IS MARXIAN SOCIALISM ABREAST WITH THE TIMES
THOMAS, NORMAN
IS MARXIAN SOCIALISM ABREAST WITH THE TIMES "J*c Marxian Idea Must Be Supplemented a^Y^T of his experience of crowds* years of Socialist, activity II ernef •rrad'y, Norman Thomas has reached the...
...let alone bring about that real M tion in this fantastically eraay sad I just world which a necessary to M peace, freedom and fellowship...
...But that audience listened eagerly to an analysis of the economic causes of their misery and a suggested program of action...
...The appeal to the oomaai something Socialists must rtssnssBPJ emphasize...
...What happened to explained in the following statement made by Chairman Prank Schmidt of the German House: Hoses Has Heavy leasee...
...With thk rrplsnaaon let me begin by reiterating ay belief In the place of theory in lite, the vital Importance of a philosophy to any worthwhile social movement, and my immense sense of the debt the world owes to the philosophy af Karl Marx...
...The building to be erected represents an Investment of 1*00,000 and about 2,500 stockholders, most of them union men of German descent The contract for the building provided for a 100 per cent union construction job...
...Praise the Eighteenth Amendment or denounce it...
...The letter is a striking example of the one-track mind...
...Ideals and machinery, that influence never works directly and simply but by process...
...It a a mockery and an insult to the millions suffering economic distress...
...It a this unwillingness of Socialists to accept salvation by the catastrophe of World War which far more than any theoretical quarrel about the interpretation of Marx explains the difference between Socialism and Communism, I think Socialists the world over would be In a stronger position if they should frankly re-state their doctrine in the light of their practice...
...It is useless to argue the point We call attention to It and pass on...
...lam rather put the wine of the prnkneato' social control for the common ssaii the Marxian wine-skins than hfj Herbert Hoover to express ha cased efficiency in terms of an outgrown a nomic Individualism...
...Many are ready for a program...
...rents and living standards...
...I thought that great Marxist Louis Boudln...
...I would have spoken to empty seats within ten minutes...
...the situation we Socialists face...
...and (2) that orthodoxy itself Isn't much of a guide for the common man when there ls so serious a quarrel as to what orthodoxy means...
...The things that have happened and are happening la the field of human history and la the development of scientific and phuseaprilr thought impel us to re-examine and restate our fnndaatental theory...
...Two years later at the Buffalo convention she declared herself a Socialist Now the Socialist Party has never repealed or changed the resolution quoted above...
...My position on important details which I shall bring up is far more tentative...
...Simply 'to repeat them tn our old sense can neither be so satafactory or so meaningful as men of a former gataaratkw found them...
...That faction has not yet appeared...
...Nevertheless studies in the operation of the-herd mind, in human motives, in the complexes which are the concern of the psycho-analyst in tbe practical arts of education and propaganda, are all shedding a great light upon our task...
...We quote the resolution of that convention: We fully recognise the serious evlb incident to the manufacture and sale for private profit of alcoholic and adulterated liquors...
...This absurd struggle shows how Illadapted ancient forms of organisation are to the needs of the present age...
...The St...
...Even more do on ¦ an energy and a driving power dt will not degenerate into fsntftrBe J need as an integral part of cur ttaal a program for putting our phiaaf Into action...
...all restrictions to wrong-doing, because legal restrictions placed upon the would-be murderer, the bandit the highwayman, would interfere with the activities of tins gentry...
...They do compel as to make a fresh examination from one angle or another of our theory of value of increasing misery...
...where soup houses have supplied food to miners and their families for more than a year...
...We are Socialists or we are not...
...Eighteenth Amendment That debate bas diverted attention from genuine and pressing Issues...
...The Party's Official Position Now to the matter of the Socialist movement in relation to the liquor problem...
...Nevertheless it would hardly have been possible for the earlier scientific Socialists to dream that nationalism and racialism would have been so stupendous an obstacle to a realisation of class solidarity as they are in fact...
...cyjfia t......tmm of a new middle elaae^gha recruiting of the older middle Users and the Hka who do, indeed...
...The ceonoBtic man of the earlier economists never existed and never will exist Compelling as a the influence of economic conditions upon social habits...
