| Illinois Conservative "It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible" ~George Washington |
| Philosophy of Evil Sample Chapter 28 The Spread of Socialism Close window to return to previous page |
Spread of Socialism
As socialism spread around the globe during the twentieth century it adapted itself to the history and culture
of each nation. Evolutionary socialism developed differently than Revolutionary socialism. Socialism in most
western nations resembled what Marx referred to as bourgeois socialism rather than the revolutionary kind
advocated by Marx and Engel in the Communist Manifesto.
As socialism spread around the globe during the twentieth century it adapted itself to the history and culture
of each nation. Evolutionary socialism developed differently than Revolutionary socialism. Socialism in most
western nations resembled what Marx referred to as bourgeois socialism rather than the revolutionary kind
advocated by Marx and Engel in the Communist Manifesto.
“A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to
secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.”
“To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of
the condition of the working class, organizers of charity, members of societies for
the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner
reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of Socialism has, moreover, been
worked out into complete systems…”
“…The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions
without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire
the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements.
They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally
conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois
Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less
complete systems.” (Communist Manifesto)
secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.”
“To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of
the condition of the working class, organizers of charity, members of societies for
the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner
reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of Socialism has, moreover, been
worked out into complete systems…”
“…The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions
without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire
the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements.
They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally
conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois
Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less
complete systems.” (Communist Manifesto)
They all, however, maintain the hallmarks of socialism; redistribution of wealth and the limitation or
destruction of private property rights as they affect the creation of wealth. Prior to the Civil War,
socialism in America existed mostly in the utopian communes which Marx attributed to the undeveloped
nature of the proletariat.
destruction of private property rights as they affect the creation of wealth. Prior to the Civil War,
socialism in America existed mostly in the utopian communes which Marx attributed to the undeveloped
nature of the proletariat.
… these attempts necessarily failed, owing to the then undeveloped state of the
proletariat, … …The revolutionary literature that accompanied these first
movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It
inculcated universal asceticism and social leveling in its crudest form.”
“The Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those of Saint-Simon,
Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period,
described above….”
“The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings,
causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class
antagonisms. …. For how can people, when once they understand their system,
fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?”
…they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and Endeavour, by small
experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave
the way for the new social Gospel.” (Communist Manifesto)
proletariat, … …The revolutionary literature that accompanied these first
movements of the proletariat had necessarily a reactionary character. It
inculcated universal asceticism and social leveling in its crudest form.”
“The Socialist and Communist systems properly so called, those of Saint-Simon,
Fourier, Owen and others, spring into existence in the early undeveloped period,
described above….”
“The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings,
causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class
antagonisms. …. For how can people, when once they understand their system,
fail to see in it the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?”
…they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and Endeavour, by small
experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave
the way for the new social Gospel.” (Communist Manifesto)
Following the War, especially during the Gilded Age, conditions were ripe for America to develop its
own version of socialism. American intellectuals admired the idealism of the utopians, but experience
had shown it to be ineffective in bringing about any widespread societal change. When the Communist
Manifesto appeared on the scene many intellectuals embraced its core message but, as Marx rightly
observed, their form of socialism did not seek to abolish the bourgeois relations of production “by
changes in the material conditions of existence, …but [through] administrative reforms, based on the
continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations
between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of
bourgeois government.”
Building on the utopian ideas of Owen, Fourier, Webber and Ripley; the utopian novels of Bellamy and
Gronlund; the social gospel of Rauschenbusch, Gladden and Ely; and spurred on by the muckraking
journalism of Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair, reformers like Daniel De Leon, Eugene Debs, and Robert
La Follett began to fashion the American form of socialism known today as liberalism or progressivism.
Another important, but generally overlooked factor in the shaping of American socialism during the
early years of the Progressive era was the “efficiency movement”.
The foremost leaders of this movement were Frederick Winslow Taylor and Frank Gilbreth, Sr.
