Ideologies: Mental Corruption Is No "Capitalist" Monopoly, Special Interests Pervert Thinking on the Left
NEIBHUR, REINHOLD
Ideologies: Mental Corruption Is No "Capitalist" Monopoly, Special Interests Pervert Thinking on the Left By REINHOLD NEIBHUR ALL of us who have followed the tortuous turns of Russian policy and...
...25,192,000 Days Lost in 1940's 1,360,000 Mishaps By ROBERT J. WATT IrUernational Representative, American Federation of Labor Ft days like these, when the consequences of the failures of peoples of.other lands are plain for all to see, the defenders of civil liberties should recognize that their defense of minorities today should not lead them into becoming the stupid accessories be-' fore the fact of a revolutionary process which would destroy the , ciyjl liberties of a great majority...
...Without fear or panic, we must face facts and fight for our liberties on the industrial front which is today otfr battleground...
...And remember too, that there, are still between i -jt and seven million men and women who are Willing and able to work if they could find jobs...
...For it is a Marxist party, namely the Communist party, with Russia as its spiritual fatherland, which .reveals such glaring examples of ideology and rationalization of interest as to have become the laughing stock of all whose mental processes are not under the influence of the curious mania which makes these rationalizations possible and necessary...
...Although there is a great deal of agitation to suspend the law, we must remember that no man or ...oman can work efficiently.if...
...The cruelty of history lies in the fact that the tortuous inconsistencies of Soviet foreign policy, to which this Communist ideology is attached, have made the ideological corruption more apparent than if the Russian cause bad been more consistent...
...Industrial Accidents Slow Defense Production...
...There can bene corruption of truth or justice if there is no truth or justw* t« corrupt...
...The real fact is that the ideological taint is a general characteristic of all culture, that it is present in a proletarian, as well as in a bourgeois, culture...
...vents an hour...
...Social Myths JN the melange of mimeographed manifestoes which pour eat of the stencils of the splinter sect leftists, the ward "ideology" vies with "dialectic" as the earth-shaking weapon to demolish all theories of politics, philosophy and ethics...
...Never has the parity fund been enough to give the farmer 100% of parity price, and this year Same members of the Administration, particularly Secretary Morgenthau, urged that farm appropriations be drastically cut to offset, in a very small degree, increased defense funds...
...u obvious fact, namely that every human mind is partly ua servant and only partly the master of the interen* aai passions which are organically related to the human nisi in every human organism...
...A amoenB^me7as'*0r7^ieBAr sBowaf 8 thinly way of neutralizing the conflicting claims of "ideology...
...It is ^ 'sometime the only choice of a free people...
...Failure to recognize this fact has played a sorry trick upon Marxism...
...I don't believe they can expect anyone to respect property rights if they themselves don't respect equally definite legal rights...
...But the world would be it even sorrier mess than jt is if all men had viewed sjksafc with as jaundiced an eye as either Chamberlain or stela...
...We know very well that people in authority, whether in a socialist or capitalist society, are likely to emphasize the value of discipline and order, while these who lack authority will be mere inclined to emphasize the value of liberty...
...3. An inadequate percentage of the total national income going to agriculture...
...The welfare of the masses is the investments a democracy must make if it is going to fulfill its function as the instrumentality of a modern community...
...Men and women look at certain issues from the perspective of the peculiar needs, desires and ambitions of their sex...
...We have a job to do for ourselves and civilization...
...Idleness means' loss of wages...
...5. The inadequate diet of 45,000,000 low income-people in the United States and the problem of acreage shifts from certain surplus crops to many deficit crops, and 6. The problem of rural population pressure occasioned by the exhaustion of new lands for homestead and the fact that our industrial structure has ceased to expand and prorvide jobs for farm boys and girls not needed in the operation of the farm plant...
...Strikes and lockouts resulted in 6,500,000 man-days of idleness, or an average of less than one quarter of a day per worker...
...has beeir called to the ! attention " Of ''the American Civil Liberties Union in a memorandum submitted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...