...Never by pure economics, if there ls such a thing, win we understand why there should oome to my desk a set of declarations on social probacas pa est it ay the ¦rrtBtam wt tbe Hew York Bast Conference of the Methodist Church which could not possibly be passed by the Hew York Central Trades and Labor Conference, or why the Chase National Bank and other great business Interests should be so much more willing to lecognlas soviet Russia than tbe A. F. of L. The dash of Nations and Races 3Tbe strength and persistence ef o beta as him ha i assi racial eastThese things might be considered as part of our psychological problem...
...They are interunion fights growing out of old forms of organization that come down from the early days of unionism...
...He thinks it is the over-shadowing issue...
...Economic Changes and the Class Struggle \ Becetil economic developments...
...in the cities where workers cannot find jobs: where the standard of living has in many sections declined to a perilously low level...
...Prohibition: Not A Socialist Issiie The Problems of Poverty, Machinery, War And Peace Vastly More Important By James Oneal rIE New Leader has received a rather long tetter from an upstate New York reader in a small town away from the main current of the industrial struggle...
...It ls premature far any one man to be too detailed and expnef* in his n-etatement of Socialist theory...
...During the World War government officials who took an oath to defend the Constitution ran roughshod over all the Civil Rights amendments and this conduct continued for several years after the end of the war...
...it the csjpenters dj refuse to plaster...
...It a a doctrine whteh does rsejdre teeaiwraalae on the road to our goal just as tbe practical struggles ef the irntontots require compromise...
...White arrogance has grown step by step with tbe increase of the white races in economic and military power...
...But I do not basse can fail to reckon with the dam sfesj The lines of the struggle may under aa economic situations and under catt psychological stresses be blurred...
...The writer would like to take some of our satisfied one-track minds into the haunts of misery in any of the industrial i states...
...Indeed, Comrade Thomas and the writer are accused of desiring te remove...
...Interest on capital must be paid...
...The War Danger £. Add te what I have Just been say"* tag the known and admitted facts sheet the increasing deadlines ef aaodcrn war, and we Socialists are faced with a practical problem ef revetation far in excess ef anything earlier Socialists ever imagined...
...IS MARXIAN SOCIALISM ABREAST WITH THE TIMES "J*c Marxian Idea Must Be Supplemented a^Y^T of his experience of crowds* years of Socialist, activity II ernef •rrad'y, Norman Thomas has reached the conclusion that modern Socialism needs to be restated...
...War, whether national or ctvfl, which, in the words of Scott Hearing, "win destroy America or Western Europe" a scarcely an appealing thing...
...For a Working Program r The 1 isnplsillln of Hre and of °* ear isomersIr asm petstesal straetere...
...At the convention last year tbe party made no pronouncement so that the resolution remains the official position of the party...
...All of the southern states are heavy for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment but these same states will fight to the last ditch to prevent enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments...
...Suppose I had taken the advice of our correspondent and had devoted my speech to tbe liquor problem...
...Thousands are on the verge of destitution...
...men replaced by machines and capitalist politicians in office indifferent to this suffering, are of little concern to these workers...
...What could a Socialist speaker have said to that audience that would have given them hope and inspiration for a better life...
...Jurisdictional Fight Brings Heavy Loss To Labor House St...
...je • . If some of you think that in thti rapid survey of conditions which require us to modify and to supplement Marxism I am taking from you the comforts of your religion, let me remind you that in reality the things that I have been talking about and not the formal doctrines of Marxism have been the real subject of our thought and our striving...
...I am more interested In trying to bring life and hope and relief to working class families than In participating in an endless and fruitless debate over the...
...free men could do with the aabj power of physical science as satHj posal for the discovery of trsSj...
...This statement was made early in May...
...Before the Civil War the southern states demanded the rigid enforcement of Paragraph 3, Section 1 of Article TV which required the return of fugitive slaves and then enacted laws which struck down all the Civil Rights sections so far as they related to slavery...
...The machine in mining is rapidly displacing over one-third of the miners...
...The art of capitalist politics a to create such a diversion...
...Nobody gained anything by tins useless strife and each party suffered a loss...
...It is folly not to recognize that these motives Included racial antagonism...
...prohibition and antiprohibition, sectional suspicions, and a variety of other motives...