Taylor is best known for his 1911 book The Principles of Scientific Management and his work with
American industry in promoting scientific management. However, the efficiency movement also
included all aspects of economic, social, government and personal improvement as well. At its core
was the search for the “one best method” of doing things, guided by “experts” in each field.
Reform leaders Herbert Croly, Richard Ely and others sought to improve the functions of government
by training experts in public service. A number of business schools, most notably the University of
Wisconsin and the University of Pennsylvania, set up business management courses oriented toward
efficiency. Ely, an economist, was a founder and first Secretary of the Christian Social Union in 1891.
From 1892 until 1925 he was professor of Political Economy and director of the School of Economics,
Political Science, and History at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Ely was a supporter of the union movement and advocated an interventionist government and strong
regulatory policies. He also believed that the state should support white "Nordic" people against people
of other races, a common view at the University of Wisconsin at the time.
Efforts to improve the efficiency of government met with only limited success, but it did establish the
idea that government policies are best set by “experts” usually drawn from academia with loads of
theory but little practical experience.
Another important tenet of the efficiency movement was the efficient management of natural
resources. The undisputed leader in this effort was John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club. For Muir,
the preservation of nature had a spiritual meaning rather than a commercial one. This led to a conflict
with Clifford Pinchot, a close advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt. Pinchot and Roosevelt wanted
to preserve natural resources for their long term commercial use. Muir valued nature for its spiritual
and transcendental qualities. On a 1906 camping trip with President Roosevelt in the Yosemite
wilderness, Muir convinced the president of the value of National Parks as opposed to State Parks.
The Yosemite valley including the Mariposa grove of giant sequoia was granted to the state of
California “for public use, resort and recreation” in legislation signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Due
to neglect of the park by California it was federalized in 1906 by the Roosevelt administration. The park
was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army until 1914 and when the National Park Service was
created in 1916, its care and management was transferred to the Park Service. The Sierra Club is the
forerunner of the modern environmentalist movement. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the movement
was radicalized by progressives and dispossessed communists into a quasi-religious sect that today is
one of the leading opponents of capitalism in America.
The Square Deal
Conservation was one of the three primary focuses of the Presidency of “Teddy” Roosevelt. The other
two involved controlling corporations and consumer protection. The term “square deal” was first used
by Roosevelt in describing his handling of the coal miner’s strike in 1902. He attempted to treat both
the United Mine Workers and the mine owners as equals, later claiming he had given both a square deal.
The term came to be used as a description of his social policies as President.
Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York in 1898. His efforts to root out corruption and end the
spoils system in New Your was so intense that Republican boss Thomas Platt forced him on President
McKinley (to get him out of New York) as his vice-presidential running mate in 1900 against the
wishes of McKinley’s campaign. The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won the election against William
Jennings Bryan in a landslide and Roosevelt became President in September 1901 when McKinley was
assassinated while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
As President, Roosevelt attempted to move America in a more “progressive” direction. One of his first
acts was to deliver a 20,000 word speech to Congress asking it to curb the power of the large
corporations. During his term in office his administration brought 44 antitrust suits against some of the
nations biggest businesses earning him the title of “trust buster”. The Interstate Commerce Act had
been signed into law by Grover Cleveland in 1887. However, some of its provisions had been found
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and was more or less dormant until Roosevelt took office in
1901.
In 1903 Roosevelt persuaded Congress to establish a new cabinet-level department, the Department of
Commerce and Labor to help regulate commerce and monitor labor relations. It was the first new
executive department since the Civil War. As an arm of the newly created department, the Bureau of
Corporations was established to root out violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Investigators quickly
focused on the steel, meatpacking, oil and tobacco industries. Roosevelt’s Attorney General, Philander
Knox, launched a series of lawsuits against J.P. Morgan’s Northern Securities Company, John D.
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, James Duke’s tobacco companies and a number of other large
corporations, 44 in all.
The Interstate Commerce Commission also controlled the rates railroads could charge their customers.