...There have been no arrests, and no action by the mayor beyond attempts, soon abandoned, to establish "segregated" districts and to frighten Negroes into accepting them...
...The problem we must solve, and can solve with the cooperation of management is to prevent accidents from happenin'g at all, rather than deal with the consequences of such accidents, after they have occurred, because no compensation system can ever repay the loss of life...
...though those of us who are older might have questioned their own freedom from ideological taint...
...Taesav' scenes are memorable hi the "Grapes Si Wrath" when Pa Jead realises the f*tf*W" ef trying to halt the tractor wrecking a* home.' It has only been with the advent of la» New Deal that some moves have been mads to end the chaotic unplanned system ef farm prodactioa...
...I would say the same even if no emergency existed and I say it now only with added emphasis...
...When they find one who is not loyal, labor will be as eager to clean house as they ¦ are themselves...
...It all comes under the head of "ideology...
...One of the reasons for the confusion in farm legislation this session is that the Administration has given little indication of what program for*-farmers it favors, if any...
...Higher farm prices will not help the tens** who cannot find farms because of consoliususp-—particularly when Congress uses the 85r» mae-datory loan law as an excuse for reducinf appropriations for Farm Security AdministratisS...
...The best answer to those who abuse the freedom of our land by stirring up class hatreds and racial prejudices so as to destroy from within the freedom which permits their dirty business, is for you and me to prove to the whole wide world that our own freedom and liberty is the living proof that representative democratic government can and does solve economic and social problems more fully than totalitarianism...
...Let employers recognize the collective bargaining rights of the , workers in accordance with the National Labor Relations Act.- If they have a union in their plant they should not try to hamstring, ox sabotage it...
...But there can be no such thing a: pure ideology and pure rationalization...
...Remembering how he suffered deflation after the first World War and recognizing that lost European markets and the probable effeOss of Western Hemisphere solidarity will mean boraeo-some surpluses of some commodities...
...But Marxism made the fatal mistake of assuming that only economic interest corrupted culture and that only .the bourgeois class was guilty of this corrup- , tion...
...I may pretend that I am the chancellor and not the court fool but if I sneeze every time the king sneezes and laugh every time he laughs, my pretensions become implausible and everyone will know me for the fool I am...
...A LL the people who try to keep a measure of sanity in this sad and tragic world regarded these curious gyrations of the comrades and fellow-travelers with the amused contempt^ with which a curious wayfarer might view the religious dance of some strange dervishes...
...In the accompanying article, Dr...
...A strike is dangerous and expensive to workers...
...The increase in the cost of food or cotton goods through the income certificate plan would be a very small percentage of the price the consumer pays and could be ab...
...j Small Farmers Say 'Parity \ ¦ **** Prices Merely a Stop-Gap Henry Wallace By HAROLD V. KNIGHT JAMESTOWN^ North Dakota.—For the first time since 1919 the American fanner will receive parity prices for wheat, cotton, corn, rice, and tobacco—the announced goal of the New Deal farm program -since 1933 and the specific objective set forth in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938...
...4. Lack of coordination in relationship between cost of credit, size of debt load and farm income...
...This memorandum reports that since September, 1940, when 400 Negro families were forced to find new homes because of the Dallas Federal Housing Project, the Negroes of Dallas and thosi whites who are willing to deal with them have been subjected to a wave of terror and violence...
...the 85% mandatory loan 'was not an Administration measure, but was put 'tMrOugh-by farm bloc Congressmen, President Roosevelt finally signed the bill, but only after he had received assurances from farm leaders in Congress that .in no case would the loan value, plus the federal farm payments, exceed the parity figure...
...fat there have beBrr tocr'tee^^bombmgs, fourifire* ofaua-pected" incendiary origin, and four firings upon Negro homes...
...Is not this the ilislumasl J of a mind which is perfectly sore of itself...
