve their aims.  This could best be achieved through a pitched victory of the Napoleonic style, a war of attrition or convincing other allies to pressure the United States to allow the Southern States to secede or actually intervene militarily on behalf of the Confederacy.  Given the proximity of the Federal capital, victory might also be achieved by capturing Washington.  These are all strategic considerations.

Strategy is broken into sub-groupings of strategy and grand strategy by some military historians.  A grand strategy is an overall plan which includes the previously listed considerations.  At the beginning of the Civil War, General Scott developed what was termed the Anaconda Plan.  This plan included a blockade of southern ports to prevent goods from coming or going and gaining total control of the Mississippi River so as to split the Confederacy in two and prevent one side from sending aid to the other.  This plan is necessarily simple as a grand strategy.  It outlines broad objectives that, if completed, would lead to a Union victory.  However the specifics of what to attack, when and where are considered to be simply strategy (as opposed to grand strategy.)  For example, to gain control of the Mississippi River it would be necessary to control all the bridges crossing it as well as being able to move friendly troops and supplies up and down the river safely and with relative impunity while preventing the same luxury to the enemy.  To this end it would be necessary to gain control of any bridges, cities and strongholds located on the river.  Some of the most notable of these were the cities of St. Louis, Memphis, Vicksburg, and New Orleans.  As the Union nominally controlled St. Louis at the beginning of the conflict, all the rest became important strategic objectives to controlling the Mississippi.

(The following was added after the original posting to logically complete the post and make each part in the series stand alone.)

Thus a logical hierarchy develops as a result of strategy and grand strategy.  The grand strategy for the execution of the war is determined by those at the highest ranks of the military as it involves the operation of the whole military arm.  Generals, Admirals, Presidents and occasionally even members of the legislature (in the case of the United States) make sweeping plans to bring about victory.  At the strategic level a war is usually executed by generals in the field.  These generals have orders to accomplish some objective (such to secure the Mississippi River) or are given the leeway to act on their own initiative, as long as it is in accordance with the grand strategy or at least not very foolish.  In upcoming posts the role of the general will be explored and the difference between strategy and tactics explained and elaborated upon.

15% of $63,274 = $9491.10

In 2009 the US Federal Government spent the following:
Housing assistance: $41,387,000,000                       1.3% Total Outlays
Food and nutrition assistance: $62,431,000,000        2.0% Total Outlays
Other income security: $136,630,000,000                 4.4% Total Outlays

An outlay is what the government spends irrespective of how much they collected in taxes, duties etc.  Thus if we spend more than we collect there is a deficit, if we spend less there is a surplus.

Obviously in 2009 we had a deficit.  But let’s assume that if we hadn’t had a deficit that the percentage of the federal budget spent on the previously mentioned items has an equal analogous amount removed from an individual’s taxes.  Thus:

In 2009 the average Missouri family paid the following:
Housing assistance: $123.38
Food and nutrition assistance: $189.82
Other income security: $417.61

Grand Total: $730.81  or  $60.90/month

Why do I bring this up?  I’ve heard a number of people suggest that welfare programs generally benefit the unworthy.  Well, here is the average cost of taking care of the unworthy if you are a Missourian.

I now challenge you with the following questions.
1.     Are all recipients of welfare unworthy of aid?
2.    If so what are the criteria for judging worth in this instance?
3.    Many people on welfare, worthy or not have children.  Should we deny all aid to these people if even a small percentage ultimately goes to helping their children?
4.    Some have argued that individuals and community organizations should be responsible for social welfare programs.  Is it not more advantageous to leave these programs in the hands of the government which is capable of providing aid even during hard times like an economic recession?
5.    Even if these programs are wildly inefficient and ineffective, do they not employ some amount of people in an attempt to distribute aid?
6.    What are the causes of poverty?  Before actually answering this question, do you have proof, or is this just what you think causes poverty, or what is commonly held as the cause of poverty?

Some Sources:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/liheap/guidance/SMI75FY09.pdf

http://www.budget.gov/budget

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/browse.html

http://www.cbo.gov/publications/bysubject.cfm?cat=35

Since the election of President Obama the other side has been continually grumbling about socialism and the end of the American “way of life.”  These complaints are most likely not very serious; they are simply the kind of thing that one party says about the other party.  In the United States socialism is generally synonymous with bad government and/or loss of freedom, at some level.  I rarely hear anyone talk about socialism in any very intellectual way; it is more like a curse word or profanity that gets peppered into political rhetoric to emphasize a point.