In 1903 Congress passed the Elkins Act, prohibiting railroads from offering rebates to large shippers
further crippling the rail industry. The long term effect was to cause a major decline in the industry due
to its inability to adequately compete with the emerging bus and trucking industries for customers.
In 1906 Roosevelt signed into law the Food and Drug act, also know as the Wiley Act after its chief
sponsor. The Act prohibited the interstate transport of food which had been "adulterated" with fillers of
reduced "quality or strength", or coloring to conceal "damage or inferiority." The act applied similarly to
the interstate marketing of "adulterated" drugs, in which the "standard of strength, quality, or purity" of
the active ingredient was not either stated clearly on the label or listed in the United States
Pharmacopoeia or the National Formulary.
Roosevelt decided not to run for reelection in 1908 and hand-picked his Secretary of War, William
Howard Taft, as his successor. Based on the popularity and support of Roosevelt, Taft won an easy
victory, beating William Jennings Bryan by 159 electoral votes giving Bryan the worst defeat of his
three Presidential campaigns. Taft won New England, the Midwest and the West. Bryan carried only
the Southern states. As President, Taft outdid Roosevelt in “trust busting”, filing lawsuits against 80
major corporations during his four years in office.
In addition to trust busting, Taft concentrated on strengthening the Interstate Commerce Commission,
established a postal savings bank, started a parcel post system and expanded the Civil Service. He was
a strong supporter of the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments. The sixteenth Amendment authorizing
the income tax was passed by Congress and forwarded to the states in 1911. It was ratified in 1913.
Taft was a progressive, but not progressive enough for Roosevelt. Roosevelt was so determined that
Taft would not be reelected in 1912 that he ran against him on a third party ticket.
1912: The “All-Progressive” Election Year
By 1912 all mainstream political parties in America promoted a progressive ideology. The Republican
Party that had been the incubator of progressive ideas since its founding was split between Roosevelt
and Taft supporters over the degree of progressivism held by each group. Taft was considered the
more conservative of the two. At the 1912 Republican convention there were three candidates vying
for the nomination, Taft, Roosevelt, and Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. When it became
obvious that Taft would win the nomination, Roosevelt and his supporters withdrew from the
convention and organized the Progressive Party, also known as the “Bull Moose Party”. The
Progressive Party nominated Roosevelt as its standard bearer.
At the Democratic convention there were five candidates in contention. After 46 ballots Woodrow
Wilson finally won out. Speaker of the House, Champ Clark had been the frontrunner going into the
convention, but when the Tammany Hall faction of New York endorsed him, William Jennings Bryan
threw his support behind Wilson, accusing Clark of being in bed with Wall Street. With Bryan’s
backing Wilson was selected to represent the Democrats.
The Socialist Party of America had elected local officials in 33 states and 160 cities throughout the
country in the previous election. Eugene Debs had been its Presidential Candidate in 1904, 1908, and
would be again in 1912. Debs ran five times for President, mostly in order to support local candidates.
This fact has significant meaning for the twenty-first century, which we will discuss later. Debs
received 5.99% of the popular vote in the election but no electoral votes.
In the general election, Roosevelt and Taft split 51% of the popular vote giving the election to
Democrat Woodrow Wilson with less than 42%. Roosevelt received 27% of the popular vote setting an
all-time record for third party candidates and is the only third-party candidate ever to get more votes
than a sitting President seeking reelection. All four presidential candidates supported the progressive
causes of an income tax, the popular election of Senators and protective tariffs.
own version of socialism. American intellectuals admired the idealism of the utopians, but experience
had shown it to be ineffective in bringing about any widespread societal change. When the Communist
Manifesto appeared on the scene many intellectuals embraced its core message but, as Marx rightly
observed, their form of socialism did not seek to abolish the bourgeois relations of production “by
changes in the material conditions of existence, …but [through] administrative reforms, based on the
continued existence of these relations; reforms, therefore, that in no respect affect the relations
between capital and labor, but, at the best, lessen the cost, and simplify the administrative work, of
bourgeois government.”