...Ideologies: Mental Corruption Is No "Capitalist" Monopoly, Special Interests Pervert Thinking on the Left By REINHOLD NEIBHUR ALL of us who have followed the tortuous turns of Russian policy and have either laughed at, or been exasperated by, the slavish devotion of comrades and fellow-travelers all -over the world to the momentary necessities of the Russian foreign office, and have marvelled at their ability to recoh> struct the whole story of mankind in the light of the most recent change in the party line, may not fully realize to what degree Russian-communist practice plays havoc with the orthodox Marxist theory of ideology...
...But the rationalization and pretenses of the Communist are so apparent not only because the inconsistencies of Stalin's foreign policy have exposed them...
...We must prove that democracy can defend itself by democratic processes by infusing an intelligent zeal into the task of production while living together in a civilized structure of mutual understandng, confidence and helpfulness...
...Is history not wise as well as cruel when it furnishes such a striking example of the error in a history...
...They were*-afraid of the ideology of age...
...Thus the divine right to rule, or Egyptian pharoah's claim to descent from Ra the - sun-god are beliefs which serve to buttress particular regimes...
...AS a more permanent eolation to the farm price problem, the Farmeis Union advocates the income certificate plan for the commodities to which-it can be ifltted, which entirely remoYes the burden of subsidizing farm commodity prices from the Federal treasury...
...The reason tyranny, whtusr rooted in priestly, military, economic or political p. W% -iaUfletable is because it robs society of the poiti.i | vantage from which the pretenses of power can be *etta4...
...Communist use of "ideology" has undergone a similar evolution...
...Now, white citizens of South Dallas are openly threatening bloodshed if the Lincoln High School is not discontinued as a Negro school...
...They are apparent also because the pretenses of the Communists are made with a curious kind of unconscious brazenness and implausibility...
...The Farmers Union advocates a graduated reduction in the value.of the income certificates for larger holdings, so that the small family-type farmer would be protected in his farm income from the gobbling up of more and more land by the larger operator, who now is assured of a government subsidy that makes bis profit on more land almost certain...
...We can not deal adequately with the complex rrooiea of justice.if we approach the bewildering array of tsetoa to be analysed with too simple a theory...
...There are ideologies of youth and age...
...We am foals if we are able to puncture the pretenses > ni« <f economic oligarchs and are completely naive toward thf pretenses of political oligarchs...
...Morality and justice have been summarily dismissed as "bourgeois ideology, to be replaced by proletarian concepts...
...Except for the opposition of Secretary Morgen-thau, it is believed that the Administration would prefer the income certificate plan to pegged loan prices at the present time...
...If this matter is fully probed it becomes apparent that the Marxist theory of ideology must be extended...
...But a conversation with a comrade or fellow-traveler soon reveals that there is more naivete than guile in the intellectual processes by which each saw ens-elusion is arrived at...
...Einstein's relativity was dismissed as philosophical idealism, tending to uphold the 'bourgeoisie...
...agricnltlBTe is in no mood to be forgotten...
...Nazism is declared to be a "matter pf taste" in one moment and has become "cannibalism" in the next...
...forced to subsist on...
...All knowledge is simply divided into "class instruments": ' thus several years ago Moscow raised quite a furor over "bourgeois astronomy...
...Instead I would suggest some of the ways I think employers and workers can work together, and some of the ways in which employers and '.vorkers can join in defending our freedom...
...They should help the workers establish free and independent unions...
...But it would be well to learn such lessons as may be learned from this curious bit of history...
...It was a great achievement of Marxism to bring the corruption of interest in all human culture to full view and to explode those theories of culture which assumed that men's ideals and ideas, principles and laws were generated in a vacuum of pure mind...
...The New Masses was caught flat-footed by the invasion of Russia and declared in an is sue...
...Ideology" has had legitimate sociological uses: it traces the roots of theories pointing oat how they are colored to serve political and class uses...
...As long as acreage-restrictions are made on » horizontal basis, with the small farmer makaf the same percentage of reduction as the lane operator, small farmers will go through the stea while the large factory-type farmers usin...
...That viewpoint was expressed by Glenn J. Tal-bott, president of the North Dakota Farmers Union, testifying recently before the House Agricultural committee...
