Laurence Gronlund (, Available 1844–1899) was a Danish-born

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lawyer, writer, lecturer, and political activist. Gronlund is best remembered for his pioneering work in adapting the

International Socialism Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that ...

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and Ferdinand Lassalle to the American idiom in his popular 1884 book, ''The Cooperative Commonwealth,'' and for his influence upon the thinking of utopian novelist

Edward Bellamy Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898) was an American author, journalist, and political activist most famous for his utopian novel ''Looking Backward''. Bellamy's vision of a harmonious future world inspired the formation of numerou ...

, newspaper publisher Julius Wayland, and the American socialist movement of the 1880s and 1890s.

Biography

Early years

Laurence Gronlund was born in

Thisted Thisted is a town in the municipality of Thisted in the North Denmark Region of Denmark. It has a population of 13,461 (1 January 2022)Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

, on July 13, 1844, the son of Ane Lucie Gronlund and saddler maker's man L. Christensen. He was a participant in the Danish–German War of 1864.William D. P. Bliss and Rudolf M. Binder (eds.), ''The New Encyclopedia of Social Reform.'' Third Edition. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1910; pg. 564. Gronlund graduated from the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia after Uppsala Unive ...

's Faculty of Law in 1865, and emigrated to the United States two years later.Leonard Schlup, "Laurence Gronlund," in Leonard Schlup and James G. Ryan (eds.), ''Historical Dictionary of the Gilded Age.'' Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003; pg. 206. For a short time he taught

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in a public school in

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prior to his 1869 admission to the bar and the opening of a law practice in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. Gronlund was converted to the ideas of

socialism Socialism is a left-wing Economic ideology, economic philosophy and Political movement, movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to Private prop ...

and gave up the practice of law in order that he might write and lecture on matters of collective ownership. Gronlund joined the German-American dominated

Socialist Labor Party The Socialist Labor Party (SLP)"The name of this organization shall be Socialist Labor Party". Art. I, Sec. 1 of thadopted at the Eleventh National Convention (New York, July 1904; amended at the National Conventions 1908, 1912, 1916, 1920, 1924 ...

(SLP), a political party still in its infancy, and in 1878 published his first work, a pamphlet entitled ''The Coming Revolution: Its Principles.'' Gronlund was a firm advocate of

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

-based, German-style

, in contrast to various communitarian schemes then in vogue in the United States. On 29 June 1881, Gronlund married Alma C. Holm in Boston, Massachusetts. Alma suffered from poor health and died in 1888.

''The Cooperative Commonwealth''

In 1884 Gronlund published his most influential and best remembered work, a small volume titled ''The Cooperative Commonwealth''. This book attempted to popularize

's ideas about the

labor theory of value The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory of value that argues that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of " socially necessary labor" required to produce it. The LTV is usually associated with Marxian ...

and the fundamentally exploitative nature of competition within the

capitalist system Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private pr ...

. The

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colo ...

, forced to scramble for survival under the competitive system, was depicted as the "natural prey" of small shopkeeper "parasites" who existed by inflating selling prices and depreciating quality. Moreover, the "big capitalists" were said to wield a still more powerful weapon, that of

combination In mathematics, a combination is a selection of items from a set that has distinct members, such that the order of selection does not matter (unlike permutations). For example, given three fruits, say an apple, an orange and a pear, there are th ...

, which made possible more efficient "fleecings" of working people. The capitalist system contained within itself a "fatal contradiction", Gronlund argued – an inherent tendency towards "overproduction", production at a higher level than the purchasing power of consumers:

Since ... Labor under our wage-system, our profit-system, our fleecings-system, only receives about one half f the value of its productionas its share, it follows that ''the producers cannot buy back that which they create.'' * * * For the more Capital is being accumulated in private hands, the more impossible this wage-system renders it for the producers to buy what they produce. The more necessary it becomes for capitalists to dispose of their ever increasing fleecings, the less the ability of the people to purchase them will, relatively become. ... The more Capital, the more 'overproduction.'