I have decided to take a moment and discuss the fact that every social and economic structure is flawed in some way.  I’ve chosen to pick on the idea of a free market because it seems to be so heavily idolized by so many people.  Before I begin I will take a brief moment to say that the free market is nominally a great way to move capital quickly and make any form of trade comparatively simple.  Currently, some form of a free market economy is, arguably, the best economic system is place.  With these praises out of the way, there are some serious flaws that we should not forget.

What is a free market? A free market system generally means a system where all facets trade (price, supply, demand, etc.) is unregulated by government.  Extending this idea, a free market is a system where ‘natural’ occurrences and interactions between those involved in the system dictate prices, etc.  We might also expand the definition to say that this is a system using some form of money as a means of exchange, as opposed to some barter system.

So what is wrong with a free market system?  The first obvious answer, demonstrated throughout history, is a tendency toward inequity.  This seems counter-intuitive and indeed many people argue that the system is inherently equal, but that is simply not always the case.  Theoretically, anyone can participate in a free market.  Anyone can grow food and take it to market, make some product and sell it, or provide some service for a fee.  The problem is that capital begets capital and no capital begets nothing.  “Ex nihilo, nihil fit.”  From nothing, nothing comes.

You can’t come to the free market with nothing.  There must be, at the very least, an investment of time and energy, if not actual capital to able to trade on the free market.  Assuming a person has no capital to start out; the only thing they can bring to the free market is their labor.  The free market usually drives down prices.  It does this by allowing anyone to buy from the person offering the lowest price.  In a free market the person offering the lowest price for their labor is the most desperate person.  The desperate tend to be more concerned with survival than haggling for the best wage.  As a result the labor is artificially undervalued, which pushes down the value of other’s labor.  As a result, which history has shown again and again, the free market favors those who can wait the longest.  The people who can usually wait the longest are those with money, vis-à-vis, those who don’t have to worry about starvation, having no place to live, no clothes, etc.  Thus, a free market system can easily favor those who already have money.

The result of favoring those with more as opposed to those with less is a large disparity between the wealthy and the poor.  The rich become richer because they can turn a profit on their capital, the poor become poorer, because the rich can wait them out and drive down prices.  This isn’t always the case.  During the time of the Black Death huge portions of Europe’s population died over the course of a few years.  As a result there was a drastic labor shortage.  Europe at that time being primarily an agricultural society needed agricultural workers.  The smarter of the wealthy classes offered more money for the same labor that the peasants had been doing and thus drew more peasants to them.  This allowed the lords to continue business as usual while depriving their neighbors of the labor they needed to thrive.  As a result many peasants moved into the middle class and some even into the landed class.  This is a perfect example of the free market working for the mutual benefit of all and it required the greatest pestilence in European history to make it work.

As a brief aside, don’t believe the wealthy didn’t try to get wages frozen at pre-plague levels.  They did just that in many parts of Europe.  Some were nominally successful in that the ruling class agreed to freeze wages.  Since there was no way of enforcing these decrees it had little effect.  This simply illustrates that rich and poor alike are ready to abandon the free market system when it doesn’t serve their needs, the wealthy just have more power to change it.

This indicates that knowledge has a good deal of value in the free market as well.  If the people with the knowledge keep it to themselves and prevent others from easy access to it, they can force them into staying in lower paying jobs.  Because those with the knowledge do not want to diminish their own economic security they may charge a fee to transfer their knowledge to another individual.  This again requires money, which may not be readily available, even to a person who works very, very hard.

This is much like our situation today, except that real knowledge is less valued, up front, than perceived knowledge.  Many times a person’s skill in some field is valued at nothing if they can’t produce a college degree.  In the United States most college degrees are expensive, and require classes that are not necessary for some particular field.  I am a consultant and software developer, but in college I was required to take music appreciation, lifetime wellness, European history, biology, algebra, literature, etc., etc.  I paid anywhere from $90 – $120 per credit hour for these courses, plus usage fees etc.  My current employer wanted me to have a college degree, but doesn’t care that I am a decent historian, German speaker, or that I know a fair amount about British Literature or the anatomy of plant and animal cells.  This exemplifies another major flaw in the free market: collusion.

In an unregulated market the wealthy have the means to collude against others.  Collusion has been especially problematic since the beginning of the modern era (beginning around 1500.)  Adam Smith wrote “rarely do people of the same trade meet, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public.”  (The father of modern capitalism wrote this.)  People in the same trade usually have two things that allow them to unfairly manipulate the market, wealth and knowledge of their trade.  When competitors agree to artificially inflate their prices, what can be done to stop it?  They have capital and can wait if people are first reticent to pay unfair prices.  If they control a something that people absolutely need like food, water and clothing, there is little anyone can do besides go without or pay unfair prices.