...IParity priced" is used by the government to mean the price- of a farm commodity that will g^ye the fanner the same purchasing power in terms of the goods he has to buy that existed from 1909 to 2914, when farmers had what is considered a fair share of parity income...
...not because it was inherently more plausible but because it had at least a measure of consistency...
...As a rttatter of fSet...
...It is necessary on occasion to remind even Marxists that the "ideology" is not synonymous with "theory" but that it means a system of rationalization for special interests...
...The ABsIP is seeking legislation to reouire government agencies to pay 100% parity for all farm "aowf-*^ modities bought, either for relief disposal at home or export through the lend-lease program abroad...
...It causes fear and discouragement...
...He is?t^eeru°thor?2&ihVwX"o?^djy ^m^at^Ocl^Td^thrre^^f^^t^i'^o^^T...
...He outlined six phases of the farm problem as follows: 1. Bad distribution of total agricultural income among- the farm families within agriculture...
...but not yet determining what type of farming is for the best interests of America, and coordinating all farm programs to that end1...
...There are reactionaries who have been able to hide their ideology more effectively...
...IN 1940, industrial accidents in the United States resulted in 17,000 deaths, 93,000 permanent disabilities, 1,250,000 temporary disabilities...
...If theories aid as false fronts and rationalisMo****'MN* ;fc>rblin«ls^UJ*tfJjn^Y p u^aWptff**Tiogha* and...
...This means that farmers have come to Congress, tincup in hand, each, year and asked for appropriations to give them What -Congress has already said is a fair price...
...There are ideologies everywhere...
...Stalin may pretend that his interests are idasaata] witf those of the workers...
...Why should there be injustice when there hi n« private ownership of the means of production...
...Let-employers obey the...
...Which proves that it is still important to eluaaak ideology from culture, as far as this is possible, we sa neither hope for s completely disinterested reason...
...Did not some of youngsters suggest yesterday that only young men of draft age ought to have the right to vote on the issue of the draft...
...HAVE not talked about strikes because our unions do not ^want * strikes in any industry...
...Niebuhr is the enairman of the Union for Democratic Action...
...Faced with mounting.debts, the farmer has had to stand by aad see absentee mssg*i anca^companics take ever the lead...
...Before the week was out The Daily Worker discovered that there never had been an alliance between Russia and Germany and that the idea of such an alliance was the bugaboo of the capitalistic press...
...This is the kind of trick that history has played upon the poor Communists and their fellow-travelers...
...Jk MONG farm groups, however, there is cca»-siderable difference as to how to protect farmers in the present crisis...
...Each is a necessary V itrugErle against oppression, a struggle to maintain standards...
...Some years ago, Mussolini espoused a doctrine of crude pragmatism, claiming that all truths were relative and that his doctrine of fascism—or Hitler's racism—were true for them and that they worked...
...Although day by day the press and radio is calling the roll of strikes and emphasizing the number of man-hours of production lost, they rarely, if ever, report that industrial injuries have assumed the proportions of a major tragedy far more serious than industrial disputes or any other single threat to defense production...
...theories today serve similar purposes forYthanr ends...
...The Farmer Seeks a Way I ONGER than any other sector of Asms...
...Wage and Hours Law and help it succeed by spreading employment...
...Ideology is "false consciousness.'4 Ideology is the theoretic system by which we excuse, hide and justify some special interest, which could not be justified if it stood naked and fully revealed...
...Einstein's theory some years later faced another onslaught from the Nazis, because relativity pictured a "Jewish" world...
...None of us look upon a matter which affects at with complete disinterestedness...
...NE of the reasons why...
...The ballot box is the place for Americans to settle whether some other form of economics or government is to replace existing structures.' Those who try to make pickets or the strikebreaker a front line for determining which "ism" is to settle the class struggle ideology are not playing fair with the community or industry or labor...
...It can be dbne, and it must be done because the alternative is plain for all to see...
...Let industrialists practice, as well as preach, the unity of American democracy and let labor match and exceed the best efforts of the industrialists...
...Disabling injuries caused the loss of 25,192,000 man-days, or an average of one day per Worker...
