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010 - Industrial and Social Democracy · Labor and Freedom

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  Speaker 1: Industrial and Social Democracy by Eugene V. Debs. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain American Socialist, May twenty seven,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen. First of all, allow me to quote with
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  Speaker 1: approval the following paragraph from an introduction to sociology by
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  Speaker 1: Arthur Moro Lewis. The greatest single achievement of the science
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  Speaker 1: of sociology is the concept of society, not as a
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  Speaker 1: collection of institutions, and sociology as an explanatory catalog or
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  Speaker 1: inventory after the fashion of Spencer, but as a process
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  Speaker 1: of development, and the science of sociology is the analysis
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  Speaker 1: and explanation of the process. Also the following from an
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  Speaker 1: essay on Revolution by George D. Herron. Every revolution or
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  Speaker 1: true reform, every new and commanding faith is in the
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  Speaker 1: direct of man's becoming his own evolver and creator. Every uplifting,
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  Speaker 1: lighter law perforces in the place of the evolution that
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  Speaker 1: is blind and chanceful, an evolution that is chosen and
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  Speaker 1: humanly directed. There is still room for reform and betterment
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  Speaker 1: in the present social system, but this is of minor
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  Speaker 1: consequence compared to the world's crying need for industrial and
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  Speaker 1: social reorganization. The next great change in history will be
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  Speaker 1: must be the socialization of the means of our common life.
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  Speaker 1: Privately owned industry and production for individual profit are no
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  Speaker 1: longer compatible with social progress and have ceased to work
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  Speaker 1: out to humane and civilized ends. With all its marvelous
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  Speaker 1: progress through invention and discovery, and all its monumental achievements
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  Speaker 1: in the arts and sciences, this poor world of ours
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  Speaker 1: has not yet learned how to feed itself. That is
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  Speaker 1: the problem of problems now confronting us more and more insistently.
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  Speaker 1: And until that is solved, the world is halted, and
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  Speaker 1: it will either resume its march towards industrial and social
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  Speaker 1: democracy or be shaken to its foundation and into possible
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  Speaker 1: chaos by violent explosion. There is no longer the shadow
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  Speaker 1: of an excuse for a hungry being. All the laws,
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  Speaker 1: all the materials, and all the forces are at hand
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  Speaker 1: and easily available for the production of all things needed
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  Speaker 1: to provide food, raiment, and shelter for every man, woman,
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  Speaker 1: and child, thus putting an end to the poverty and
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  Speaker 1: misery widespread and appalling, which now shock and sickened humanity
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  Speaker 1: and impeach our vaunted civilization. But these tools and materials
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  Speaker 1: and forces must be released from private ownership and control, socialized, democratized,
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  Speaker 1: and set an operation for the common good of all
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  Speaker 1: instead of the private profit of the few. It is
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  Speaker 1: well stated that civilization is at present rudimentary, and that
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  Speaker 1: it is to develop indefinitely. Now in view of the
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  Speaker 1: fact that the crops this year nineteen fourteen are the
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  Speaker 1: most abundant ever produced, that there is no market for
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  Speaker 1: the almost sixteen million bales of cotton lying in the warehouses,
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  Speaker 1: while at the same time there are millions of unemployed
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  Speaker 1: in the land who are without food and without clothing,
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  Speaker 1: and who with their wives and children, are doomed to
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  Speaker 1: indescribable suffering. In view of this solemn and indisputable fact,
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  Speaker 1: it would seem that there could be but one opinion
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  Speaker 1: among students and thinkers as to the one great, vital
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  Speaker 1: and essential thing to do for the relief of our
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  Speaker 1: common humanity and for the promotion of the world's progress
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  Speaker 1: and civilization, and that that one thing is the one
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  Speaker 1: to be emphasized with all the power at our command.
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  Speaker 1: A privately owned world can never be a free world,
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  Speaker 1: and a society based upon warring classes cannot stand. Such
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  Speaker 1: a world as a world of strife and hate, and
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  Speaker 1: such a society can exist only by means of militarism
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  Speaker 1: and physical force. The education of the people, not the
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  Speaker 1: few alone, but the entire mass. In the principles of
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  Speaker 1: industrial democracy and along the lines of social development, is
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  Speaker 1: the task of the people to be emphasized. And that task,
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  Speaker 1: let it be impressed upon them, can be performed only
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  Speaker 1: by themselves. The cultured few can never educate the uncultured many.
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  Speaker 1: All history attests to the fact that all the few
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  Speaker 1: have ever done for the many is to keep them
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  Speaker 1: in ignorance and servitude, and to live out of their labour,
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  Speaker 1: To stir the masses, to appeal to their higher better selves,
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  Speaker 1: to set them thinking for themselves, and to hold ever
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  Speaker 1: before them the ideal of mutual kindness and good will
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  Speaker 1: based upon mutual interests is to render real service to
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  Speaker 1: the cause of humanity. To quote heron once more, socialism
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  Speaker 1: is a deliberate proposal to lay the will of man
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  Speaker 1: upon the unfolding processes and ends of nature and history.
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  Speaker 1: It invokes the faith that shall be equal to the
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  Speaker 1: acceptance of its proposal, of its supreme challenge to the universe.
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  Speaker 1: End of industrial and social democracy