...The Immense interest in psychology and the .anal imiua amount of labor which a being' spent an the subject hare not brought imlfcj attty ef theory among oar various however, we are getting light on the problems of human behavior and motives...
...1 and upon human material which we neither understand nor can control aa we control steam or electricity...
...Unionism itself was made ridiculous by the fratricidal war...
...Note, for example, not only tbe nationalistic phenomena of war and post-war years, of Fascism in Italy and its imitators elsewhere, but also the attitude of white labor movements toward elemental justice to colored people even when Injustice a at cost to tbe whites...
...In an age of poison gas and airplanes violence a a dangerous midwife for the new social order and the salvation by catastrophe which a the hope of the Communists a both a fearful and very dubious thing...
...Our task a to make those eotnaaaBjsfa as few and intelligent as possible...
...Use specialization of labor which compels ns te keep going sssiiiillily or starve, obviously reojaire as te pay tar more attention te questions of program enrttsr SsoseHsts This simple fact has been Illustrated over and over again by post-war history, in Bnaste no lass than in the cataiattst nations, where UlulalBni seeks power...
...In an address before the Socialist Discussion Group in New York City recently he poked a number of questions which Socialists wHt find of'prime importance...
...where heads of families are becoming desperate, the future looks black, and women cry because their children are hungry...
...It a a question whether the union carpenters or the union lathers shall do the metal trim and metal bam work," Mr...
...Distress is forcing many of these workers to think...
...Wanted: Philosophy, Nat Theology % You will see from this that I an so much attacking the truth a Marxian idea as urging that that ¦ must be supplemented in the BBS our own time...
...capitalism with all its vicious abominations win remain to challenge the Intelligence and action of the Labor and Socialist movement...
...Already thefts and atheists, mystics and skeptics are rushing m to prove their pet theory by selective use of the little part of the new science which they think they understand I shall not follow their example...
...The leader of the American Socialist movement in the' last presidential campaign deplores the placing of Socialism "in a Marxian straight- fadtet...
...Men today have less faith in their own destiny and their own capacity than their fathers in spite of the scientific achievements of the race...
...strikers win be lnjuncttoned, beaten and starved into submission...
...Incidentally, Frances E. Wlllard, president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, came to the same conclusion...
...it is simply a jurisdiction dispute between two unions and we are placed between tbe devil and the deep seas...
...Of course both nationalism and the sense of race superiority have bad tbe most Intimate connection with economic conditions...
...religious prejudices...
...Most emphatically Marx was not an idealist in the w^g*11"1 sense but In his own world of material development he accepted the same majestic and Inexorable march of events: thesis, antithesis, synthesis...
...That resolution was repeated in 1912 with slight alteration in its wording and it has remained the official pronouncement of the Socialist Party...
...George Bernard Shaw has rasa shown what a fine case can be asm Socialism from a consumer's ttiogai almost without reference to tat j struggle...
...Recently the writer spoke to a mass meeting of workingmen and women in an Indiana city...
...The Solidarity of Labor Yet I would not have you think that there is nothing Important or .worthwhile about the principles of Marx...
...Asses* the meat hasbottid Bat the loOewtag...
...He regards the liquor question, which has been muddled by the parties of capitalism, as the supreme issue of our times...
...unity, contradiction, higher unity...
...Wm neither of the great classes a than a ity...
...This type of mind cannot conceive of honest difference of opinion...
...Finally, we are told, that the moat pussling thing of all, quantum mechanics, has exalted uncertainty to the level of a principle...
...It is most regrettable that such jurisdiction squabbles cannot be adjusted without injuring the very friends of Union Labor, such as tbe German House, Inc, that contracted from the very start for a 100 per cent Union construction job...
...Yet I do not fasti come before our generation taHdnf H> am but Socialism, which a hBgor • Marxism and has room In it tor afssf co-operation in practical acliln unset j all of us...
...Whativa a views* of materialism or phllcespbfc 4 terminlsm of any sort, we owe a to Be that we can never be mere dtnkwbn Utopias but must at all points ssskaa derstand economic conditions ant ssj within the limits set by economic tm Within those limits, however, I sn | clined to agree with Max BasBnBwj Lenin showed that there was a wsnj dously important place for tbe ones) energy of the human will...