...Since the 85^ loans are well above pram* market prices, the government is virtually gssr-anteeing a fixed price, taking over the eSsSt corn, and cotton if the loans are not pail K the open market prices do not go above thai point, the government will find itself holdtsf huge stocks of commodities, which will not ontf require outlays from the Federal Treasury bat may also boomerang on the farmer as grsst • debacle as the ill-fated Hoover Farm Bosnl stabilization program...
...but that is an old pretense...
...er**d) and to see that history proves political tyranny, even -whet economic goods are socially owned, to be fruitful of f-ievo^ injustice...
...The American Farm Bureau Federation backed the 85% mandatory loan bill when it became apparent that it could not get a full 100% price peg...
...Farmers are: assured parity price on the so-called basic commodities, because of the Congressional action making mandatory Commodity Credit Corporation loans of 85% of parity price on crops put in storage by farmers.i (Last year the storage loan on wheat and cotton was 56% of parity, and 75% on corn...
...We must re-- member that labor is not a commodity to be bought at the cheapest ssible price and neither is it a machine to be discarded...
...I see every reason why labor should never strike except when every other means has failed...
...But these stm remediable: the essential is that niiiaas* first steps have been taken...
...Many of these efforts were aaaatiafactory: pigs were plowed SsV der while relief rolls bulged, fat AAA cheeks went to large corporate farms wamV the tenants received none...
...9 But the notion of "ideology" has had some current invidious political uses...
...The fact that all theories are bound and colored by particular interests has been used by totalitarians to justify their role...
...a* a* rest content with any taint of interest in our considssna of problems of justice...
...The war against Nazism demands a united front of all forces in the non-fascist world in 1939...
...But a strike is also like the defense program...
...The rest of us marvel at the mental agility which makes it possible to change front with such promptness and with so little embarrassment...
...Let employers obey the laws of the* land themselves...
...The 1938 Farm Act provides for annual appropriation from the Treasury to make up the difference between the market price and parity through AAA benefit and parity payments...
...many of cs have become more devoted to democracy as a system of government than wo once were, is because we have discovered that desnoeratia check* and counter-checks are the best method of B*otrauV lag special interests and of arriving at the truth ay 53 iikg various corruptions of the truth to destroy sash 23 Why do we refuse to accept the communist version ad KasJ as a workers paradise...
...It is true as far as it goes but it does not go far enough...
...In the long run free independent unions are . -better for employers than the.stooge outfits some of them concoct...
...Unlike American industry, which throagh monopoly practices or tree* asaoriatiow practices could limit prodairisa ; aad maintain prices sad protts, the Aaig" ¦can farmer baa been at the mercy ef the speculators in the Chicago markets or ass whim of natural climate...
...ican life, farming has felt the brant ef depression for more than twenty-five years...
...This has been given far too little attention despite the fact that it constitues a serious drain upon he supply of trained manpower...
...We can above all avoid hftinrfcai-udice and ideology into the eminence of a holy creed M Ha Communists have done...
...Niebuhr, turns the npatan of "ideology" osstthe Communists themselves...
...Harold V. Knight of North Dakota, «s*Sj tor of the Farmers Union journal tolls be** the reaction of various farm groups to the latest Congressional action in the battle a...
...Let employers treat their workers as the loyal, patriotic Americans that they are...
...sorbed in the highly satisfactory profits of food' processors...
...There are male and female ideologies...
...While accepting these measures as temporary expedients to keep farm prices from going tc smash while costs are rising, the National Farmers Union sees dangers ahead in a price-pegging program...
...To Morgenthau's position that the income certificate plan would impose a regressive tax on consumers, the Farmers Union maintains that.the income certificate is a deficiency tax to replace the subsidy that farmers have been giving consumers by producing food and ' fiber below the cost of production...
...2. Inequitable distribution of agricultural income as between farm commodities...
...lessihan thirty...
...The other 16% of parity would come from parity payments and soil conservation payments, made from federal appropriations...
...But Marxist theory is still too sisipie W» need not be cynics to recognize, what is rather after si...
