Failure of Socialism in America

I think one of the reasons is that there were always large numbers of immigrants in American working class, who were easier to exploit than people who have been settled there for some time. Workforces in Europe had choices, they would find ways of supporting themselves through traditional ways if they went on strike, for instance. And the peoples of Europe have lived through wars and revolutions and they are not as easy to manipulate as immigrants fresh off the boat. Note that the capitalists don't need to have all of the workforce to be fresh immigrants, as long as they have a section which can be easily exploited, they can (and did) use them to break apart the united front they may present. 

Edited by Beylerbeyi - 03-Sep-2008 at 15:44

Originally posted by Al Jassas knowing that most elections in the US are on  the first tuesday in November which is after all a working day, couldn't this affect election outcome?

Originally posted by Al Jassas Hello Bey   I think you have been a bit too harsh on the American system in general. The US still has one of the highest social mobility rates in the world. Most of today's US billionaires come from middle or ever poor classes like the Waltons, Gates etc.

Originally posted by Cryptic Originally posted by Al Jassas knowing that most elections in the US are on  the first tuesday in November which is after all a working day, couldn't this affect election outcome?  Not to any large degree.  There was some intimidation (vigilantes destroying material, attacking activists etc), but there were no lare scale historical patterns of artifically imposed difficulties designed to limit voting by white groups.  Blacks under Jim Crow is a different story.   In some aspects, socialism just had bad luck in the USA. Timely social reforms etc. in the 1920s limited the traditional appeal. Next, the 1930s Depression creates desperation. But it occurred at the same time that southeren agriculture was rapidly mechanizing.       Mechanized agriculture ended the share cropper system (exploited rural poor), a potential source of socialist recruits.  Normally, large numbers of poor, displaced agricultural workers can be big trouble.  But.... WWII happens and many displaced people find work in the war effort, join the military etc. Once the war ended, the US economy boomed allowing for continued employment of these people in manufacturing.   After WWII, socialism's bad luck continued. Post WWII manufacturing was far different than 1890-1930s manufacturing in terms of working conditions, pay, safety etc.  Recruits were even fewer.

I would agree with you there and also the trends of national history just made it unappealing to most American voters.

Originally posted by pikeshot1600   My thinking does not seem to be registering, so I will step aside and let others carry the ball.  Other than the "why" being far more complicated than repression by elites, I am somewhat out of argument.

Originally posted by pikeshot1600 Windemere:   Who exactly do you think owns "large privately-owned corporations?"  As you are in the education field, I submit that you do in your undoubtedly large pension plan (that probably did not exist before the 1950s).   Yes?  No?

Trick question. It doesn't matter who owns them, but who controls them. The regular teacher doesn't control GE, and neither does the mutual fund that manages it.

Who control corporations? Their top management. And as you know well, they are pretty much unaccountable. The stock holders are an after thought; ask regular Enron stockholders about that.

Who exactly do you think owns "large privately-owned corporations?"

Originally posted by red clay The numbers may be correct, I'm not familiar with what the census says.  Those same numbers do not show the hold the unions had on the critical sections of industry.

Absolutely ... and though numbers may have been lower in the early half of the century, the unions exerted huge social influence. The IWW had a massive impact on American culture from the turn of the century until the Depression, and unions had the power to call for general strikes which, at times, completely shut down whole cities (eg Seattle) or even states (eg Colorado), and set up provisional governments in those areas. Until the army arrived, that is. 

I don't think Americans have ever had any particular problem with socialism - or at least, not until recently. They've just never liked bureaucratic socialism, or what Marx called 'bourgeouis socialism', and that was the direction socialism as a whole was headed after the Depression. It always strikes me that you could probably get the average American to agree wholeheartedly with the following, provided you kept the author anonymous and updated the language to suit American terms (eg exhange 'bourgeouis' for 'liberal elite' or something):


A part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.

To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole-and-corner reformers of every imaginable kind. This form of socialism has, moreover, been worked out into complete systems . . . The Socialistic bourgeois want all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society, minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements. They wish for a bourgeoisie without a proletariat. The bourgeoisie naturally conceives the world in which it is supreme to be the best; and bourgeois Socialism develops this comfortable conception into various more or less complete systems. In requiring the proletariat to carry out such a system, and thereby to march straightway into the social New Jerusalem, it but requires in reality, that the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie . . . this form of Socialism . . . at the best, lessens the cost, and simplifies the administrative work, of bourgeois government.

Bourgeois Socialism attains adequate expression when, and only when, it becomes a mere figure of speech.


You often hear Americans say, "We're too individualistic and rebellious for socialism" which at first blush doesn't seem to make alot of sense. But you really have to understand that Americans are using the term "socialism" differently and they mean something different. I'm sure that if today's labour movement looked more like the CNT-FAI and the IWW, rather than the AFL-CIO, UAW, etc, Americans would express a very different attitude about things like that.


Edited by edgewaters - 01-Nov-2008 at 18:46

Most Americans support Universal Healthcare. Throw in the word 'Socialised medicine' and you ensure enough stupid people will change there mind and decide they oppose 'this socialism' (AKA Joe the Plumber) Its a careful campaign to completely taint a word so it begins to appear unamerican to use it or endorse anything which shares its principles. IE, Liberal.