...We hold that any excessive use ef liquor by members ef the working class to a serious obstacle to the triumph of our class since it impairs the vigor of the fighters in the political and economic struggle, and we urge the members of tbe working class to avoid any indulgence that might hinder the progress of the movement for their emancipation...
...Our "»'»¦*#"¦'» a to avert wholesale wars so far as in us lies while we seek to change the system that a the mother of war...
...These assumptions are so irrational that we will not dignify them by any answer...
...These Issues will get attention and nothing else will...
...Time passed and the German House estimated its loss at $5,000 per month...
...It a a factor In...
...There are classes within claass a the solidarity of the workers to not tm thing instinctively realised but ratal great organizing social ideal or "nj as some French writers use tat I "myth," comparable in its power to as myths of tribal, ecclesiastical or bad unity, immensely valuable even ta at a given moment tbe extreme at ment of tbe myth a always both I and less than the truth sejassM the plodding facts...
...Take one of them into the mln-/ lag areas where children awaited the gift of shoes before they could go to school...
...The Labor Press postponed its celebration from April 6 to May...
...It a a commonplace even for those of us who cannot grasp the mathematics of Einstein to know that he has played havoc with the absolute...
...Both the union enterprise and tbe Labor Press have to pocket their losses without any compensation because of a suicidal and senseless conflict between two unions as to which was to do a particular piece of work...
...Had a powerful employing corporation been involved an the onion workers might have been locked out and a bitter struggle might have followed to maintain the existence of the unions...
...Finally on May 17 some compromise was effected between the warring unions and their members returned to work...
...It a not only ridiculous...
...The Light of Psychology 2 The change in ear a as ads age ef U' psychsesgy staee the Victorian Bare again X do not want to rush in with a premature theory of my own...
...There was no complaint against the managers of the enterprise...
...b) Hegelian Ism a an outmoded form of philosophy...
...LOUIS, Mo.—A jurisdiction strug^ gle between two unions in the building trades in this city has brought to a head the dangerous character of such struggles in American unionism...
...No Referendum Held...
...We Socialists unquestionably as* new Intellectual vigor In esttUdBfcBJ philosophy which shall not uwjtaal into a theology...
...This a marked by the new notion of the atom, the theory of relativity and the quantum theory...
...We have to assert our faith that the human struggle is worth while and that whatever the ultimate destiny of men ss individuals or of the hitman race to achieve a comradeship in the management of the things necessary tor our common life is of itself worth while and may add beauty and meaning to life...
...The general point of view I shall set forth in this address is the result of much thought and is by now well established in my mind...
...In some aspects marxism has been well described as inverted Hegelianlssa...
...broken families and destitute children...
...An Outmoded Philosophy 1 The ekaage fat phlloonehy and *• esterase stece the Victorian era, ia wkdeh stan wrote Here certain things are fairly ok rises: (a) The philosophic temper of the Victorian era on the whole was far less pessimistic than the same temper of the time in Western Europe and even In America since the World War...
...When orthodox Marxists can live and work on good terms with non-orthodox English Socialists while they quarrel violently with other orthodox Marxists of the Communist persuasion it a fairly certain: (1) that the basis of our division has shifted...
...The building was about half completed when work ceased...
...In her presidential address to the London congress in 1895 she said: "For myself, twenty-one years of study and observation have convinced me that poverty is a prime cause of Intemperance and that misery is the mother and hereditary appetite the father of chink hallucination...
...There was about this process an Inevitability, even a fatalism, that mullein philosophy in any of Its various forms scarcely admits...
...On tbe other hand, we do not believe that the evils of alcoholism can be remedied by an extension of the police powers of tbe capitalist state...
...They may occur and do occur in an Industry that a completely organized and where there is no issue with the bosses...
...Schmidt said "If the lathers do the metal Mm work, the carpenters win refuse to do any wort on tbe atuldtpf...
...that if they think otherwise perhaps they have received some of the millions "appropriated by wet leaders...
...When men like Whitehead and Eddington and Russell cannot agree as to the full meaning of these new concepts we should bs fools to rush in with hasty generalisations...
...Tickets and literature had been printed and circulated when the dispute arose between the Carpenters, Lathers and Plasterers...
...It has always recognized the importance of temperance and in all countries the Socialist parties years ago formulated programs to deal with it...
