Review: Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
Political ·Sunday January 18, 2009 @ 23:47 EST (link)
I finished Sinclair's The Jungle today; basically it's a sob story about a family of Lithuanian immigrants who get ripped off by several people who lie and take advantage of their ignorance and inability to read English; everyone dies but one man, who eventually becomes a tramp and survives as a thief, before finally returning to corrupt Chicago to see the light of socialism in the last few chapters (it has a very "tacked on" feel).
It persuasively argues that unfettered capitalism is bad, but it doesn't succeed in arguing that socialism is the only, best, or even a cure. There are many forms of government that would innately oppose corruption, and many groups of rulers that would oppose it despite the government in which they participated. Libertarianism, which has at its foundation non-aggression, is superior to most, given that it also preserves the individual. To begin with I thought it far different than Skinner's Walden Two, but it's really two sides of the same coin: both want to form an oligarchy to dictate to and steal from the population.
Clearly, at the stockyards, the supply (of labor) vastly exceeded the demand. Basic economics says that this will push prices (wages) down. Immigration should have been restricted. The Lithuanian families that the book centers around should never have been allowed into the country, especially since they had no claim of asylum (which is frequently abused, anyway).
The wedding in the book is a Lithuanian tradition, part of which involves the attendees, who benefit from food and drink, contributing to the wedding after dancing with the bride. Many leave early without paying anything. I'm not sure if this is meant to be a metaphor for anything, but under capitalism, you pay for what you use. Neither people's dishonesty nor non-adherence to old customs is the fault of capitalism. Not all traditions from the old world are helpful; many traditions from the third world are downright deleterious: that of having too many children, for example (fine enough in the old world when half would die off and the other half would work in the fields, but a liability in the new, except now, of course, when living beyond your means is a meal ticket).
Regarding the fraud perpetrated by the real estate salesman (claiming the house was new, etc.): libertarianism would regard that as aggression, and as such the government would legitimately step in to punish the aggressor (e.g. perhaps releasing the family from the contract if they so chose, allowing them to leave or renegotiate; they might elect to stay, but they would have at least some chance of negotiation, since although the house market there was a regular revolving door, occupancy was quite low when they got there; on the other hand, since the company was making 3x what they paid, perhaps they could afford to wait). The real estate company would also be liable for damages due to the fraud, although they'd likely vanish and reappear under a new name the next day: libertarianism tends to frown on giving person status to corporations for this very reason (this blog an explanation of why they conflict) and might hold the owners personally liable.
It's pretty much analogous to the current mortgage crisis where people are being foreclosed on because, well, a fry cook can't afford a $500,000 house, no matter how you cook the books or how much the government threatens banks. Read the fine print, and if you can't, don't close the deal. While personally attractive (since it keeps up the value of my house), any sort of bailout for people being foreclosed on (and companies going out of business) is morally bankrupt: they entered a contract, and the government should not be either giving away responsible people's money to save the irresponsible or altering a mutually agreed-upon deal.
Regarding the horrible working conditions in the fertilizer plant: should the government be regulating these conditions? The company is not aggressing against the employee; the employee has the choice not to work there. But that answer is of course altogether too facile: most jobs in the stockyards were replete with horrible known health hazards (known to everyone, "common knowledge" even). Does that mean that the act of offering the job is aggressive and thus must be stopped by government? If so, it's a slippery slope: police work is dangerous too. Perhaps then the criteria has to be that a job can be offered only if the company stops any preventable harm: but how far does that go? Police don't drive in tanks, but a tank could save their lives against a rampaging drunk driver or gunman. Where, objectively and systematically (that is, fairly) is the line drawn?
Antanas, Kristoferas, Ona and her baby all die from what are probably easily prevented diseases (due the poor conditions and lack of care). Socialists will tell you they should have been protected by free (i.e. others pay for it) healthcare, and by government-mandated safety standards. We addressed the safety standards in part above (providing an unsafe job can be considered an aggressive act); also, industry tends to regulate itself, but it also tends to manipulative monopolies while in its infancy. It seems that if it were not for those that cheated them and thus aggressed against them, the family would have been well enough off to own their house and be in reasonable if not excellent health, with the money to afford a doctor when necessary (but nobody would be
picking their pockets to provide for those poorer than them).
Regarding corruption: the less power government has, the less chance it
has to corrupt (no power, no corruption). A libertarian government is a
small and well-heeled one, servant to its citizens in more than just name. As I've said: the book argues well against unfettered capitalism and corruption, but any nation of laws would abominate the aggression in the book, and a libertarian one would also leave them free to profit from their labors.
Written in 1906, it naively touts socialism before the disastrous regimes ushered in by the Bolshevik Revolution, Hitler's National Socialists, and Mao's Cultural Revolution, all of which formed the same oligarchy, which, being were more equal than others, plundered their nation's wealth and left only crumbs for the working person, who is inspired by the system to mediocrity and graft. Skinner's vision seems more gentle, until you read about how he envisions forcing the surrounding population into his socialist utopia "for their own good" (the usual mantra of the dictator). As a voluntary society, formed by contract, it would be welcomed within a libertarian realm, just as any voluntarily formed city-state; as a tyrannical dictatorship, no matter how much velvet on the iron glove, never.
Books finished: The Jungle.