Of course it is a free market, so if someone is selling something at too high a price anyone else can start selling the same thing at a fair price and turn a profit, forcing those in collusion to lower their prices or be pushed out of business, right?  Ideally that would be the case, but a person going into business is usually going into it for what is called the profit motive.  Once they have started to sell something what prevents them from entering into collusion with those artificially inflating the price?  There is also the Wal-Mart effect.  A person starting a business usually does not have the kind of capital as a person or group of people who have been in business for a long time.  If the established group does not want new competition they have the capital to sell at a loss and wait the new competitor out.  The more diverse the entrenched system is, the more likely they can wait out a competitor to one of their sources of income indefinitely.  In either case those with capital can intentionally skewed the system in their favor making it difficult if not impossible for others to enter and compete.

All these things are problems that can and do occur with varying frequency and intensity in free market systems.  When the system is essentially controlled and defined by the movement of capital, those with the most capital have the most power.  They also have the ability to increase their ability to artificially increase their worth while artificially decreasing the worth of others.  It is possible that some entity in the free market system can essentially short-circuit the market and dump virtually all the money into their pockets.  They can collude to push out competitors, they can inflate prices to such a level that the people dependant on their services have to pay them because the nearest competitors are too far away to make it cheaper to get services anywhere else.  And, of course, because we do have governments, those with a lot of capital have more power to lobby or otherwise convince legislators to pass laws favorable to them.

The wealthy have fought to prevent anyone else in the free market system from manipulating the system as they have.  In the early days of American economic growth and expansion, companies hired mercenaries to scare people through the threat of physical harm or even death from joining the union.  They would use these same people to break strikes.  And they could go back to the oldest trick, praying on the desperate to get what they want.  The number of companies guilty of these kinds of abuses in American history is long indeed.  But, mysteriously, when the union tries to organize, the company is the little guys’ best friend.  The teamsters are the big scapegoats of the corporate world.  They say things like “fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage.”  But for something like a thousand years they have been proving that without intervention they would rather pay a full day’s work with a starvation wage, if they can.

Some people have argued that a person should have the right to do with their money what they see fit.  It has been said that no one has the right to tell you how you must spend your money.  But this only seems to be applied to companies fighting off unions.  As an average middle or lower class citizen, how much we pay for anything is often dictated to us.  In the US most of us need fuel to thrive.  Our cities are spread out and we can’t live, shop and work within easy walking distance.  Yet early in 2009 the price of oil was as low as it was in 2000.  Gas in 2000 in Missouri cost 99¢, today it is around $2.50, which is about what is cost in early 2009.  If supply is not shrinking and demand is not shrinking and demand is not outstripping supply, what other factor is making gas so expensive?  Moreover, in many places the individual cannot choose the provider of basic services.  Water, trash, electricity and gas, are all provided by one entity and the users of these utilities have prices dictated to them, no negotiation is possible.

In certain situations the free market, even when it works perfectly and no one is cheating the system, causes problems.  Consider the United States legal system.  We have a system where the prosecutor’s job is to prove guilt regardless of the defendant’s guilt and the defense’s job is to prove innocence regardless of innocence.  You might argue that this system is inherently flawed and perhaps it is, but the free market and profit motive render it even more ineffective.  A good prosecuting or defense attorney must win cases to be considered good and therefore get more clients.  Statistically speaking since a person can only be guilty or innocent, the by random chance, any accused individual should be guilty 50% of the time and innocent 50% of the time.  Granted this is a vast oversimplification.  Though I have no proof, I suspect that an attorney who only wins 50% of his or her cases is not considered a great attorney.  What this indicates is that a great attorney must sometimes convict the innocent, or acquit the guilty.  Thus, in order to make as much money as possible, an attorney has a clear and obvious motive to subvert the legal system when and where they can to guarantee a win.

There is currently, before the Supreme Court, a case challenging the immunity of prosecutors.  Two prosecutors were determined to have framed two men for murder.  Both were sentenced and served 25 years of a life sentence before the prosecutors’ misconduct was discovered.  If these attorneys had not been motivated to win in order to make money they would have simply lost their case due to lack of evidence as opposed to manufacturing evidence to get a bogus conviction.

The profit motive promoted by the free market often presents people with the choice of doing what is right, or doing what is profitable.  It is difficult to make an argument for the benefit of hard drugs.  Despite the fact that their use is basically always detrimental to someone or some group, there are people who sell these drugs.  It might be argued that the profits from these drugs are very high because of their relative scarcity due to the fact that the government has made them illegal.  However, people still sell cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco; people still sell soda, chips and candy.  Obviously the government has hindered free trade when it comes to drugs, but the system still rewards it.  The system also rewards decisions that take capital from the workers and gives it to the shareholders.  The system rewards plans that increase prices legally or illegally to take more money from the consumer and put it in the pocket of the company.