...Have the one-track mind tell them that the Eighteenth Amendment a the one over-shadowing issue...
...Henry DeMan, the Belgian Socialist has not said the last word on the application of psychological knowledge to our Socialist theories, but he has biased an important trail...
...By Norman Thomas (An Address Before the Socialist Discussion Group) r' is a bad speech which begins with an explanation...
...Then there is the assumption that if Comrade Thomas suggests a national referendum an tbe Eighteenth Amendment he should logically urge a referendum on laws penalising larceny, the sale of narcotics and even murder...
...to offer to reasonably sane men and women as the inevitable necessity of their revolutionary faith...
...shed considerable light on the subject last summer at Camp Tamiment when he said that he had not had occasion to discuss the theory of value fqr some ten years...
...Wa are absolutely helpless l" said Schmidt "None of the unions has any complaint against the German House...
...Mart lent Bs?i Inadequate to our time ss the sal economists whose sacred prtaekaal broken every day by men who ill service to them...
...machines wul continue to displace workers...
...Either course would have been absurd and useless...
...T than undertake the far snore modest task of indicating some ef tbe various things we must take into account in our study of this absorbingly tntaresting problem...
...We answer emphatically, No...
...One observation regarding "sinister mouthings against the Constitution" before we pass on to fundamentals...
...One of the extraordinary consequences of our new theory of the atom a wholly to deprive us of our oM oommonsense notion that we had a pretty good idea what matter ls...
...Meantime Schmidt appealed to the Building Trades Department of the A. F. of L. at Washington and to President Hutcheson of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners...
...This to the answer of the Socialist movement to the one-track mind...
...The New Lender presents the complete test of Comrade Thomas' address...
...Even the Wotdd Re-State Stall ESSE '•' ?m theory of value, which to me a nasi satisfactory part of his teaching mm sties the basic truth that the* %! wealth apart from labor...
...Louis Workers' Institution Helpless When Craft Lines Bring Dispute (By a New Leader Correspondent) CT...
...These quarrels do not involve wages, hours and union conditions...
...There were more mixed motives in that election than In any other election m decades...
...Alcoholism Is a disease of which capitalism to the chief cause, and the core lies rather in doing away with,the nnderfceding, overwork and over wot ly which result from the wage system...
...When any one faction comes into the public forum with clean hands and a consistent record on this matter of the Constitution it will ward off the charge of hypocrasy...
...eJSStn <bMfce aaneseniant growthte unnortaaee «f engineers and tscfcnkdans as the key men of oar economic, order...
...Today uncompromising booze peddlers object to unconstitutional searches and seizures but violate the Eighteenth Amendment while uncompromising prohibitionists ignore unconstitutional searches and seizures but pay homage to the Eighteenth Amendment...
...Boose or Bread...
...Halls and offices already rented out, which were to be ready for occupancy not later than June, will not be finished by the time tenants have contracted for...
...The Socialist Party considered it in tins country in its third convention in 1908...
...Owing to the extraordinary pressure of work, most of it out of town, I have not had the opportunity to consult various books as carefully as I had hoped before making even this tentative statement of some of my conclusions...
...I am convinced 1 without a philosophy IntelUgenttr oepted and warmly, even pssstied held we shall never establish a ah genuinely progressive party in Am...
...Bra by working but who for a variety of psychological and practical reason are mors sympathetic to os petal ban than Socialism: (d) the arrest m the prnneaaae which Marx logicaly thooaht would Bed to recurring crises and tut leasing misery, partly by remedial action of labor in the Industrial and political field, and more largely by the appearance from time to time of new industries like the automobile industry in America to take up the slack and put profits hack into new lines of productive work...
...Quite naturally it did not take account, or sufficient account, of certain things which are becoming familiar to our genemtion...
...There tent one sentence suggestive of a Socialist outlook...
...A Socialist he devotes his entire letter to prohibition...
...Here, as in thousands of other cities, there are thousands of jobless workers...
...The ultimate physical reality, if indeed there a such a thing, apart from mathematical symbol of measurement, a far more like what wa have ordinarily called energy than what wa used to call matter...
...These things considered separately, or all of them together, emphatically do not warrant the optimistic assumption that 1 sjiltsllisn has found the secret ef overcoming the inherent economic defects of a system under which the producers are never able to buy back the equivalent of what they produce...
