The Rise Of Socialism During The Industrialization Period - Book Report/Review Example

Lily Zhu Mr. Cheng 12th Grade Language Arts May.14 The weakening family bond as the pushing factor of the rise of socialism during the industrialization period. The Industrial Revolution completely reshaped western society on a variety of levels, but this reshaping did not come without consequences. The development of the factory system during the Industrial Revolution in the late 1850s left sheer influence on the different aspects of human life in the Western world. The increase in the factory system of production paved the way for the loss of significance for the agrarian sector and the society that hovered around the same. The major political party, capitalism, focused on production and profit and created severe problem on people’s physical and mental problem. Like other parts of the world, the Industrial Revolution followed the same trajectory in the United States of America. The industrial revolution led to significant shifts within family dynamics, especially as related to gender roles and child rearing (Buhle). Some people argue that the bad working condition and poverty led to the rise of Socialism. This argument holds some weight, especially when one examines the rhetoric of socialists movements: they often attempt to defend the rights of the working class, arguing that upper classes had seized control to retain dominant, oppressive positions (Marx) However, I believe that though the rise of Socialism during the Industrialization period were related to the imbalanced wealth distribution, safety and sanitation issues, as well as the discriminating treatment towards the working class, the major pushing factor should be the social disorder created by the weakening family bond. This paper will focus on the weakening family bond, including gender roles and internal emotional turbulence, as the majority pushing factor that have led to the rise and popularity of socialism in America and it will be described at the backdrop of Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle.   Capitalism and socialism represent polar opposite constructions of how to structure a society, including the role of production and the morality of economic wealth transfer. Economic sociologist David Stark defines capitalism as a casual economy and socialism as instant economy in the context of industrial revolution in America (Stark 13). In a capitalist society, people, especially bosses and employees, considered production and profit more because they believed that competition brings out the best in people. Pursuite of capitalist ventures and profit-first policies did in fact increase the rate of economic production: during the industrial era goods were produced at rates that were unheard of previously. The problem, however, was that the wellbeing of workers was ignored – rate of production was all that mattered, so people were expendable, especially if they were unskilledSocialism offers a different view of production, in which economic output is less important than the needs of the producers – those who produced goods should be able to reap the results of their production.  The capitalist structure mentioned in the previous paragraph significantly altered gender and family roles. The alteration in the role of women especially played a factor in the popularity of socialism. Before the industrialization era the women were basically engaged in the household works. They were responsible for reproducing, nurturing the infants and to manage the households. This scenario completely changed after the industrialization that migration from the rural areas to the urban areas was a predominant phenomenon in the industrialization era. Young women were encouraged by the state to come to the industrial regions in order to work. Furthermore, food prices dropped significantly and it became difficult for people to earn a living farming – so people had to migrate to the cities (Buhle). As a result they had to break down the ties with their village and they were given clothes, accommodation in the urban areas (Malgorzata). This led to a gap in nurturant care, because both the father and mother of a family are forced to work in factories, resulting in weakening family bond and impacted the growing environment for children. Such ignorance from the government shifted citizens political preferences to socialism. Sinclair’s statement on this topic is illuminating: “Surely it is moderate to say that the dish-washing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with ten hours as a day’s work, it takes, therefore, half a million able bodied persons --- mostly women --- to do the dish-washing of the country. And note that this is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work: that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper: of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children --- for all of which things the community has naturally to pay” (Sinclair, Chap 31). The quotes highlight the exploitation of the women engaged in the most menial jobs which led to damage to their wellbeing, and, as Sinclair implies, damage to