Individualism in production, although efficient in causing Capital to grow, was simultaneously "digging the grave of Capital", Gronlund declared. With Marx's ''

Das Kapital ''Das Kapital'', also known as ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' or sometimes simply ''Capital'' (german: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, link=no, ; 1867–1883), is a foundational theoretical text in materialist phi ...

'' still unavailable in English translation during the decade of the 1880s, Gronlund's reinterpretation of Marx into the American vernacular was revelatory, although he mentioned Marx's name "only once or twice in the book". More than 100,000 copies of ''The Cooperative Commonwealth'' were sold,"Gronlund Talks: Discusses the Future of Socialism: Would Be a Collectivist,"
''The Morning Call''

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vol. 77, no. 35 (January 4, 1895), pg. 12. and the book would remain one of the most influential works on the socialist theme in the United States for the rest of the 19th century. According to historian Rudolf Kirk, ''The Cooperative Commonwealth'' reflects Gronlund's distinctly Christian interpretation of Marx.

Later writings

After having lived in the United States for 20 years, in 1885 Gronlund made an extended stay to

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, where he would remain for two years."Socialists to the Front: Eager to Convert the Rest of the United Labor Party,"
''The Sun'' ew York City vol. 54, no. 297 (June 24, 1887), pg. 1. Gronlund spent his time in Britain lecturing on socialist themes to both political and academic audiences, touching on both current politics and historical themes in speeches made across England and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. Gronlund returned to his adopted country in 1887 and resumed his activism on behalf of the Socialist Labor Party. Gronlund was immediately called upon by the SLP to differentiate its views from the

single tax A single tax is a system of taxation based mainly or exclusively on one tax, typically chosen for its special properties, often being a tax on land value. The idea of a single tax on land values was proposed independently by John Locke and Bar ...

program of

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

, an 1886 candidate for mayor of

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on the ticket of the upstart

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which the SLP had actively supported. The result of this assignment was two pamphlets, ''Socialism vs. Single Tax'' and ''Insufficiency of Henry George's Theory.'' The departure of the SLP from the broader United Labor Party of which it was a part was civil, with Gronlund remarking in a June 1887 lecture at New York City that Henry George was

... a most noble man, the starting wedge for socialism in the United States, but his theory is insufficient and his remedies would not accomplish what he believes. When it comes down to the kernel of the matter, he is radically different from us and we must part company from him.

Gronlund turned his attention to history with the publication of his second book, a reevaluation of the life and activities of French Jacobin revolutionary Georges Danton in the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

of 1789 to 1794. At the end of his life Gronlund regarded this 1887 work, ''Ça Ira! or Danton in the French Revolution,'' as his most important work.Leonard D. Abbott, "A Memory of Laurence Gronlund," ''Social Democratic Herald'' hicago vol. 2, no. 20, whole no. 70 (November 4, 1899), pg. 1. In his book Gronlund attempted to challenge the popular image of Danton, first President of the Committee of Public Safety, as a terrorist and to restore his place to history as a leader of the democratic French revolution. A member of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Labor Party in 1888, Gronlund broke with the party soon after, ostensibly over its decision to open a saloon on Fourth Street in New York City as a means of generating funds for use of the party. Late in 1890 Gronlund published his third book, an "essay in ethics" entitled ''Our Destiny: The Influence of Socialism on Morals and Religion.'' This work touches upon the quasi-religious aspect of the socialist project. Gronlund argued that socialism had two sides, a "good kind" of "mutual good will and mutual help" as well as a negative socialism of "hatred and spoliation."Laurence Gronlund, ''Our Destiny: The Influence of Socialism on Morals and Religion: An Essay in Ethics.'' London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1890; pg. 6. Gronlund supported "mutual good will and mutual help," at the time best expressed in the United States by the emerging movement built around

Nationalist Clubs Nationalist Clubs were an organized network of socialist political groups which emerged at the end of the 1880s in the United States of America in an effort to make real the ideas advanced by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel ''Looking Backw ...

. Gronlund noted with bemusement that while people shuddered in fear of "destructive Socialism," at the same time the concentration of capitalism through

trusts A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settl ...

and increased government intervention in economic affairs was slowly bringing into existence a socialist regime.

