Whereas most analyses of the Great Depression may be centered around an ideology of capitalism, grounded by someone like John Maynard Keynes views, a Marxist interpretation of the Great Depression seems also significantly educational.
While I won’t delve into Karl Marx’s philosophy too deeply and explore and explain terms like “theory of alienation” or “absolute surplus value,” there’s a simple way to explain Marxism. It’s fundamentally a bottom-up economic approach that says the needs of a society should begin with the economic needs of the base, and that society should build upwards to provide for those needs. On the other hand, capitalism is more of a top-down approach, where the higher class funnel the lower classes’ energy and labor into whatever projects they so desire. Marx argued that revolution was inevitable in capitalist societies because workers at the bottom of the ladder were too continually exploited and oppressed, which meant they were removed from their humanity. Thus they would gain class consciousness and unite with other oppressed workers, and violently strike back against the ruling class of the bourgeoisie.
During the Great Depression itself, as a result of mass unemployment, the labor movement seemed helpless and in 1933 there were only 3 million union members, compared to 5 million a decade before. Yet, due to new legislation from the New Deal, union membership rose significantly again, and the Great Depression represented one of labor’s finest times.
With a new unity between workers, class conflict started appear in the form of strikes, particularly in the 1934 waterfront strike which began on May 9, 1934. Longshoremen, workers who loaded and unloaded ships, walked out in California, Oregon, and Washington as a result of lower work standards (since labor was cheaper for employers, they could significantly reduce the quality of work). The strike shut down trade along the coast for 83 days and created a supply crisis for Hawaii and Alaska. Tensions in San Francisco came to a head on July 5, now known as “Bloody Tuesday,” where San Francisco police attacked striking workers and killed two men, which prompted a four-day shutdown of the city. The strike finally ended when the California National Guard and San Francisco Police Department forcefully took the workers’ headquarters, completely destroying the facilities and arresting over 150 people.
It is interesting how communism seems to grow concurrently with labor struggles. I think that if Franklin Roosevelt had not been elected and the depression lasted longer, the communist movement would have been successful. But since the depression was only 10 years, and the rights of workers gradually improved, communism never made big strides in America.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Susannah and see how communism could have easily manifested itself in American society had circumstances been only slightly different. I was unaware how much of a following communism actually gained in America at a certain point, so this was quite fascinating for me to read over.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to point to specific legislation that President Roosevelt pushed for that led to an increase in the popularity of worker unions, that in turn led to class consciousness and protests and all that Marxist jazz. The Library of Congress points to the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), which allowed for collective bargaining (essentially what unions are), and the National Labor Relations Act (1935), which mandated that businesses had to deal with unions in good faith. This type of legislation indicated a more pro-union stance that the government was taking, which then led to an increase in union popularity.
ReplyDelete