Page 80 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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The Roots of Pluralism 10:39
to candle every egg he buys, test the milk, inquire into the origins
of the meat, analyze the canned food, distinguish the shoddy, find
out whether the newspapers are lying, avoid meretricious plays,
and choose only railroads equipped with safety devices. ... In our
intricate civilization the purchaser can’t pit himself against the pro-
ducer, for he lacks knowledge and power to make the bargain a fair
one. 79

As the Gilded Age passed into the Progressive Era, the nature of work
changed, placing more people in organizations or positions involving
direct contact with other citizens. In 1880, the 13 million people in the
American work force were divided roughly evenly between agricultural
workers, who were comparatively isolated economically, and nonagricul-
tural workers. By the end of the 1920s, nonfarmworkers outnumbered
farmworkers by more than three to one. Manual work and service jobs
that brought people into contact with one another accounted for the bulk
of this change, while the fastest rate of growth occurred in professional
and so-called white collar jobs where information and communication
were often central. 80
Another feature of the industrializing economy was the growth in the
number of small businesses, a phenomenon sometimes overshadowed
by the rise of major corporations in the railroad, steel, telegraph, oil, and
food industries. The number of small- and medium-sized firms exploded
around the turn of the century and contributed as much or more to the
complexity of the nation’s economy as the industrial giants. According
to Census Bureau data, the American economy in 1870 comprised about
427,000 businesses, about one for every 90 citizens. By 1929, this figure
had quintupled, to around 2,200,000, or one for every 56 citizens. After
the adjustments of the Depression, the total number of business enter-
prises in the United States would remain roughly stable for nearly half a
81
century, settling at 2,400,000 until the mid-1970s. The turn of the cen-
tury was a high-water mark for the multiplication of small businesses in
the United States as well as the founding era for the large industrial firm.

79
Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery (New York: Mitchell Mennerly, 1914) pp. 68–69.
80
Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970,
part 1, Series D 1–10, D 11–25, D 182–232 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1975), pp. 126–127, 139.
81
Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970,
part2,SeriesV20–30, p. 912; Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United
States, 114th ed., table no. 846 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1994),
p. 547.
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