Socialism for the Common Man Essay -- Economic System

â€Å"I wished to frighten the country by a picture of what its industrial masters were doing to their victims; entirely by chance I stumbled on another discovery—what they were doing to the meat-supply of the civilized world. In other words, I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident hit it in the stomach† (Yoder 9). With the publication of a single book, Upton Sinclair found himself an overnight phenomenon receiving international response. In late 1904, Sinclair left for Chicago to tell the story of the poor common workingmen and women unfairly enslaved by the vast monopolistic enterprises. He found that he could go anywhere in the stockyards provided that he â€Å"[wore] old clothes†¦ and [carried] a workman’s dinner pail† (Sougstad 553). While Sinclair spent seven weeks in Chicago living amongst and interviewing the Chicago workers, he came upon another discovery—the filth of improper sanitation and the processing of spoiled meat . From what he saw, Sinclair spun a tale with graphic descriptions of the packing houses, creating a book that produced unprecedented public uproar. The book entitled, The Jungle, is said to have decreased America’s meat consumption for decades and President Roosevelt, himself, reportedly threw his breakfast sausages out his window after reading the novel. The New York Evening Post responded, â€Å"Mary had a little lamb and when she saw it sicken; she shipped it off to Packingtown and now it’s labeled chicken† (Krugman). However, Sinclair classified his novel as a failure and blamed himself for the public’s misunderstanding. He found it disheartening that the public was less concerned about the plight of the slaughterhouse workers than the possibility of eating tainted meat. In Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, he ill... ...the bottom as the worst of scum. Sinclair promotes socialism, as publicly owned corporations will be less about individual profit but the well-being of the common good. Sinclair promotes socialism in The Jungle in many methods: a capitalist society provides workers with sickening working condition, a capitalist society consists of corruption, and a socialistic society will mean a perfect world. Sinclair’s extremely graphic details lead to global acknowledgement. President Roosevelt dubbed Upton Sinclair as â€Å"a muckraker†Ã¢â‚¬â€an individual who channels time and effort into exposing corruption. Even though Sinclair’s novel did not do as much for the poor as he hoped, it did bring about change to America: stricter meat-packing regulations, standards of cleanliness in processing plants, and public knowledge of what the Chicago corporations were doing to their canned meat.