David Yusupov
Professor Sean Griffin
03/21/22
HIS 3410
Blog Post #2-Creative Destruction
Throughout history, many inventions influenced the course of history. The Chinese invented the wheel which helped the world to build carriages to transport people and goods quicker. Conversely, they also utilized gunpowder for fireworks but the Europeans used it to make weapons of war. Essentially, technological progress is inevitable. However, as much as technological progress is certainly beneficial there is a trade-off. The famous Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter described a phenomenon called “creative destruction” which is basically recognizing the fact that yes, there is advancement in society, however this comes at the expense that others lose their jobs. So for example, there was the horse and the buggy and then the automobile came out, yes the automobile revolutionized travel but it led to all the workers who make buggies to be out of work. Much the same way in Richard White’s Creative Destruction there is a clear development of these trade offs.
The development and history of the railroad in the United States with relation to the idea of creative destruction is visible in Richard White’s article. Firstly, it is noted in the article that the railroad aided troops to fight Native American rebellions. Analyzing this from a creative destruction viewpoint it is easy to see that before the development of the railroad troops had to move either on foot or horse and buggy. Therefore with the advent of the railroad those professions are no longer as necessary and that creates a loss of work for those people. There is also that the railroads in Mexico for example was described as an assault on the landed people by the elites, and in the United States it caused the dispossession of the Native Americans, the degradation of the environment, waste of resources and business failures.
These changes took place because as described before, the advent of the railroad made it possible. The railroad greatly aided in American and other colonial powers expansions. It helped troops to move around quicker, thus conquering land faster. For the railroads to be built it needed to destroy natural habitats. There were naturally going to be a waste of resources and business failures because mishaps happen when doing large scale constructions. These changes took place rapidly because the nature of the railroad was that it, as was stated before, made it possible to do activities quicker. The railroads affected many different types of people in different ways. There was a lot of use of cheap labor from the Chinese to construct the railroads. Businessmen relied on railroads to expand their businesses. As was stated before many Native Americans were unfortunately displaced.
A substantial post. If some degree of destruction is inevitable when it comes to the “creative destruction” of technological change, however, how can we evaluate whether the benefits outweigh the costs? White provides a pretty thorough appraisal of the benefits vs. social costs of railroads in these chapters, and finds the transcontinentals wanting by nearly any measure.
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