women’s wellbeing spreads far and wide to other parts of society. In addition, the rise of socialism and the rise of the women’s sufferage movement were inherently linked. Buhle claims that this was a transitional movement for America when the industrialists did not have an opportunity to grant the workplaces for most, while socialism promised equal opportunities for every citizen. Moreover, the national minorities hoped for getting civil rights, and family factor only embraced the liberal moods. In a capitalist economy, women came to the industrialized zone and they were betrayed in several instances with respect to status and wages. Several women socialist movements rose up rigorously in the United States. In 1879 Augusta Lilienthal argued that the women in general were stateless and lacking in rights. Women, however, were unable to fight against the oppressions they faced because they lacked some of the basic rights that men, even minority men, did have access to. The women could not also defend themselves against repression legally. (Buhle 40) Thus laws needed to be stringent in favor of the women and thus arose the socialist movement for the women. The Socialist women movement in America started in 1870s and reached its peak in the first decades of the twentieth century. The movement was carried out on a national basis with major issues like women emancipation, labor suffrage and sex reforms in the American society (Buhle). Women certainly faced incredibly harsh conditions upon the rise of the industrial revolution, and recent empirical evidence demonstrates that that kind of harm to women radiates outwards and affects the rest of the family unit in important ways, such as weakening familial connections (Drukteinis). This fact of weakening family bonds and ties was also a part of  the rise of American socialism in the industrialized period. After industrialization in USA, several changes in the work pattern among the workers has been noticed and it has also been found out that it led to various mental disorders and weakening of family bonds and ties. These were followed by high divorce rates and movement to conjugal family forms. There is a line in the book saying that “Once she cried aloud, and woke Jurgis, who was tired and cross. After that she learned to weep silently—their moods so seldom came together now! It was as if their hopes were buried in separate graves.” (Sinclair78) From this quote we can clearly see that the weakening of familial bonds was a central concern to the people actually living through the industrial revolution during Upton Sinclair’s time. The families became more nuclear because there was less affinity of parent-child unit to live with the nonrelatives. This is the first step of weakening family bond—bigger family started to break down into a smaller unit. In 1880 in a study it was found that in one town of Massachusetts approximately one third of the households had non-related boarders. Also as a result of industrialization both male and female found employment in the industries. This meant that individual parts of a family unit were in some ways less dependent on each other than they had been previousl, which led to huge scale divorce rates among the American families. By 1980, divorce rates reached the highest rates with a long-term increase in divorce rates in North America (Starbuck 4), which demonstrates that the dominance of capitalism (which has grown essentially unchecked in America since the industrial revolution) has continued the process of weakening family ties that it has always been associated with. The promise of a socialist society would have sounded very appealing to someone living through industrialization era capitalism: less pressure, more family unity, more bonding between comrades and so on.  The Upton Sinclair work, The Jungle, acts as almost a socialist wish fulfillment, highlighting the connectedness of a family, contrasting sharply with the capitalist society that exists around it. As a cultural production from the era of industrialization, one can use this book to demonstrate the wants and desires of people living through the era, expressing what was needed and what was valued. At the beginning of the book when Jurgis Rudkus and Ona Lukoszaite were married, she did not get a day off from the work after the wedding day. She has to get up early in the morning at 7 so that she does not lose her job. The factory where she worked did not even give her a single unpaid vacation (Deinzer 13). Though life is tough, it is still bearable and they had a joyful and felicific marriage. However, a capitalism society was not able to maintain this happy marriage as time passes on. There is one quote from the book saying “This wasn’t a world in which a man had any business with a family; sooner or later Jurgis would find that out also, and give up the fight and shift for himself.” (Chap 17) This line demonstrates the failure of capitalism during the industrial revolution in terms of guaranteeing a brave life with families—people were too frustrated in dealing with money in order to survive. Jurgis wife and child were dead and he almost lost all the happiness