The USA was founded under a radically liberal constitution, with liberal type of government unheard of in most of the world. From the beginning it set precent for being so progressive (even though some of the founding gains were taken away later, like women's sufferage in New Jersey), and the USA took pride in this. This is the nation that took wide strides towards universal sufferage, secularism, social welfare, and worker's rights when many others didn't dare to touch the issues. But then, out of nowhere...it stops dead in its tracks. "Socialism" was to be feared, there was a special place in hell next to the Devil's throne for Karl Marx, the working class was to be suppressed, the bourgeois honored, and even "liberalism" eventually became a bad word. Now, I understand that the USA has to fear when the USSR is the only other superpower...but what was there to fear when communism and was just an untested idea, and initial attempts at socialism were successful (i.e. public roads, schools, parks, hospitals)? Sure, the big CEO's shake in their boots, but why do the people shudder at the though, now and back then? What stopped the USA from becoming the heralder of progressive ideas? Why has "socialism" been a bad word? Why is Glen Beck on TV?
Why didn't the USA become socialist a long time ago?
- Thread starter Basilisk
- Start date
Umm... when exactly was the US socialist? It's always been liberal v. conservative, same as up here.
Part of it is the amount of liberalism at the start. For a long time, America was a land of unprecedented equality and opportunity. If an immigrant like Carnegie could rise to such heights from such lowly beginnings, then Socialism was unable to find the sort of unrest and dissatisfaction with class rigidity that it needed to compete with Social Liberalism.
Indeed the progressive movement made great strides. That stopped when the USSR came into being. Glen Beck is on TV because fifty years is long time to define oneself against "the left", which is what America did during the Cold War.
Indeed the progressive movement made great strides. That stopped when the USSR came into being. Glen Beck is on TV because fifty years is long time to define oneself against "the left", which is what America did during the Cold War.
You are assuming that history is a road of progress, and that socialism is further along that path than liberalism. Neither of those assumptions are correct.
Simply put, there wasn't a need for it. After a while, US had a strong middle class in which workers could maintain a high living standard without owning the means of production. Regulated free market and representative government worked well enough that replacing them wasn't necessary.
I meant that in its early days, the US was far more liberal (though not really socialist) than Europe. You know, the Constitution and stuff.
Liberalism
Modern Liberalism (Socialism) isn't he same as Classical Liberalism (Democracy) The US Constitution doesn't allow for the takeover of private property without just compensation that socialism requires. It also specifically restricted the power of the Federal government. The current socialist agenda goes against the principles of the founders of the US and in many ways is unconstitutional. This thread also seems to be in the wrong place? Shouldn't it be in Chat somewhere?
Modern Liberalism (Socialism) isn't he same as Classical Liberalism (Democracy) The US Constitution doesn't allow for the takeover of private property without just compensation that socialism requires. It also specifically restricted the power of the Federal government. The current socialist agenda goes against the principles of the founders of the US and in many ways is unconstitutional. This thread also seems to be in the wrong place? Shouldn't it be in Chat somewhere?
It pretty much comes down to a liberal or conservative interpertation of the Constitution. As you probably know, judicially conservative is distinctly different than political conservative. Judicially speaking, it is just a narrow and sometimes literal take. Some of the things poli-cons want to do would be unconstitutional as well. Take the whole abortion debacle. In a narrow interpertation of the Constitution, which I tend to take, Congress doesn't have the power to mess with medical practices. And as you said, the government could not just seize property without compensation (not legally anyway), unless it was part of a law suit.
So why hasn't American become socialists? Our culture has a degree of self-reliance and individualism that will always resist it. Besides, we can't afford any of that socialism stuff anyway.
As for FDR; say what you want about him, but at least he made people work for their pay (public works projects like dams). We could do the same thing today, with the poor state of some of the nation's infrastructure.
Funny you should mention that. My Grandfather's farm has an outhouse built by the WPA during the depression.
