A Tale of Two Worksites

the future progress of the race.

I don't want to advocate a foolishly grandiose view about the social and political influence of academic arguments -- and I also wish to avoid the common fallacy of inferring a causal connection from a correlation. Of course I do not believe that the claims of social Darwinism directly caused the ills of unrestrained industrial capitalism and suppression of workers' rights. I know that most of these Spencerian lines acted as mere window dressing for social forces well in place and largely unmovable by any merely academic argument.

On the other hand, academic arguments are not entirely impotent either -- for why else would those in charge invoke such claims so forcefully? The general thrust of social change unfolded in its own complex manner without much impact from purely intellectual rationales, but many particular issues -- especially the actual rates and styles for changes that would have eventually occurred in any case -- could be substantially affected by academic discourse. It really did matter to millions of people when a given reform suffered years of legislative delay, and then became vitiated in legal battles and compromises. The social Darwinian argument of the superrich and the highly conservative did stem, weaken, and slow the tides of amelioration, particularly for workers' rights.

Most historians would agree that the single most effective argument of social Darwinism lay in Spencer's own centerpiece -- the argument against state-enforced standards for industry, education, medicine, housing, public sanitation, and so on. Few Americans, even the robber barons, would go so far, but Spencerian dogma did become a powerful bludgeon against regulation of industry to insure better working conditions for laborers. On this particular point -- the central recommendation of Spencer's system from the beginning -- we may argue for a substantial effect of academic doctrine upon the actual path of history.

Armed with this perspective, we may return to the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, the deaths of 146 young workers, and the palpable influence of a doctrine that applied too much of the wrong version of evolution to human history. The battle for increased safety of workplaces and healthier environments for workers had been waged with intensity for several decades. The trade union movement put substantial priority upon these issues, but management often reacted with intransigence or even violence, citing their Spencerian rationale for the perpetuation of apparent cruelty. Government regulation of industry had become a major struggle of American political life -- and the cause of benevolent state oversight had advanced from the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 to the numerous and crusading reforms of Theodore Roosevelt's recent presidency (1901-09). When the Triangle fire broke out in 1911, regulations for health and safety of workers were so weak, and so unenforceable by tiny and underpaid staffs, that the company's managers -- cynically and technically "up to code" in their firetrap building -- could pretty much impose whatever the weak and nascent labor union movement couldn't prevent.