Building on the utopian ideas of Owen, Fourier, Webber and Ripley; the utopian novels of Bellamy and
Gronlund; the social gospel of Rauschenbusch, Gladden and Ely; and spurred on by the muckraking
journalism of Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair, reformers like Daniel De Leon, Eugene Debs, and Robert
La Follett began to fashion the American form of socialism known today as liberalism or progressivism.
Another important, but generally overlooked factor in the shaping of American socialism during the
early years of the Progressive era was the “efficiency movement”.
The foremost leaders of this movement were Frederick Winslow Taylor and Frank Gilbreth, Sr.
Taylor is best known for his 1911 book The Principles of Scientific Management and his work with
American industry in promoting scientific management. However, the efficiency movement also
included all aspects of economic, social, government and personal improvement as well. At its core
was the search for the “one best method” of doing things, guided by “experts” in each field.
Reform leaders Herbert Croly, Richard Ely and others sought to improve the functions of government
by training experts in public service. A number of business schools, most notably the University of
Wisconsin and the University of Pennsylvania, set up business management courses oriented toward
efficiency. Ely, an economist, was a founder and first Secretary of the Christian Social Union in 1891.
From 1892 until 1925 he was professor of Political Economy and director of the School of Economics,
Political Science, and History at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Ely was a supporter of the union movement and advocated an interventionist government and strong
regulatory policies. He also believed that the state should support white "Nordic" people against people
of other races, a common view at the University of Wisconsin at the time.
Efforts to improve the efficiency of government met with only limited success, but it did establish the
idea that government policies are best set by “experts” usually drawn from academia with loads of
theory but little practical experience.
Another important tenet of the efficiency movement was the efficient management of natural
resources. The undisputed leader in this effort was John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club. For Muir,
the preservation of nature had a spiritual meaning rather than a commercial one. This led to a conflict
with Clifford Pinchot, a close advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt. Pinchot and Roosevelt wanted
to preserve natural resources for their long term commercial use. Muir valued nature for its spiritual
and transcendental qualities. On a 1906 camping trip with President Roosevelt in the Yosemite
wilderness, Muir convinced the president of the value of National Parks as opposed to State Parks.
The Yosemite valley including the Mariposa grove of giant sequoia was granted to the state of
California “for public use, resort and recreation” in legislation signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. Due
to neglect of the park by California it was federalized in 1906 by the Roosevelt administration. The park
was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army until 1914 and when the National Park Service was
created in 1916, its care and management was transferred to the Park Service. The Sierra Club is the
forerunner of the modern environmentalist movement. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the movement
was radicalized by progressives and dispossessed communists into a quasi-religious sect that today is
one of the leading opponents of capitalism in America.
The Square Deal
Conservation was one of the three primary focuses of the Presidency of “Teddy” Roosevelt. The other
two involved controlling corporations and consumer protection. The term “square deal” was first used
by Roosevelt in describing his handling of the coal miner’s strike in 1902. He attempted to treat both
the United Mine Workers and the mine owners as equals, later claiming he had given both a square deal.
The term came to be used as a description of his social policies as President.
Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York in 1898. His efforts to root out corruption and end the
spoils system in New Your was so intense that Republican boss Thomas Platt forced him on President
McKinley (to get him out of New York) as his vice-presidential running mate in 1900 against the
wishes of McKinley’s campaign. The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket won the election against William
Jennings Bryan in a landslide and Roosevelt became President in September 1901 when McKinley was
assassinated while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
As President, Roosevelt attempted to move America in a more “progressive” direction. One of his first
acts was to deliver a 20,000 word speech to Congress asking it to curb the power of the large
corporations. During his term in office his administration brought 44 antitrust suits against some of the
nations biggest businesses earning him the title of “trust buster”. The Interstate Commerce Act had
been signed into law by Grover Cleveland in 1887. However, some of its provisions had been found
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and was more or less dormant until Roosevelt took office in
1901.