...ing ofthese pretenses by a further exercise of power, • 1 A full analysis of the problem of ideology mast prompt amendment, as well as extension, of the orthodox theory There iS probably no mind which is not subject ts ioflsanor by interest...
...Is there not a strange irony in the fact that a Marxist sect should hare refuted the idea that only capitalists are corrupted by ideology by its own glaring examples of ideology...
...For every man-day of idleness, resulting from strikes in 1940, there were four days lost through work accidents...
...In the solution of such problems it is time for intelligent labor and management and pubfic-spirited citizens to take active part in clearing away the obstacles which have kept us apart...
...Marxist them* was an improvement upon the simple intelleetaaJism ud rationalism which preceded it and which imagined Uat r was possible to achieve scientific detachment in ssoai tnl political issues...
...which makes character loans to farmers whe haw dropped through the* sieve to enable them to become self-supporting fanners again...
...Thus power grows more and more vexatious if not "heesaL It justifies itsetf by its pretenses and prevents-the rjoacua...
...Without reference to the 17,000 dead and those among the 93,000 who were temporarily taken out of productive employment through loss of hands, legs, eyes and other crippling injuries, the temporary disabilities alone caused a direct total loss of 200,-000,000 man-hours of production...
...hifkj mechanized methods with hired labor will grsjt^ larger...
...A strike or lockout is not and should not be a way of settling theoretical considerations in our economy...
...The market, the bottom of which dropped oat when1'the last war ended, has sever been regained...
...printed before, but appearing on the newsstands after, the invasion that the reports of a Nazi attack upon Russia are Inventions of the capitalistic press...
...It is time for us all to call upon the full resources of our democracy, including the machinery of industry and commerce and manpower which operates the machinery to help protect the wage earner against avoidable risks...
...BecaoaJ men who possess absolute political power are n> ntsia reliable guardians of justice than men who possess absajj economic power...
...There is no sensible leader of labor who would resort to a strike if it could be avoided without sacrificing legitimate gains or objectives...
...Prof...
...Higher prices will actually speed up tflk process, for even with 'restricted acreage, tte large corporation farms or the suitcase-oidowaV farmer, who aires men to run tractors 60 daw a year and lets the WPA take care of them aV rest of the year, will find it profitable to expse* their holdings...
...Ideology is therefore the element of taint and corruption' upon human culture...
...But just because the farmer is going to get parity does ><?tr mean that he is ltX>%- tn favor ¦ of the New*-Dtea( -Wallace program—even though 80% voted for the wheat marketing quota...
...but has become a war of rival imperialism* in 1940, only to be'transmuted into a war for democracy and freedom in 1941...
...Because we are still able bJPOtter*, the facts of history without the blinders of a peeotJlp...
...published as the Nature and Destiny of Man...
...Alter all, a strike should be called only to force.a settlement of iss ; s which seem important enough to the workers to justify i'urjeful demonstrations of their convictions and needs...
...Because I have seen the consequences of the failures of other nations to solve their economic and political problems* I distrust '.hose who would repeal labor's painfully won gains...
...Likewise, an employer should never force the argument to the point of a strike or lockout unless he feels he cannot or should not yield on a baste Issue...
...Parity price does not mean parity of rncoe* for the farmer if he must reduce his product** of his main commodity to the extent that he ess-not realize his normal income, regardUtV of tat price per unit...
...Let industrialists support the extension and strengthening of Social Security Programs...
...k With all Of the attention which the New Deal has given to agriculture in the last few years, the Farmers Union believes' that Congress has only been nibbling around the edges of the total-farm problem—passing legislation to deal with specific parts of the probiem...
...Race Violence Flares in Texas 701 ^onSfedWWatt of ractfrett^ '•tfoWs m" Dallas, Texas...
...which ha*-spent so much time exposing the "ideologies" of the bourgeoisie, that it is quite unconscious of what goes on in the labyrinth of its own soul ? In other words, is not this Marxist type of ideology so blatant precisely because the orthodox theory is that only capitalists are subject to ideological taint...
Vol. 24 • August 1941 • No. 33
