1. Which ideology most appeals to you and why?
2. Identify a modern problem that is addressed by these ideologies from the turn of the century.
3. Pick one ideology and identify one problem with it. How might it create other problems?
How could this problem be rectified?
The rise of labor movements was a reaction from the American population to the conditions imposed by the Industrial Revolution. This movement was not isolated to labor. It also manifested in a host of different areas from urban building standards to prohibition of alcohol and other forms of vice. Most people are surprised to learn that early political left in the US was in fact deeply religious. The call for Justice in these times is shaped by a religious worldview.
Consider the following quotes from Eugene Debs and Mother Jones.
“I am thinking this morning of the men in the mills and the factories; of the men in the mines and on the railroads. I am thinking of the women who for a paltry wage are compelled to work out their barren lives; of the little children who in this system are robbed of their childhood and in their tender years are seized in the remorseless grasp of Mammon and forced into the industrial dungeons, there to feed the monster machines while they themselves are being starved and stunted, body and soul. I see them dwarfed and diseased and their little lives broken and blasted because in this high noon of Christian civilization money is still so much more important than the flesh and blood of childhood. In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men. ” – Eugene Debs
(Mammon is a demon associated with the sin of greed in the Judaeo-Christian tradition)
“[23] The labor movement was not originated by man. The labor movement, my friends, was a command from God Almighty. He commanded the prophets thousands of years ago to go down and redeem the Israelites that were in bondage, and he organized the men into a union and went to work. And they said, “The masters have made us gather straw, they have been more cruel than they were before. What are we going to do?” The prophet said, “A voice from heaven has come to get you together.” They got together and the prophet led them out of the land of bondage and robbery and plunder into the land of freedom. And when the army of the pirates followed them the Dead Sea opened and swallowed them up, and for the first time the workers were free.” – Mother Jones
These religious overtones are felt far more directly in the Progressive movement with the push to ban prostitution, gambling, alcohol and other forms of vice.
At the heart of Progressivism was a rejection of the values of the wealthy magnates which preached Social Darwinism on the grounds that the world they were creating was profoundly un-Christian. They claimed that the doctrine of leaving things as they were (Laissez Faire) would yield a world full of vice. They saw it as their duty as Christians to seek to create a society more in line with their religious views. Thus came the saying “What would Jesus do?”
Would Jesus make you work 80 hour weeks in a coal mine? Fire you when you were injured? Employ 9 year olds for next to nothing?
“No. No he wouldn’t,” they reasoned.
Most people do not typically associate the political Left with religion as it is an alliance that seems to come and go. But the fact is that religious leftist movements have proved to be some of the most powerful in US history. Think of Martin Luther King, a preacher who changed America. The call for Justice was again couched in religious terms.
Several new movements emerged like Progressivism, Communism, Anarchism, Social Darwinism and Populism.
Progressives believed that only the power of government could serve as a counter balance to the power of Industry and Business.
The Social Darwinists, like the progressives, used religious rationalizations to justify their ideology. In the case of the Social Darwinists, they argued that the status of the rich was in fact proof that they were favored by God. If you were poor, well that just meant God didn’t love you very much, likely because you were lazy and immoral. John D Rockefeller would say things like this.
Needless to say… poor people did not care for this very much and Rockefeller would come to be the most hated man in America.
Communists took their hatred of industrial age capitalism to a new extreme. They argued that the idea of private property itself should be abolished. The government, as a representative of the people, should own all private property. Only then, could it be distributed equally and fairly among the people.
Anarchists took a more nuanced view. They argued that the relationship between powerful business interests and government was inevitable. One could not exist without the other. Thus, both government AND private power should be as limited as possible as government laws would inevitably be passed for the benefit of the wealthy.