In 1903 Roosevelt persuaded Congress to establish a new cabinet-level department, the Department of
Commerce and Labor to help regulate commerce and monitor labor relations. It was the first new
executive department since the Civil War. As an arm of the newly created department, the Bureau of
Corporations was established to root out violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Investigators quickly
focused on the steel, meatpacking, oil and tobacco industries. Roosevelt’s Attorney General, Philander
Knox, launched a series of lawsuits against J.P. Morgan’s Northern Securities Company, John D.
Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, James Duke’s tobacco companies and a number of other large
corporations, 44 in all.
The Interstate Commerce Commission also controlled the rates railroads could charge their customers.
In 1903 Congress passed the Elkins Act, prohibiting railroads from offering rebates to large shippers
further crippling the rail industry. The long term effect was to cause a major decline in the industry due
to its inability to adequately compete with the emerging bus and trucking industries for customers.
In 1906 Roosevelt signed into law the Food and Drug act, also know as the Wiley Act after its chief
sponsor. The Act prohibited the interstate transport of food which had been "adulterated" with fillers of
reduced "quality or strength", or coloring to conceal "damage or inferiority." The act applied similarly to
the interstate marketing of "adulterated" drugs, in which the "standard of strength, quality, or purity" of
the active ingredient was not either stated clearly on the label or listed in the United States
Pharmacopoeia or the National Formulary.
Roosevelt decided not to run for reelection in 1908 and hand-picked his Secretary of War, William
Howard Taft, as his successor. Based on the popularity and support of Roosevelt, Taft won an easy
victory, beating William Jennings Bryan by 159 electoral votes giving Bryan the worst defeat of his
three Presidential campaigns. Taft won New England, the Midwest and the West. Bryan carried only
the Southern states. As President, Taft outdid Roosevelt in “trust busting”, filing lawsuits against 80
major corporations during his four years in office.
In addition to trust busting, Taft concentrated on strengthening the Interstate Commerce Commission,
established a postal savings bank, started a parcel post system and expanded the Civil Service. He was
a strong supporter of the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments. The sixteenth Amendment authorizing
the income tax was passed by Congress and forwarded to the states in 1911. It was ratified in 1913.
Taft was a progressive, but not progressive enough for Roosevelt. Roosevelt was so determined that
Taft would not be reelected in 1912 that he ran against him on a third party ticket.
1912: The “All-Progressive” Election Year
By 1912 all mainstream political parties in America promoted a progressive ideology. The Republican
Party that had been the incubator of progressive ideas since its founding was split between Roosevelt
and Taft supporters over the degree of progressivism held by each group. Taft was considered the
more conservative of the two. At the 1912 Republican convention there were three candidates vying
for the nomination, Taft, Roosevelt, and Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. When it became
obvious that Taft would win the nomination, Roosevelt and his supporters withdrew from the
convention and organized the Progressive Party, also known as the “Bull Moose Party”. The
Progressive Party nominated Roosevelt as its standard bearer.
At the Democratic convention there were five candidates in contention. After 46 ballots Woodrow
Wilson finally won out. Speaker of the House, Champ Clark had been the frontrunner going into the
convention, but when the Tammany Hall faction of New York endorsed him, William Jennings Bryan
threw his support behind Wilson, accusing Clark of being in bed with Wall Street. With Bryan’s
backing Wilson was selected to represent the Democrats.
The Socialist Party of America had elected local officials in 33 states and 160 cities throughout the
country in the previous election. Eugene Debs had been its Presidential Candidate in 1904, 1908, and
would be again in 1912. Debs ran five times for President, mostly in order to support local candidates.
This fact has significant meaning for the twenty-first century, which we will discuss later. Debs
received 5.99% of the popular vote in the election but no electoral votes.
In the general election, Roosevelt and Taft split 51% of the popular vote giving the election to
Democrat Woodrow Wilson with less than 42%. Roosevelt received 27% of the popular vote setting an
all-time record for third party candidates and is the only third-party candidate ever to get more votes
than a sitting President seeking reelection. All four presidential candidates supported the progressive
causes of an income tax, the popular election of Senators and protective tariffs.
| Close window to return to previous page |
