SOCIALISM AND UNIONS
Karl Marx was one of the early thinkers who linked unions and socialism. Both are societal responses to perceived labor exploitation and these problems were great during the latter part of the 19th century.
After the Civil War, many freedmen moved to the North to find jobs at a point in time when many people were immigrating into the U.S. European immigration to the United States greatly increased after the Civil War, reaching 5.2 million in the 1880s then surging to 8.2 million in the first decade of the 20th century. Between 1882 and 1914, approximately 20 million immigrants came to the United States. |
With such an increase in labor, industries could offer lower pay and poor working conditions without fear of outside intervention. Most industries were run by the elite who socialized with the law makers of the land making deals and alliances over dinner.
As a result, boys and girls as young as 12, were working in coal mines owned by J.D. Rockefeller and others. Wages dropped from $20 a day before the Civil War to $3 a day after. Most workers were not paid in money but in script that could only be used at the company story. Houses were provided for workers and family but had little or no heat, and hours of work were extended to 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.
Socialists during these times, being committed to the Marxist ideology that only socialism could solve the problems created by capitalism, increased their campaign in support of workers. Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle” which exposed the atrocities of the meat packing plant, Eugene Debs ran for President against Woodrow Wilson and co-founded the Industrial Workers of the World. |
Initially a democrat, Debs proclaimed himself a socialist after William J. Bryan’s loss to William McKinley, who was supported and funded by big businessmen in the 1896 Presidential election. Debs said “in politics, per se, there is no hope of emancipation from the degrading curse of wage-slavery.”
Socialists continue to be a part of unions and hold executive positions in those major unions. But they haven’t stopped there. They have become a part of the political system in order to change society. It is no accident that the three strikes in 1934 which initiated the rebuilding of a fighting labor movement at that time, and forced FDR to pass key parts of the New Deal, were all led by socialists. Socialists are now in Congress pressing Pres. Biden to do their bidding.
The conditions are favorable now for socialists to begin rebuilding a fighting labor movement. Low wages alongside historic levels of inflation are helping fuel the highest levels of support for unions in decades, although massive numbers of illegal immigrants may squash their plans. A victory at Starbucks right now, however, would be a coup for socialist dominated unions. |
I believe that most socialists have, what they believe, is the solution for poverty, unemployment, homelessness and all other human maladies. I think that most are concerned for their fellow Americans. The problem is that they are deluded to think they can build a utopia. People have been trying to bring equality and equity to society from the settlement at Jamestown until today. It has never worked and will never work because they deny the existence of the only one who can. |
God is the only one who can change the hearts of men. Men changed by the power of the Holy Spirit are the only ones who can bring about the true utopia.....the Kingdom of God. As long as socialists deny the existence of God they are doomed and will only bring destruction and confusion to our society. So, those that are believers must walk and live by the power of the Holy Spirit and continue to confess, “Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
KLN
KLN