There are so many misconceptions in these three sentences that I despair at ever being able to point out all of them. The most obvious is that Carnegie was a huge except, not the rule.
America was founded as a land of unprecedented equality for all wealthy landowning white males (preferably of pure stock and Protestant), and over the course of the nineteenth century this equality was gradually expanded to slightly less wealthy and non-landowning men (even the Irish!). Everyone else was grudgingly accepted, and by that I mean that they were marginalized, abused, enslaved, and exploited.
I would dispute your assertion that socialism was unable to find ready ears and class dissatisfaction. As would the thousands of Chinese laborers who died laying railroad tracks, the immigrant workers slaving in factories for long hours to make a pittance, black sharecroppers gripped by de facto slavery, etc etc.
Do some research, even on Wikipedia for a start, before posting things like this.
Modern Liberalism is not Socialism, and neither was Classical Liberalism the same as Democracy (its an ideology within Democracy; then again, so is Socialism).
"Bloody hell, the Jerry's are attacking! Um...never mind that, chaps. Hey you Russian fellows; remember that little joke I said about how you're ideology is ignorant and corrupt and all. I was just kidding."
Last edited:
This is exactly the point I was going to make before I decided not to bother and instead just ignore what Bulls Run says.
Compared to today? Sure America up until the end of the Gilded age was a hell hole. Doesn't change that everywhere else was worse. Those black sharecroppers? Their standard of living skyrocketed compared to when they were actual slaves. And while people like Carnegie and Rockefeller were exceptions, there was a whole heck of a lot more class mobility in America than in any other nation you could name.
I'm not saying that it was a utopia, but it was an unprecedented land of equality and opportunity, because everywhere else was worse.
Yeah, it's summer so I don't feel like regurgitating my Government and Economics course, but let me say that complexity of systems does not act as a blank for ignorance.
I gather though socialism, or more correctly social democracy/democratic socialism, has had more of an impact on Canadian politics than in the US.
Of course, you are correct, the US and Canada are both distinctive among Western nations, as neither or the two major parties have social democracy as a founding ideology.
Actually, I find the question of why the Canadian anti-Tory side of politics never coalesced into a social democratic party like elsewhere (at least in Anglo-phone Canada), just as interesting; I was going to ask that, but this is a topic for another thread.
I think that it didn't happen because of two things: one: america is unlike any other nation on earth-we are a true melting pot with no engrained traditions of oppresssion and exploitation- there have been occurances of these things, yes, but no Traditions of them ie, dating back four hundred years or more; And secondly: our country was founded on the principle that no one man has more inherent value than any other, But, additional value can be aquired through hard work; our currency has always been respect.
Teleology
Banned
The schism between the agrarian/populist/greenback/granger/silverite school of thought (the champion of whom, the Great Commoner, was an evangelical anti-evolutionist) and the budding industrial labor movement in the late 19th/early 20th century.
Also internal division in the labor movement.
If the ATF had stood up in solidarity with Eugene Debs' ARU during the Pullman Strike, if the Farmer-Labor organization had then been inspired to do the same and caused populist and silverite "armies" (like Coxey and Hogan's 'armies' of protesters) to march...then we might have had socialism in the United States.
After that it's too late because instead of well-to-do socialist intellectuals like in Britain, our socially minded well-to-do intellectuals formed the Progressive movement (which I personally prefer to socialism, but that's just my opinion).
Also internal division in the labor movement.
If the ATF had stood up in solidarity with Eugene Debs' ARU during the Pullman Strike, if the Farmer-Labor organization had then been inspired to do the same and caused populist and silverite "armies" (like Coxey and Hogan's 'armies' of protesters) to march...then we might have had socialism in the United States.
After that it's too late because instead of well-to-do socialist intellectuals like in Britain, our socially minded well-to-do intellectuals formed the Progressive movement (which I personally prefer to socialism, but that's just my opinion).