During the second half of the 19th century, Radical Republicans wanted to complete what emancipation had started—more rights for southern blacks—with Reconstruction. At the same time, in the North, the working class was facing many difficulties. Edward Bellamy attempted to provide a solution to labor and class conflicts in the North through a utopian system which he presents in his novel Looking Backward. Radical Republicans did not want a pseudo-slavery system to take hold in the postwar South, and they wanted freedmen to have more rights to prevent further oppression under whites. Both Bellamy and the Radicals had growing national power thanks to the federal government in their plans to help their respective groups. The radicals – driven by a belief in laissez-faire economics – wanted only to use national power to secure the legal and political rights of freedmen, instead of economic aid to prevent further oppression; History proves that this approach has not worked as well as the radicals hoped. Bellamy, on the other hand, wanted to use national power to remake the country as a corporation designed to erase injustices against the working class, with an amoral, but egalitarian, and economic corporate apparatus indistinguishable from the political apparatus. and legal. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get the original essay Some radicals like Thaddeus Stevens wanted to provide economic aid to freedmen in the South to level the playing field, but most did not believe not to the economy. help. Radicals generally did not believe in economic aid for blacks because they believed in laissez-faire economics and viewed economic concessions to blacks as violations of laissez-faire principles and as politically unfeasible.[1] . Radicals supported laissez-faire economics because of the success of "rapidly growing family farm and small town communities"[2] in their constituencies where the superiority of free labor and markets "seemed self-evident"[3 ]. As a result, radicals promoted fiscal and monetary policies "tailored to the needs of aspiring entrepreneurs"[4] or what is known in this century as conservative economic policy with limited government intervention. Even Sumner – one of the most determined radicals – was “in tune with orthodox economic theory of laissez-faire,”[5] showing why radicals did not want to use national power to intervene in the economy. The radicals' hesitation to offer economic support through national power was not just ideological; they also considered using the government to provide economic aid to be politically unpopular among whites, believing it to be more than is done for whites[6], and feared losing the white vote if they continued their economic intervention. However, by refusing to use national power to help blacks economically, the radicals' plans to help southern blacks gain greater rights and opportunities failed when freedmen were simply still under the economic control of the Whites[7], with sharecropping and economic blackmail like blocking. access to credit to blacks who voted in the majority. Blacks, who had no capital after emancipation, simply could not compete in an economycapitalist without the radicals providing them with economic aid in the form of capital, such as farms, via national power. The radicals, refusing to use national power to economically aid freedmen, remained true to their values ​​of economic laissez-faire, but also significantly harmed the prospects of blacks. Bellamy, on the other hand, opposed the Radicals' views on laissez-faire economics, wishing instead that the entire country, in a vast expansion of national power, would refashion itself along the lines of a business where all everyone does the same thing. Bellamy believed that government intervention in the economy by becoming the economy itself would equally redistribute wealth among all employees of the nation, thereby solving the problem of class divisions. The nation became “a great commercial society into which all other societies were absorbed; he became the only capitalist in place of all other capitalists,”[8] producing all the products necessary for his citizens, on the basis of precise knowledge of consumption[9]. In Looking Backward, the government has also expanded to become a monopoly encompassing all jobs. In this system, "the nation became the sole employer"[10], and all citizens became its employees, in all industries chosen mostly by the employees. However, while employees can choose their sector of activity, they cannot choose their employer, because the nation is the only one, a stark contrast to the radical principle of free labor. By becoming the sole corporation and employer, the nation used a drastic expansion of national power to control all aspects of the economy in Bellamy's vision of resolving economic inequality, an act which in modern terms would fall within the economic spectrum opposed to the free pass of the radicals. enforce economic principles. Even the consumption of goods is regulated by the government, deciding what to do with "a large available surplus"[11], instead of letting the market decide. Property and work become “common actions”[12], as opposed to the private property of one's family, thus modifying the concept of property. The government, in Looking Backward, used its power to transform a somewhat freely competitive market economy into a controlled, one-company economy where all employees are paid equally - the very antithesis of free labor and market economy of the radicals. Radicals may not have believed in using national power to intervene in the economy; however, they hoped to use national power to grant political rights to freedmen, hoping that these rights would lead to greater overall opportunities. To help freedmen protect themselves against the desire of southern whites to reproduce the antebellum racial order, radicals decided that in the South "a strong national state must guarantee blacks an equal political position."[13] ]. To do this, the radicals attempted to “subject Congress to black suffrage”[14]. Radicals sought to use national power through constitutional amendments and other legislative devices to force Southern states to recognize freedmen's full citizenship, which allowed them voting and other rights direct policies. The first of these proposed legislative devices was the Civil Rights Bill, which made all persons born in the United States, except Indians, citizens regardless of race,[15] granting citizenship to freedmen. This direct use of national legislative power helped freedmen obtain equitypolitics through citizenship. Another legislative device of national power, the second clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, forcefully encouraged Southern states to extend the right to vote to blacks by providing for "a reduction in the representation of a State in proportion to the number of male citizens deprived of the right to vote”[16]. To explicitly guarantee black enfranchisement, Radical-led Republicans adopted the Fifteenth Amendment, "prohibiting federal and state governments from disenfranchising any citizen on racial grounds."[17] While white Democrats saw a "radical conspiracy,"[18] radicals demonstrated that their use of federal legislation as national power helped blacks gain some degree of direct political rights and power, and that a "radical conspiracy"[18] pattern of black influence emerged in state legislatures”[19]. and at the local level. Radicals used national power to expand the political rights of blacks, believing that "once civil and political equality was assured, blacks and whites would find their own level"[20] economically and in other aspects of society. However, Southern Democrats soon began exploiting blacks' economic circumstances to deny them access to elections through poll taxes or simple economic blackmail, rendering political rights virtually useless. Bellamy, on the other hand, envisioned using national power to replace political rights and power with a corporate leadership structure, instead of giving many rights to individual citizens. Bellamy proposed a meritocracy to decide who would be promoted, stating that "while with regard to grandstanding or intrigue for office, the conditions of promotion make them out of the question".[21] The President of the United States – “general in chief” of the nation's industrial army – rises through the ranks of his profession, becoming general of his guild. The honorary members of all corporations – retired workers – vote for the president from among the generals[22]. Current workers in the Bellamy system are not allowed to vote, because "it would be dangerous for discipline."[23] Restricting the number of politicians and voters went against what the radicals wanted; Bellamy's system used national power in a different way when it came to political rights, showing how he wanted national power to produce a corporate meritocratic system rather than producing greater individual rights. Radicals also used national power to expand basic legal rights in ways that, again, would contrast with Bellamy's corporate structure. Radicals ensured that national power guaranteed freedmen legal equality, again under the largely false assumption that legal equality would lead to economic equality. Southern whites still "prohibited blacks from testifying in court"[24], until 1872 in the Kentucky case, giving freedmen "a general inability to obtain justice."[25] Radicals sought to use national power to secure legal equality through the Constitution, legislation, the Federal Court, and the legal system in order to aid freedmen. Most radicals viewed the Constitution's clause "guaranteeing to each State a republican form of government"[26] as an advantageous federal power, arguing that a state government that denied citizens—which the freedmen were by the Civil Rights Act – equality in the justice system was not republican and should not exist. Radicals used national power.