Sociology and Modern Social ProblemsEllwood, Charles A. (Charles Abram)
General
Sociology and Modern Social Problems
Ellwood, Charles A. (Charles Abram)
Social problems; Sociology
phases of human society. But this is simply the doctrine of the unity of
personality and the interdependence of all phases of the social life,
and it is very different from Marx's theory that the economic determines
all the other phases; for under the doctrine of social interdependence
we can see it is quite as reasonable to state that the religious and
political phases of the social life determine the economic as it is to
state that the economic determines the political and religious.
Let us bring the discussion down to more concrete terms. The student has
seen that in every social problem there are a multitude of factors or
stimuli (causes) at work, and that in no problem is the economic factor
so all important that it may be said that the other factors are simply
subsidiary. On the contrary, in such a problem as crime the methods of
production and distribution of material goods, while important factors
in the problem of crime, in no way determine that problem; and ideal
conditions of the production and distribution of wealth would in no way
solve the problem of crime. So, too, the negro problem is hardly touched
by the question of the forms of industry or the economic organization of
society. We might go on with a whole list of social problems and show
that in every case the economic factor is no more important than many
other factors, and that the economic reorganization of society would in
some cases scarcely affect these problems at all. _The social problem,
therefore,--the problem of the relations of men to one another,--is not
simply nor fundamentally an economic problem; rather it is fundamentally
a biological and psychological problem,_--if you please, a moral
problem.
This brings us to a second criticism of socialism, namely, that it
proposes to reorganize human society upon an economic basis, not upon a
biological basis. The program of the socialist looks forward to the
satisfaction of economic needs, but it has failed to take into account
the biological requirements for existence. It would be far more
scientific to reorganize society upon the basis of the needs of the
family than to reorganize it simply upon the basis of industry. The
reproductive process which the economic socialists ignore, or leave
unregulated almost entirely, is far more important for the continued
existence of human society than all its economic processes,--if by the
reproductive process we mean the rearing as well as the birth of
offspring; and if by the economic process we mean merely the forms and
methods of the production and distribution of material goods.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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