of his life. When Jurgis left the yard his fortune gets luckier. After that Jurgis accidentally visited a socialist party meeting at Chicago. He was very much moved by these socialist ideas as he could replicate these ideas to his own life. Thus he became an ardent Socialist. It was infused in his mind that Socialism was the only solution to all the problems (Deinzer 7). The socialist party turned out to be his new home, and he feels a strong sense of unification and brotherhood from it. He served in the South Chicago Mill and also served as a harvester’s work. Jurgis earned good money from small crime and his employment as a politicians helping hand or as the foreman in the strikebound yards. Jurgis’ rebellion was not because of the inhuman capitalism society but his anger and sorrow from losing his family, which turns out to be an emotional need of family. Upton Sinclair’s work thus demonstrates very clearly the kind of values and fears that permeated an industrializing capitalist economy, and how socialism seemed to offer a solution to all of the hardships, the family break ups, the weakened family roles and so on..  Though there certainly seems to be evidence that industrialization weakened the family unit, and that, as shown by Sinclair’s work, this was a great concern to families and one of the reasons socialism was so popular, there is still a lot for the argument that working conditions, poverty and health all played a role in the popularity of socialism.. . In this period the entrepreneurs of the factory treated their workers as machines and were devoid of human behavior in order to reap the highest benefits. As a result these factories earned huge profits but the workers were physically fatigued and they either fell seriously ill or they died. (Walker pg number?) Little worker protection existed, which meant that people were perpetually working at least 12 hour days, and often 6 day weeks, at the very least: they barely had time to have a life between moments of work (Walker 675).  The long-working hour, poverty, and health issue pushed the rise of socialism in some degrees. However, it is not mostly significant. Nowadays these severe problems still exist in the majority of the developing countries and some of the developed countries, yet only four countries, China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam still have Socialism or communism as the major political party. In a modern society, socialism doesn’t work unless people are highly educated, and every single worker is making maximum production without any pressure. Obviously, it’s just an ideal world. Conclusion The paper focuses on the factors that led to rise of Socialism in United States of America during the industrialization period with the background of Upton Sinclairs’, The Jungle. An insight into the emergence of socialism and contrast between socialism and capitalism has been provided in the paper. The brief study reveals the fact that economic and socio-economic factors along with purely social causes led to the emergence of capitalism in America. Most significant economic factors like structural change, longer working hours and poor wage rate have given expression to the rise of socialism through the social phenomenon like loosening of family bond, changing role of woman and emotional turbulence, which can be found in the novel The Jungle, giving an example of a worker who became a socialist. Though this cultural production clearly does show that issues of health and safety were an important part of the rise of socialism, its central concern seems to be of the family unit. This shows clearly that people in that era recognized that capitalism weakened their own family units, and saw socialism as a solution to this problem, which seems to indicate that that must have played a large role in the popularity of socialism. Bibliography Backer, Patricia Ryaby. Industrialization of American Society, April 30, 2012 from: http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/pabacker/industrial.htm Buhle, Mari Jo. Women and American Socialism, 1870-1920. University of Illinois Press, 1983, Print Deinzer, Eva, The Representation of Immigrant Life in Upton Sinclairs The Jungle, GRIN Verlag, 2009. Print. Starbuck, Gene H. Is There a Post-Industrial Family Form? An Exploration Using Global Data, 2001, April 30, 2012 from: http://myhome.coloradomesa.edu/~starbuck/pifamfrm.pdf Stark, David, Bending the bars of the Iron Cage: Bureaucratization and informalization in capitalism and socialism, 1989, April 30, 2012 from: http://kellogg.nd.edu/publications/workingpapers/WPS/126.pdf Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle, Forgotten Books, 1935 Drukteinis, Albert M. THE GROWTH OF EMPLOYMENT STRESS CLAIMS:WORKERS COMPENSATION, DISCRIMINATION, HARASSMENT AND ACCOMMODATION PROBLEMS, NEW ENGLAND PSYCHODIAGNOSTICS, April 30, 2012 from: http://www.psychlaw.com/LibraryFiles/EmploymentStress3.html Walker, Richard A. "The hidden dimension of industrialization: an expanding division of labour”, Futures (1993) 25.6, April 30, 2012 from: http://oldweb.geog.berkeley.edu/PeopleHistory/faculty/R_Walker/Walker_52.pdf Read More