Final years

Gronlund devoted himself almost exclusively to lecturing until his appointment to a poorly-paid position in the office of the Bureau of Labor in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, where he worked for Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright. In the early 1890s, Gronlund visited and spoke at the Church of the Carpenter in Boston, founded by the

Christian Socialist Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing left-wing politics and socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe cap ...

minister W. D. P. Bliss. Gronlund also contributed to ''The Dawn'', the journal of the Society of Christian Socialists. Following the end of his stint with the Bureau of Labor in 1893, Gronlund rededicated himself as a touring lecturer dealing with socialist themes. He was a speaker at a Congress of Economics held in conjunction with the

1893 Chicago World's Fair The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, hel ...

, speaking there alongside Henry George and

Richard T. Ely Richard Theodore Ely (April 13, 1854 – October 4, 1943) was an American economist, author, and leader of the Progressive movement who called for more government intervention to reform what they perceived as the injustices of capitalism, especial ...

. He also spoke to a variety of audiences from coast to coast, including forays into

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

"A Noted Lecturer: Laurence Gronlund Calls Himself a Collectivist,"
''Salt Lake Herald'', vol. 50, no. 129 (October 11, 1894), pg. 2. and

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Owing to misgivings about the term "socialism" – which he believed covered too many bedfellows, such as

anarchists Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...

and communitarians – Gronlund insisted upon describing himself as a "collectivist" in his later years on the lecture circuit. Despite this change in nomenclature, Gronlund remained orthodox in his socialist views, as he explained in one 1894 newspaper interview:

As collectivists, we do not approve of the violent methods of the European
evolutionary Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
socialists. We want the gradual absorption of all capital by the government in a peaceable manner. We are satisfied to work with the
Populists Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed ...
, or with
Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...
, or with those who advocate government ownership of railroads, for they are all in the same line with us, though we go much farther. We would say government ownership of railways, banks, telegraph lines, factories, mills, workshops, and all industries; also government ownership of land, for land is capital. The government would be the employer, the people the employed, and there would be no conflict of interest.

In addition to lecturing to audiences around the country about "collectivism", Gronlund plied his trade as a writer, contributing to the pages of '' Twentieth Century Magazine''. Gronlund spoke not only to English-speaking audiences, but also spoke in his native Danish to members of the Scandinavian immigrant community during his travels around the United States. Gronlund was enthusiastic about the ideas and tactics of the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

in Great Britain and sought to emulate the Fabian movement on American soil, explicitly declared in 1895 that "this movement is evolutionary, not revolutionary." On 24 December 1895 in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

, Gronlund married Beulah Alice Carey, née Boynton. Beulah was regarded as a talented artist and art teacher and was active in launching the Seattle Humane Society, dedicated to the prevention of cruelty to animals.Clarence Bagley
''History of Seattle: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time: Volume 2.''
Chicago: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1916; pg. 642. A fourth and final book, ''The New Economy: A Peaceable Solution of the Social Problem,'' was published in 1898 and emphasized the evolutionary and anti-

class war Class War is an anarchist group and newspaper established by Ian Bone and others in 1983 in the United Kingdom. An incarnation of Class War was briefly registered as a political party for the purposes of fighting the 2015 United Kingdom gener ...

orientation which Gronlund developed in his later years.

Death and legacy

Laurence Gronlund died October 15, 1899, in

. He was 53 years old at the time of his death. At the time of his death Gronlund was remembered critically but warmly in the American socialist press. Writing in the ''Social Democratic Herald,'' Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of America

Seymour Stedman Seymour "Stedy" Stedman (July 4, 1871 – July 9, 1948) was an American from Chicago who rose from shepherd and janitor to become a prominent civil liberties lawyer and a leader of the Socialist Party of America. He is best remembered as the ...

remembered him as a proverbial absent-minded professor:

He was eccentric and careless. He would walk with pipe and paper along a thriving thoroughfare oblivious of all; his hat shaped like a French general's, peak in front and back; shoes well worn; clothes shabby, and was in meeting reticent, even timid ... He treated the subject of Socialism plainly and stripped it of utopianism. ... The peoples of the future will dwell in peace where this hardy pioneer warred with the accumulated prejudice, passions, and ignorance of the ages.

