Failure of Socialism in America

 

Because during the 1920s to the 1930s, there was a very effective combination of the following elements with just the right amounts of each category to discourage socialism: 

 

head breaking: Thousands of suspected socialists are arrested during the early 1920s. Meanwhile, officialy tolerated vigilante groups sought out and beat socialist activists. Despite court victories for the socialists, attacks continue and educated  socialists are  threatned with the loss of their careers etc.  But... the head breaking is limited. Actual deaths are rare and this prevents the socialist party from presenting the victims as martyrs.

 

Timely reforms:  "piece work" pay practices are out lawed and so is child labor. Safety improved (to a relative degree). Exploitive "company script, company store, and company housing" arrangements disappear in the north and slowly start to decline in the the south.  Unions are legally permitted and gradually expand to include even the Kentucky and West Virginia mining areas. Mechanization in agriculture gradually reduces the number of exploited share croppers.

 

Religion: Southeren share croppers,  miners and textile workers, were the most exploited workers in America. But... Bible belt populations were also most likely reject atheism, "foreign" ideas and the non traditional social beliefs of the SPA.  Conservative pastors reinforced these local cultural beliefs by strongly implying that the traditional social order was God's will and that Christians owed obediance to all traditional authority (incluing ecomomicaly derived authority).  Another key belief was that poverty, if supported by faith would be rewarded by heavenly riches.  In some mining areas the companies also built the churches and hired the pastors. This doubly ensured that religous messages would not be uhmmm.... "disruptive" or "confusing" to the faithful. 

 

Also religion while it played a strong role in the opposition to socialism none the less many priests were actually left leaning. Plus the party wasn't a failure at all, it was a success and was getting strong.

 

I think Cryptic's diagnonsis is more near the right path though there are some general notes.

 

AL-Jassas

Cryptic's post on discouraging socialism, while listing aspects that do have merit, turns around my argument and implies not "a single force" but a conscious social pressure to bring about discouragement.  I can't agree.  There were many more factors involved than the convenient notions of bad guys breaking heads, economic sops thrown to the proletariat and country preachers dispensing old time religion. 

 

Some members, more favorably disposed toward socialism, like the easier answers.  I like mine better. 

 

  

 

The U.S.A. is the only developed nation with no form of universal health care or insurance. Approximately 35% of the population ( poor, jobless, or employed in temporary or low-paying jobs) has no health insurance or regular source of health care.  They receive health care, as a last resort, at hospital emergency rooms, or at  public clinics for the poor, if they are able to provide proof that their income is below the poverty level. Most Americans , especially middleclass or upperclass, receive health insurance through their employers, or through private health insurance plans. Universal health care initiatives are defeated at the national level through a combination of ways. Political opponents publicize the possibility that universal health care will bankrupt the nation, cause an overwhelming rise in taxes, lower the quality of available health care, and play to primitive but real fears that socialism is a step towards totalitarianism (loss of individual freedom). Many elements of the mass media portray support for socialism as unpatriotic & unAmerican. Since 65% (the majority) of Americans do have health care & insurance, political initiatives for universal health care (and other socialist ideas) are usually defeated, or are unsuccessful in even being brought to a vote by legislators.

 

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?

 

 

 

I think you are splitting hairs with some of your argument, and I will stand by my point that no socialist order arose in North America because it was not found particularly useful, and had not enough support.  That's all.

 

Socialists Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas kept garnering the same few percentage points in elections, and I don't think they ever got more than a million votes, if that.  If the economic problems of the Depression didn't strengthen socialists, it was because there was insufficient political appeal and the Democrats outflanked them with the New Deal.