The Masses
From The Waste Land Wiki
Asim Zaidi (Talk | contribs) (→Resources) |
Thomas Cox (Talk | contribs) (→Close Reading) |
||
| Line 63: | Line 63: | ||
===Vol. 1 No. 12=== | ===Vol. 1 No. 12=== | ||
| − | [http://library.brown.edu/pdfs/1354919808797629.pdf '''The Cheapest Commodity on the Market'''] by A.O.Fischer | + | [http://library.brown.edu/pdfs/1354919808797629.pdf '''The Cheapest Commodity on the Market'''] by A.O. Fischer |
| − | ''"Yet woman is the cheapest commodity on the market. You can buy ten women for the price of a good ruby."' | + | ''"Yet woman is the cheapest commodity on the market. You can buy ten women for the price of a good ruby."'' |
Fischer in this article addresses the worth of labor for both men and women and critiques the fact that women earn just enough to get by. | Fischer in this article addresses the worth of labor for both men and women and critiques the fact that women earn just enough to get by. | ||
| Line 80: | Line 80: | ||
At the beginning on the article, Fischer goes on to say that those that believe that women were equal to men during that time have been lied to by those who preach that they are. From there, he goes on to speak of the injustices of the labor force. ''"But if you want a human being's services you have only to hold up your hand and at once you will have a score of human beings to choose from. You don't even have to buy them. Each day you need pay them only what it will take to buy their food and lodging and if ever they become sick you have simply to throw them out and hire others in their place."'' Essentially, the gears that keep in the system are completely replaceable. Workers were seen as commodities rather than living beings. Fischer was appalled by the views of the labor force and was also stunned by how women were viewed as well. | At the beginning on the article, Fischer goes on to say that those that believe that women were equal to men during that time have been lied to by those who preach that they are. From there, he goes on to speak of the injustices of the labor force. ''"But if you want a human being's services you have only to hold up your hand and at once you will have a score of human beings to choose from. You don't even have to buy them. Each day you need pay them only what it will take to buy their food and lodging and if ever they become sick you have simply to throw them out and hire others in their place."'' Essentially, the gears that keep in the system are completely replaceable. Workers were seen as commodities rather than living beings. Fischer was appalled by the views of the labor force and was also stunned by how women were viewed as well. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ===Vol. 4 No. 1=== | ||
| + | [http://library.brown.edu/pdfs/1362683171490042.pdf '''Why the United States Must Adopt Socialism'''] by R.A. Dague | ||
| + | |||
| + | ''"The annual report of the Steel Trust for December 31, 1911, shows that last year it made net profits of $142,000,000 or a profit of $700 on each employee."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | For Karl Marx, exploitation is unpaid wages. By this definition, any member of the working-class whose company realizes a profit is exploited. Dague finds this appalling, and uses the factoid to suggest why socialism is necessary for the United States. He continues, ''"The U.S. Senate Labor and Education Committee recently in its official report denounced the United States Steel Corporation as a "brutal system of industrial slavery.""'' Strong rhetoric of slavery via exploitation is reminiscent of the slavery of fifty years prior... It took over a century to free slaves from Africa. Will Dague tolerate taking that long to solve exploitation in the industrial era? | ||
| + | |||
| + | ''"Socialism is a systematic, well-thought-out system of Industrialism, which will meet the requirements of the new era coming. It will stop stock-watering and "industrial peonage," and the crushing of the weak by the strong. It will furnish employment to all the unemployed. It will abolish strikes and blacklisting and dynamiting and war. It will take children out of the mills and shops and put them in school; it will make comfortable the aged, not by chloroforming them, but pensioning them.''" | ||
| + | |||
| + | While these all sound like great things, and appeal to the masses, how will socialism result in such change? Dague provides empty claims that preach to the choir that is ''The Masses''. In fact, Dague seems to gather his persuasion from the ethos that comes from shaming both the system of capitalism, and the capitalists themselves. Dague's logos, in this piece at least, is lacking. | ||
===Vol. 7 No. 1=== | ===Vol. 7 No. 1=== | ||
