The Organic Socialism of Brownson
An adopted orphan from Vermont raised in poverty, Orestes Brownson lived an intellectual and spiritual odyssey.
Of pointed interest is his “The Laboring Classes” (1840), published eight years before The Communist Manifesto.
Brownson’s essay described the poverty and suffering of urban workers and concluded that economic inequalities were dehumanizing the working class. His focus on economic class led Brownson’s critique of American society to become a critique of liberal capitalism. He saw oppression to flow not so much from the government but from the private economic power that controlled it: business. Justice required the redistribution of wealth to the working class.
In language uncannily akin to that later used by Marx, Brownson took the side of “the mass” and urged radical change: “You must abolish the system or accept its consequences.” This critique from outside the liberal tradition broadened the base of American political thought and, in time, would come to influence one strain of liberalism to look to a more activist state.
Brownson’s economic perspective defined the course of his analysis. Liberalism and liberal values were irrelevant to him. They were irrelevant to the life of the worker. Freedoms of speech or religion had no value for him; he could speak but not eat.
The value that organized Brownson’s analysis was equality. Given his focus, however, it was not political equality but
economic.
The class division Brownson drew was simple: haves and have-nots.
The “nonworkingmen” class organized the economy and controlled the government. It exploited the worker by not paying him the full value of his labor. The owners lived parasitically on the misery of the workers. Society, though, rewarded them as “respectable citizens.”
The “proletaries” lived wretched and inhuman lives, suffering physically and morally. Few workers, “if any, by their wages acquire a competence.” They were trapped in a type of wage slavery.
The only way out is revolution to overthrow the institutions of oppression.
Concentrations of capital in the business community must be abolished. The subordinate institutions that maintain the domination of the haves must be abolished. Organized religion simply pacifies the people; it does not improve them. Government is simply the creature of the owners, suppressing the people by force.
This revolution “will be effected only by the strong arm of physical force.” This can occur only through “the combined effort of the mass.”
Source credit, Joseph F. Kobylka
Southern Methodist University
An adopted orphan from Vermont raised in poverty, Orestes Brownson lived an intellectual and spiritual odyssey.
Of pointed interest is his “The Laboring Classes” (1840), published eight years before The Communist Manifesto.
Brownson’s essay described the poverty and suffering of urban workers and concluded that economic inequalities were dehumanizing the working class. His focus on economic class led Brownson’s critique of American society to become a critique of liberal capitalism. He saw oppression to flow not so much from the government but from the private economic power that controlled it: business. Justice required the redistribution of wealth to the working class.
In language uncannily akin to that later used by Marx, Brownson took the side of “the mass” and urged radical change: “You must abolish the system or accept its consequences.” This critique from outside the liberal tradition broadened the base of American political thought and, in time, would come to influence one strain of liberalism to look to a more activist state.
Brownson’s economic perspective defined the course of his analysis. Liberalism and liberal values were irrelevant to him. They were irrelevant to the life of the worker. Freedoms of speech or religion had no value for him; he could speak but not eat.
The value that organized Brownson’s analysis was equality. Given his focus, however, it was not political equality but
economic.
The class division Brownson drew was simple: haves and have-nots.
The “nonworkingmen” class organized the economy and controlled the government. It exploited the worker by not paying him the full value of his labor. The owners lived parasitically on the misery of the workers. Society, though, rewarded them as “respectable citizens.”
The “proletaries” lived wretched and inhuman lives, suffering physically and morally. Few workers, “if any, by their wages acquire a competence.” They were trapped in a type of wage slavery.
The only way out is revolution to overthrow the institutions of oppression.
Concentrations of capital in the business community must be abolished. The subordinate institutions that maintain the domination of the haves must be abolished. Organized religion simply pacifies the people; it does not improve them. Government is simply the creature of the owners, suppressing the people by force.
This revolution “will be effected only by the strong arm of physical force.” This can occur only through “the combined effort of the mass.”
Source credit, Joseph F. Kobylka
Southern Methodist University
