This is a political cartoon from the Chicago Labor newspaper from July 7, 1894. It shows the condition of the laboring man at the Pullman Company. The employee is being squeezed by Pullman between low wage and high rent.

Now, this reflects not just the actions of a company, but an entire system. After all, this is exactly what the system incentivizes.

Posted by LowerEngineering9999

17 comments

  1. So American Capitalism is not actually a political cult, with Donald Trump it’s newest Political Prostitute? After Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes?

  2. if time travel exists, someone’s definitely gone back and said “let’s keep the rent part”

  5. Not true. The Pullman company figure would be even fatter now and probably be drawn like musk or bezos

  6. Things did get better for a time. Right around when this comic was published the progressive era started followed by the New Deal which were the best times to be a worker in American history. Shit just started reverting in the 80s and we’re back to this.

  7. The genocide in Ireland was caused in part by landlordism.

  8. [The Pullman Strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike) that followed ended with dozens of deaths and the organizer in jail.

    There was violence and racism and the government calling in the army.

    The Pullman Company itself was acquired by Bombardier, which is now part of Alstom.

  9. The Pullman company was worse than anything we see today, so it shouldn’t be seen as one continuous arch of bad to worse. That ignores the hard fought battles of the working class and the progressive movement, and then the errosion of those gains from Ronald Reagan though today.

  10. Yep, and the system has to keep creating new lower classes to keep going. The scapegoating of immigrants and other marginalized groups isn’t new either. By dividing the proletariat, the bourgeois maintains the upper hand.

  11. The strong do as they will, the weak do as they must

  12. It hasn’t continually gotten worse. If you are comparing your life to that of a worker in the 1890s you have a delusional sense of victimhood. Which is pretty much what the vibanomics of recent years is.

    A factory worker in 1919 would make an average of $1,160 a year or around $22,000 in inflation adjusted dollars.

    A modern factory worker today makes about $50,000 a year.

    A factory workers rent in 1919 would make around $12 a month or around $250 in inflation adjusted dollars. Now this sounds great until you realize people were living in horrible conditions like [this](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTA6E_hUOAqGCDcdxJrUdRFr9GpGxAP16MtVjoPYituYrecWR2WIcZtlPdY&s=10).

    So, no your life is not comparatively worse than a factory worker in the 1890s. Do I think some companies would like to go back to the 1890s but if you think your life is worse than someone in the 1890s you are crazy.

  15. It wasn’t continually getting worse since 1894. Only since 1981, you could say.

  16. pullman in 1894 inventin modern landlordism and wage slavery combo bruh timeless classic

  17. It actually improved drastically in the US from the 30s until about the 80s due to the creation of unions. Then business convinced republicans that unions were evil, they were stripped of their power and now the average person is even worse relative to company owners than the Gilded Age that you refer to.

    People had to die for the right to unionize, smh. Republicans have been horrible for a lot longer than Trump.

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