At the end of the Civil War the United States began to rebuild and expand.  The Industrial Revolution had begun so fewer and fewer people were needed to produce the food required to feed the nation.  As a result, more and more people became industrial laborers (previously the majority of the population was involved in food production.)  The lower classes made up the majority of the population, with a growing middle class found in towns and cities and a small upper class.  Conditions in most industries were appalling.  Women could be paid less than men, so factories preferred women.  As a result men took a cut in pay meaning two incomes from a man and woman were less than they might otherwise have been.  Children could be paid less than women, so factories began to prefer children.  As a result men and women took a pay cut, meaning three or more incomes from a man, woman and child were much less than they would have been.

A factory would spring up, they would build a city around it or one would begin to grow there.  The owners would start a store where people would have to buy the things they needed to live and work in the factory.  The owners would also prevent other stores from coming into the area, often through strong-arm techniques.  Cars weren’t available, even if they had been the factories paid people just enough to survive, so purchasing a car would have been out of the question.  Some industries were nightmarish.  Some men in the steel industry would work 12 hour days.  This made the shift break up easy for the owners, there were two a day.  Some owners would have workers change the shift they worked every month.  This meant that once a month half the workers got a whole day off while half worked the ‘long’ shift (in this case a 24 hour shift.)  The people who had it good were those who only had 10 hour work days and worked only 6 days a week.  (Fortunately as a nation of mostly Christians many industrialists were wary about making people work on Sunday.)  There was no such thing as overtime, vacation or health benefits.

Aside from the bad hours, the work was dangerous.  Industrial accidents were common and fairly disastrous for the individuals involved.  As previously mentioned, a person injured after working in cramped dark dirty conditions for 16 hours for barely enough wage to survive, was usually fired.  There was no health insurance, no law protecting worker health and safety.  If you needed your hand to do work and that hand was crushed in a machine, you were simply out of luck.  In 1911, 146 garment workers were burned, died of smoke inhalation, fell or were crushed to death when the Triangle Shirtwaist factory caught fire.  Managers had locked the doors from the outside because it was payday and they didn’t want the workers leaving early.  It is not certain what caused the fire, though a factory full of grease for machines, open flame gas lighting, stacks of cloth and no fire suppression system might burst into flames simply from karma.

Everything that contributed to these deaths was done in the interest of cutting overhead.  Doors locked to get the most work from the workers, cheap open gas lighting and potentially faulty wiring, no fire suppression system, a fire escape not big enough or strong enough to allow people to flee the building, etc., etc.  And this was not the first time people had died in industrial accidents or the last.  These were not new problems in the history of industrialization; the companies know about them, had the capital to fix them and simply chose not to because they considered it a waste of money.  It was the government which eventually began legislating that the work place should be as safe as possible, that the work week should be 40 hours, that children under a certain age shouldn’t work in factories, that workers should be fairly compensated.

This was the work of the “incompetent” government “meddling” in the affairs of business and the free market.  And, no surprise here, they called it socialism back then as well.  And what happened when companies started to compensate their workers fairly?  The lower class started becoming the middle class, so that today the largest class of people, in the United States, is the middle class.  As it turns out, the middle class spend more money than the lower classes do, buy more products and services, thereby helping companies and the wealthy.  But left to their devices, the wealthy couldn’t figure that out.  They took the short term gain at what was considered an unacceptable human cost only to make less money than they might otherwise have made.  So it would seem that the free market also encourages a short sited and somewhat myopic view of capital and gain.

So what am I trying to say with all of this?

1. If you have a good middle class life, you’ve been helped by the government in ways you may not know.
2. The free market is both good and bad.  When it is bad, it can be really bad.
3. If you aren’t wealthy (and I don’t mean upper-middle class I mean upper class) the upper classes are not necessarily your friends.  Moreover the likelihood that they achieved their success in life without a good deal of help somewhere along the line is slim (it does happen, but not often.)
4. Poor does not necessarily equate to lazy.  I have known some very hard working poor people and I have known some very lazy middle class and rich people.  In fact, think of the top 5 laziest people you know and see if at least one or two of them doesn’t seem to be leading some sort of middle class existence.
5. The American Dream/Ideal that hard work and ingenuity will get you anything you want in life is just that, a dream.  The system is based on capital and it supports those with capital.  Usually no one can amass enough cash to really achieve the American Dream in a single generation.
6. If you think socialism is evil, hang out with the Swedes for a while, 50% socialism + 50% free market = 100% awesome.