Leonard D. Abbott recalled Gronlund as a "great soul" who had lived in poverty throughout his life out of commitment to the socialist cause, the recipient of "very small financial rewards from all his books put together." He quoted Gronlund during his last year of life as rejecting the political strategy of winning power through independent political action, declaring "I regard

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Debs as the most unselfish of labor leaders, but you can't build up a third party in this county – you've got to work through the Democratic Party." Gronlund was enormously influential during the decades of the 1880s and 1890s and is credited by historian

Daniel Bell Daniel Bell (May 10, 1919 – January 25, 2011) was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor at Harvard University, best known for his contributions to the study of post-industrialism. He has been described as "one of the leading A ...

with playing a pivotal role in the conversion of future '' Appeal to Reason'' publisher Julius Wayland to socialism in 1891.Daniel Bell, ''Marxian Socialism in the United States,'' in Donald Drew Egbert and Stow Persons, ''Socialism and American Life''. In two volumes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952; vol. 1, pg. 259. Wayland would begin his first socialist newspaper, ''The Coming Nation,'' in 1893 and would build his subsequent publication into a mass circulation weekly that would help make socialism a broad political movement during the first two decades of the 20th century. Gronlund's articulation of a vision for a cooperative economy and society echoed over the next decades in early-twentieth century U.S. and Canadian leftist circles. It helped lead to the formation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party in 1932, which became Canada's largest left-wing political party, and continues to this day as the New Democratic Party, and to the nature of the economic principles of the Farmer-Labor Party of the United States, particularly in the FLP's Minnesota affiliate, where advocacy for a Cooperative Commonwealth formed the central theme of the Party's platform from 1934, until the Minnesota FLP merged with the state

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to form the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party in 1944.

Footnotes

Works

* ''The Coming Revolution: Its Principles.'' St. Louis, MO: Slawson & Pierrot, 1878.
''The Co-operative Commonwealth in its Outlines: An Exposition of Modern Socialism.''
Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1884.
''Insufficiency of Henry George's Theory.''
New York: New York Labor News Co., 1887. * ''Socialism vs. Tax Reform: An Answer to Henry George.'' New York: New York Labor News Co., 1887.
''Ça Ira! or Danton in the French Revolution.''
Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1887.
"The Nationalization of Industry,"
'' The Nationalist'' oston vol. 1, no. 2 (June 1889), pp. 33–36.
"Reply to Dr. Heber Newton,"
''The Nationalist'' oston vol. 1, no. 5 (Sept. 1889), pp. 158–161.
"Nationalism,"
''The Arena,'' vol. 1, whole no. 2 (January 1890), pp. 153–165.
''Our Destiny: The Influence of Socialism on Morals and Religion: An Essay in Ethics.''
London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1890.
"Lettre à Benoit Malon à Paris de Laurence Gronlund à Washington, DC, le 20 Juin 1892,"
''Le Revue Socialiste,'' vol. 16 (1892), pp. 244–248.
"Studies in Ultimate Society: A New Interpretation of Life,"
''The Arena,'' vol. 18 (1897), pp. 351–361.
''The New Economy: A Peaceable Solution of the Social Problem.''
Chicago, IL: Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1898.
"A Weak Argument: Berger's Platform Analyzed and Its Defects Pointed Out,"
''The Social Democrat'' hicago vol. 5, no. 24 (June 23, 1898), pg. 1. * ''Three in One: A Trinity of Arguments in Favor of Social Democracy.'' With G.C. Clemens and G.A. Hoehn. Chicago: Social Democracy of America, 1898.
"The Sugar Beet from the Standpoint of National Economy,"
''Ranch and Range'' eattle vol. 15, no. 35 (August 15, 1899), pg. 1. * "Socializing a State," in G.C. Clemens, ''A Primer on Socialism.'' ''Progressive Thought,'' whole no. 13 (Oct. 1900), pp. 16–22.