...Yet I feel that an explanatory statement is in order...
...Neither...
...the jobless win cry for work: women and children win live in destitution...
...Use March of Science (e) More important than tbe philosophical aspect of the case and underlying it k the profound change that a taking place in scientific theory...
...This means a loss of at least $1,200 a week to the German House, Inc., with its 2,500 stockholders...
...He asks whether the last presidajjft&l election was not a referendum on tins question...
...This is not an argument against Marxism...
...Bat m ask me to define my words too phlksa, Ically or we shall forget SocBuai metaphysics...
...If we are, the whole range of burning economic Issues which confront the tanners and workers demand attention...
...Without It the present development of labor action and labor thought throughout tbe world would have been inconceivable...
...The Labor Press of the city had looked forward to the celebration of Its thirtieth anniversary in tbe new building on April 6 and arrangements for this affair were paralysed...
...The one-track mind would not hold an audience ten minutes with such a message...
...It shows the need of enlarged and more Inclusive forms of organisation, a closing up of the ranks now divided into crafts and trades, te prevent such, absurd and ata...
...Inasmuch as Inside carpenter work and plastering a now mostly needed, this mutual union family strike win hold up an construction progress In the new German House...
...Yes, take the one-track mind to these scenes of working class desolation and have him talk to these workers and their families...
...Our attitude to Marx and his tesrhtngi should be the attitude scientists take to a Newton or a Darwin, not the attitude orthodox Jewish Tahnndhts or Christian theologians take to their scriptures, Marxian Hoclshsm jar perhaps I should say the effort to put Socialism in Marxian straight-jackets, is inadequate or even dangerous chiefly because of the steady march of Ufa and events...
...Two unions began to fight each other on an issue of jurisdiction...
...tell them that jobs and wages...
...Por two months work on the building had been held up at a heavy loss and the Labor Press is now compelled to hold its celebration during the latter part of next July, a rather unfavorable time for it owing to the heat An Aboard Straggle...
...He declares that he is "suspicious" that The New Leader may have received some of the millions "appropriated by the wet leaders for debauching newspapers...
...Louis case is unique because it has affected not only a 100 per cent union enterprise but an institution largely identified with unionism itself, the German House, Inc...
...But pending fuller adaptation of the human mind to these new concepts of science must we not at least admit that they so considerably alter our concepts of matter, of determinism, of the older, simpler relation of cause and effect that great ideas like the materialist conception of history or —"~mle determina* tim in their deeper philosophical sense require new examination...
...The Marxian forecast of economic development has been exceedingly fruitful...
...I want more light...
...In mining regions nearby miners and their families have been cared for by charitable organizations fox more than a year...
...One who cannot admit that these factors played an Important part In the election would not admit a fact if it towered as high as the Woolworth Building...
...If the Eighteenth Amendment succeeds In utterly destroying the liquor traffic it will not disturb the writer, but in that event workingmen and women will still be robbed in industry...
...It sr/rrlslrei the hssltatsnri of Socialists aisan faced with powsri Wa may have the fineat theory in the world hut no Socialist party an taking ofaoo oaa haps to survive if it cannot work out a program which without undue delay win bring more and not less of tbe material benefits of lite to the masses, A serious Interruption of tbe milk supply of New York or London would damn the best social theory in tbe world in favor of the dictator who could get the milk trains running...
...My quarrel with some Marxians a not the toowtedge they have of Karl Marx and their reverence for him but their tendency to make of Socialism a theology and not a science...
...I creation of beauty and the aasaj of justice and brotherhood...
...And in an these tatap1 need a vision of what a fsuoesa...
...The building represents an Investment of nearly 8400,000...
...It is a striking fact that throughout our history political factions and groups have demanded homage to one clause of the constitution while ignoring other important clauses...
...war win still threaten us with another bloody shambles...
...He is disgusted with Tbe New Leader's position, Norman Thomas's suggestion of a national referendum, and asks if we are not blind, stupid or vtsionless...
...Is that not a stwung exhibit of the "morality" followed by those who assume to speak in the name of "moral reform...
...vast fortunes will still be reaped by an exploiting class...
...We are inclined to think that events have justified that position...
Vol. 8 • June 1929 • No. 22
