Socialism can be simply defined as “the advocacy of communal ownership of land and capital” (Russel, 1928, p.1). Karl Marx, the founder of socialism, along with Engels, believed that the development of modern capitalist society would inherently lead to a class struggle, in which the proletariat, made up of the wage workers, would rise up against the owners of the means of production, the Bourgeoisie. Indeed, he believed the exploitation of the working class would inevitably lead to the development of a working-class majority which would achieve class consciousness as a revolutionary socialist party. Marx thus believed that the most advanced capitalist society, the United States, would lead the way and would become be the first country in which socialists would come to power. However, the failure of socialism in the United States has become an embarrassment to Marxist theory as the ever growing strength of capitalism in America directly challenges his model (Lipset, 2918).
It is thus important to understand the reasons why socialism not been successful in the most advanced capitalist society of the modern world. Accordingly, after a brief history of the socialist and communist movements in the United States, this essay will assess some of the potential reasons why socialism has not succeeded in the US in an attempt to give an overview of both the societal and political reasons of socialisms failure.
To assess the failures and potential successes of American socialism, one must first understand the history of the movement. The socialist party in America grew drastically between 1900 and 1912. Under the leadership of Eugene V. Debs in 1912, 160 councilmen, 145 aldermen, one congressman, and 56 mayors, including Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Berkeley, California, and Schenectady, New York, were elected as Socialists. Furthermore, in the presidential election of 1912, Debs was able to accumulate about 6% of votes (Lipset, 1978). However, the party’s stride was cut short after the first World War, partly of the governments reprisals for their anti-war activism, which led Debs to be imprisoned for almost two years for violating the Espionage Act. Secondly, the communists split the party, pulling out many members to form an affiliate of Moscow’s Third International, thus weakening the strength and cohesion of the party (Laslett and Lipset, 1984). The Great Depression of the 1930’s led the socialists, under Norman Thomas’s leadership to win 2% of the votes for the 1932 election against Roosevelt and Hoover. However, because of the Democrat’s New Deal, both communists and socialists failed to use the economic issues raised by the Depression to build a radical socialist movement. Subsequently, neither the Communists nor the Socialists made much progress following the Second World War.
Marx and Engels were the first to theorise on the absence of a strong socialist movement in what is today the most advanced capitalist society (Laslett and Lipset, 1984). Marx and Engels argued that the American society had been a bourgeois nation from its birth (Klehr,, 2010). Thus, the working class itself had been influenced with bourgeois ideals, meaning the workers themselves believed in the capitalist ideas their employers exercised on them. America, having never known feudalism, had not been built along the same divisions that European societies knew.
This uniqueness of the American political landscape and history has been regarded as what is commonly known American Exceptionalism. Louis Hartz, in his work The Liberal Tradition in America (1955) argues that ‘the very ethos of American life is inherently hostile to class consciousness, socialism, and radicalism of any kind’ (Foner, 1984, p.61). According to Hartz, Americans never had to fight for democracy and equality, thus creating an individualistic ideology ‘against which neither socialism on the left nor serious conservatism on the right can make any headway’ (Foner, 1984, p. 61). It is thus to say that the liberal and egalitarian nature of American society left no space for the development of socialist ideology. Furthermore, the nature of socialism entices the increase of the power of the state and of the public sphere (Johnpoll and Johnpoll, 1981). However, American ideals have had a strong anti-statist sentiment, with most Americans reluctant to give much power to the state, a sentiment which stems from the founding father’s doctrine laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the writing of a constitution which is designed to avoid a strong government (Lipset, 2000). Thus, in this climate, the rise of socialism seems unlikely.
When writing of America in the 1830, French political scientist Alex de Tocqueville was astonished by America’s love for private property. He stated in his work Democracy In America (1840, p.714) that “in no other country in the world is the love of property more active and more anxious than in the United States”. Thus, according to this principle, Americans seem unlikely to support an ideology which would suppress the possession of private property. Engels too noted pervasive attachment that Americans had to property (Karabel, 1979). Furthermore, in his analysis of American society, Tocqueville noted that Americans were brought up to feel equal, even in relation to those in more powerful positions.
Furthermore, the enormous profits which America was acquiring from its colonial lands enabled employers to slightly raise the wages of the working class and thus keep from developing any sort of class consciousness. The bourgeoisie was able to bribe the leadership of the working class and thus create a group of “labour lieutenants of capitalism” (Lenin, 1917). Similarly, Sombart (1976) argued that the failure of socialism in the United States could be attributed to the favourable attitude of the American worker towards capitalism. This, he argued, was due to the capacity of capitalism in fulfilling the worker’s material needs. Indeed, American wage-workers had access to a much higher quality of life than of their European counterparts.
Furthermore, having secured the “gift of the ballot” and achieved many of the democratic tasks that European workers were still striving for, socialism did not appeal to the majority of the American working class. Indeed, American workers did not experience exclusion in the same way that European workers did, a process which would have helped bring them together as a class (Karabel, 1979) This helped workers to develop loyalties to one of the two major parties and a faith in the political landscape which they did not wish to overturn as it provided them with democratic rights. Thus, as Kazin (1987) argues, socialism failed because Americans did not believe in the radical change that they advocated, nor deem it necessary. Lenin further emphasised this point in 1912 by asserting that the normal relationship between capitalist and proletarians were altered in the United States, due to the absence of “any big, nation-wide, democratic tasks facing the proletariat”. To put in simply, the fight in Europe was a fight over democratic demands, whereas, having achieved these, the fight in America was solely on socialist demands – thus not needing the power of a radical revolutionary party (Klehr, 2010).
