Socialism in

A detailed Summary of Socialism in

In, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, the main purpose behind the book is Sinclair's view that the common wage laborers of Chicago and the rest of the world would benefit from a shift from the capitalist society to his ideal system of socialism. Many of the conditions that Jurgis and his family go through are simply allegories to show that the "capitalist machine" takes in strong, hopeful workers and spits them out, broken and poor. Throughout the wild corruption and swindling, Sinclair argues that socialism would solve all of these problems. However, he fails to acknowledge or realize that human nature causes people to be this way and the capitalist society just allows them to take advantage of their nature to the fullest extent. The switch to socialism would not change the people's desire to get as much wealth as possible.

There are plenty of instances in which Sinclair portrays the bad nature of people. Very shortly after they arrived in Chicago, the family has been taken advantage of by a crooked agent and his lawyer crony in their attempt to purchase a home. This corruption continues throughout the entire novel with events like the vote buying scandal that Jurgis first falls victim to and later embraces as a way for him

The Capitalist society in which The Jungle takes place is very much like it's title; the people care only about the survival of themselves and the rest of their family. Sinclair argues that socialism would solve all the numerous problems he portrays in his fictional book although a large portion of the problems wouldn't likely be solved through that method. A larger amount of those problems could be solved if the people cared about each other. Caring about the problems of each other could solve as many problems as socialism could.

There are many events that could be avoided with a switch to socialism such as corrupt methods used by bosses not to pay their employees their rightfully earned money. If the workers held the power in the factories, they would not have to worry about being fired for showing up 20 minutes late. The situation between Ona and Phil Conner would have been avoided because he wouldn't have held any power over her and the fate of her family. Jurgis would never have to worry when he was injured on the job so many times. His job would have been waiting for him when he was given ample time to recover.

With all the examples of corruption and abuse that would be fixed through the abandonment of capitalism there are so many blatant abuses and misuses that would still go on and that are never addressed by Sinclair. The constant amount of accidents that slowly kill off or disease the family would still seem to be unavoidable. Jurgis would still fall down the spiral of alcoholism after the freakish deaths of Antanas in the mud and of Stanislovas by rats. Socialism could not have saved Ona from death in giving birth to their stillborn child. No economic system could ever provide solace to the pai

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Approximate Word count = 1168
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels