Saint Marys College - Blue Mantle Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

Page 29 text:

The Socialistic Ideal — Russian Fulfillment IDuEiNG THE YEAES which mark the latter half of the eighteenth century oc- curred that momentous social and eco- nomic upheaval known as the Industrial Revolution. Previous to this revolution the lahorer had worked under the guild system of tlie medieval ages and the do- mestic system which followed it. Under the guild and domestic systems the labor- er, living and working for the most part in rural cottages, was adequately protected; however, with the invention of machines the existence of domestic manufactures was doomed. Handmade goods in compe- tition with machine made goods were hopelessly defeated because of the higher cost of production. Factories arose which drew the worker from the rural home and set him down amid the squalor and vice of crowded factory tenements. And thus with the advent of the Industrial Revolu- tion came evils, all of which may be sum- med up as the virtual enslavement of the worker, for being separated from his tool he became but a cog in a vast machine. At the same time that the position of the laborer became weaker, the impor- tance of capital increased, for it was through capital that machinery and fac- tories were being built; and hence, it was capital placed in the hands of a favored few which controlled industry while a corresponding unimportance was attach- ed to the worker. At first glance it would seem that the evils of the capitalistic system were in- herent in the system itself, but on an ex- amination into philosophy which was con- ceived in the seventeenth century and de- veloped and popularized in the eighteenth century one finds that the evils of capital- ism are traceable to the materiahs tic and subjective thought of the time. The spir- ituality of man was denied and therefore, Harriet Kamm ' 35. the worth and dignity of the individual man, as man, was likewise denied. . . . In this unfavorable situation the mis- ery of the working class steadily in- creased. Wages were not set according to the standard of living labor should maintain, but according to the amount for which the capitalist in his superior po- sition could force labor to work. Hu- man life was cheap and there were always men and women and children who could be fed, willingly or not, into the hungry jaws of mills and factories. But one object was then, as it is yet today, in view and that object was to in- crease profits in order to grant a dispro- portionately large return to capital own- ers. The result was that in the tangle which is necessarily attendant upon un- planned production there was born merci- less competition, waste, political cor- ruption, glutted markets, starvation among plenty, fortunes spent in adver- tising wliich necessitated higher commod- ity prices to cover this expense and fin- ally a varying condition of scarcity and overproduction, all of which has its cul- mination in a crisis. . . . It is a sad and sorry picture, that of capitahsm. As early as 1800 Robert Owen, a philanthropic English factory owner, recognized the fact that the cause of labor needed a champion. . . . Later Marx (1818-1883) appeared. INIarx sounded a new note in Socialism; he saw the faults of the economic system, the conflict of the classes, but he did not plan a Utopia. Immediately he set to work attacking from the political angle. From Hegel lie learned that this evil sys- tem was not tlie product of men, but in- stead the product of evolution and so Marx proceeded to make clear the theory of Socialism and convincingly to show June, 1935 147

Page 28 text:

CLASS OF 1935 Mary Patricia Walsh Republic, JV ashington. A.B. in Commerce. Diapason club ' 30, ' 31. Eucharistic League vice-president ' 3S. Catholic Action club vice-president ' 35. Glee Club ' 30, ' 31, ' 32. Choir ' 30, ' 31, ' 32. Orchestra ' 30, ' 35. French club ' 34, vice-president ' 35. Answers to Patsy or Pat . . . she ' s really from Republic . . . likes Minneapolis and Chi- cago ... a commerce student . . . collector of photographs . . . gets innumeraible letters . . . Patsy challenges the early to bed early to rise theory . . . rather sit around and talk, than sleep . . . the best sense of humor imaginable . . . combines brains, beauty and practical re- ligion. JiiDe, 1935

Page 30 text:

CHIMES that it was not another idle dream, but a millstone in social evolution. Passing from Socialism considered in the abstract as a theory, one comes to the startlingly concrete a jplication in the Russia of today. Lenin, who was and still is virtually the god of the U.S.R.R. was born in Russia under the grim shad- ow the Tsarist rule. He followed the Marxian theories, but in the acceptance of these theories Lenin has certain dis- tinctive features. • I enin adopted Marxian views to such an extent that to hold or conceive of a notion w hich differed from that of his master, Marx, was for Lenin an idea wholly inconceivable. Lenin dreamed his dream of an ideal state wherein the needs of the citizens regulated the production of goods. . . . The Socialist dsualizes a state wherein profit, rent and interest have disappeared and the worker reaps the full value of his labor by sharing in the common own- ership of capital. Effectively to operate in- dustries without the entrepreneur Social- ism proposes to make the system much like our system of political democracy. Thus tlie managers would be selected by the workers themselves, since they should be the fittest judges. The incentives for efficiency being an engrained sense of duty, military in character, plus the reali- zation that the worker will be bene- fited. . . . The Socialist ' s vision of the condition of labor is one in which he reaps to the full the value of his labor. JNLarx, as did many economists before him, held that the amount of labor expended on a com- modity under the existing conditions and methods of production determined the value of the commodity. From this he proceeded to his tlieory of surplus-value, that is that profit, rent and interest arose because the worker was not paid the full value of his labor-power, as his wages tended to hover about subsistence level. . . . The philosophy of Socialism is based on economic determinism, which is some- times called the materialistic interpreta- tion of history, since this Marxian theory holds that all historical events are ground- ed in economic causes. Thus it maintains that all history is a history of class strug- gle. This philosophy is the corner- stone of Socialism, for it gives an ex- planation for the existence of the ruling classes, and it justifies the spread of So- cialism in this new economic era wherein the proletariat would seize control of the means of production. In that it complete- ly negates the existence of God, the spir- ituality of the soul and the freedom of the will in shaping history and in that it recognizes matter as the only reality, eco- nomic determinism is monistic material- ism. Leninism lays claim to being the one true interpretation of JNIarxism. Lenin has given to this philosophy the name dia- lectical materialism, and it, like economic determinism, is the explanation of his- tory as dependent on the conditions of production. . . . The fundamental thesis of this philosophy is the unity of theory and practice. The Socialist has rejected all and any fixed standards of morality. He is a moral relativitist in that he maintains that morality changes with every change in the social order. In maintaining that moral laws are temporary Socialists must deny the reality of God and spirit. INIoral laws are then identified as social laws and only social actions can have moral value. It is with this moral relativity in view that the Socialist can justify the principle of expediency and disregard the inviolability of life, property and all natural rights. Trotsky, too, believed that whatever was expedient was good, for he defended terrorism by saying that if through the murder of one person, though innocent, 148 June, 1035