Gramsci argued that America was built on pure rationalism, deprived of any class values inherent to a feudalist past. He called this Americanism: the American emphasis on the rewards and virtues of hard work and the need to exploit the resources of nature (Lipset, 1978).
The American worker was faced with far more opportunities to rise up from his class than its European counterpart. Thus, this caused the American worker to strive to rise from its class, rather than rise with its class, a process which further undermines the capacity for class consciousness, as workers actively strive to escape their class (K
arabel, 1979). Foner (1984) emphasised the high rates of social mobility in the US, and the greater opportunities for the worker to become an employer himself and to acquire more property. In 1852 Marx had remarked on the fluidity of the American class structure: “though classes already exist, they have not yet become fixed, but continuously change and interchange their elements in constant flux” (Marx, 1952). Sombart (1976) thus theorises that inactivity of American workers is closely related to the opportunity for social mobility and the role of the American culture of a ‘self-made man’: workers were able to transform themselves into business men themselves All of this contributes to low levels of class consciousness, as workers will effectively strive to move up classes. Thus they cannot support working class interest as they strive to be the employers and thus need to preserve the interests of the class they wish to join. This ties in to the propensity of Americans for individualism: workers are more interested in personal achievements, characterised by moving up from their class, rather than dedicating their time to a collective struggle (Foner, 1984). This has been further accentuated by the high levels of spatial mobility by American workers which inherently weaken possible bonds amongst workers and the lack of community roots (Lipset, 1978).
The role of immigration must also be taken into consideration. Indeed, waves of immigration further undermined possible rise of class consciousness amongst workers (Lipset, 2000). As America provided immigrant workers with a higher standard of living than they would enjoy in their home country, they were unlikely to support radical socialist movements and were favourable to the status quo. As Sombart argues, even if immigrants did not agree with American society, ‘they knew better than to rise against it, especially as life in America provided them with better opportunities than they would have in their native land’ (p.218 Furthermore, workers did not assimilate solely to their worker identity, but rather articulated several ideologies such as their neighbourhood and nationality: thus, their status of wage worker was not their only source of identity, thus further undermining possibilities for a mass rising of workers.. Kazin (1987) further emphasises that race has been a more salient issue than class, especially when considering Afro-American identity. Defending ethnic identity thus became a stronger priority, causing potential class struggle to take a backseat. Furthermore, employers have been known to use ethnic divisions amongst workers to divert them from potentially rebelling against the system. Through deliberately employing workers from conflicting backgrounds they hoped to exacerbate ethnic divisions amongst their employees, thus reducing the risk of them uniting against the owners of the means of production (Shannon, 1968).
One must consider the impact that the American political party system has had on lessening the political opportunities available to socialist parties (Shannon, 1968). Indeed, for over a century control of American politics has been divided between the Republican and Democrats. After running as the Socialist Party presidential candidate six times Norman Thomas himself, in 1938, recognised the ineffectiveness of running independent candidates for president, after having recognised the weakness of any third parties in America (Lipset, 1978). Furthermore Kenneth McNaught (–) has argued that the American constitution itself can be to blame for the weakness of socialism. He states that the constitution “causes any vote for any candidate not put up by one of the two governing parties to appear to be lost. And the American . . . wants to influence his state: he does not throw his vote away." (—). Thus, the political weakness of third parties in America make it so that voters, even if they hold socialist ideals, are unlikely to vote for a socialist party as they hold the fear that their vote may be lost.
However, through voting for the Democratic party, socialist ideals can still be heard, and have influenced the policies of both major parties (especially the Democratic party). Indeed, “American radicals have occasionally succeeded in building up socialist and communist influence within one of the two-party coalition” (Lipset, 1978, p. 102). This influence has translated into the establishment of a welfare state, and pro-labour politics hich have been adopted by the Democratic Party since the 1930s. Harrigton (1972) argues that socialist movements have created a social democratic party within the Democratic party, and thus have been able to assert their influence in politics through the proxy of the Democratic party. He thus argues that America does have a mass social democratic movement which operates through the Democratic party – as opposed to a socialist movement. This leads us to a re-assessment of the failure of socialism. Indeed, although the general consensus points to a failure of socialism in the United States, one must take into account the achievements of social democracy. Because of its fairly liberal history and other societal factors, the United States had never known, nor felt the need to develop a workers class consciousness and uprising against the system. However, socialist ideals have influenced politics through supporting democratic candidates and influencing policies.
Finally, a relevant point made by Corey in 1940 points to the issue of attempting to apply an effectively European-centric theory to the United States, a nation which has known a very different political evolution. He argued that Marx had misinterpreted socialism, and that the failure of American radicalism was a result of attempts to apply European theories onto American conditions, and that neither European nor Russian events could successfully be transported to America. It was essential for Corey that socialism in America “must be based upon American tradition, upon American experience, upon American problems” (Corey, 1940, p.1). Perhaps then it is not a case of a failure of socialism in America, but rather an error of trying to adapt European theories onto America.
This essay has thus explored the many reasons behind the weakness of socialism in the United States. America’s history differs with European feudal society, and has been argued to be exceptional in its liberalism and egalitarianism. Even though this is up to debate, it is true that societal conditions in the US, such as a high rate of social mobility, a strong democracy and ethnic consciousness, have made the socialist task hard to achieve. Capitalist ideals seem to be deeply embedded in American ideology, and is strengthened by a strong two-party political system which further undermines any attempts made by socialist parties to overthrow the current political landscape.