Question: Why didn't Marxism enjoy growth in the US like Europe did?

Or earlier if a Catholic of German origin, or worse a Jew.

You know, while I don't want to denigrate the oppression that these groups suffered, they all continued to come to the US despite the awful conditions. This suggests that maybe things weren't as terrible as you're making it out to be.

Capitalism worked. And still does, which annoys some people to no end.
 
(T)he US Socialist Party [...] was destroyed by infighting over WWI, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Wilson-era crackdown.

QFT.

Not sure who said it (Steinbeck?) but there's a quote stating that Americans are but temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

It was, as far as I can tell, John Steinbeck who said that:

Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
 
And he was gay...

First, because Americans were much better off than say the Russians and the US had a huge middle class even then. There have been several studies that show nearly everyone in the US considers themselves middle class economically no matter whether they're poor or rich. Who would want to over throw the bourgeoisie when you consider yourself one of them? And right or wrong people believe there is a lot of social mobility in the US. Why work hard to overthrow the system and make everyone equal when you can work hard and get rich?

Secondly because the US places a much higher value on property and self reliance. There is a heavy dose of social Darwinism in American culture, even more so a century ago. The poor are poor because of their own actions. Help them all you want but few people are going to overthrow society and lose their own property to help people who are considered failures.

In American society the individual comes first, not the greater good.

Also, the the failed Revolutions of 1848 passed America by. As a leftist German friend told me, working class radicalism just doesn't exist here.

Another part of it is because American political parties would take care of their members. Therefore, Marxist groups didn't have as much appeal.

True. Unfortunately, nowadays, the message tends to be: "We won't screw you as badly as the other guys will":(

Several reasons:

(2) Race and ethnic diversity: the US had a large black underclass and also experienced heavy immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe. Because of racism, middle-class and working-class established white Americans did not desire social equality with peoples they viewed as "lesser." This limited the ability to make appeals to working class solidarity.

As an example, IIRC, the AFL originally in its charter made it clear there was no room in the inn for African-Americans, thereby creating an entire class of naturally born and righteous strike-breakers. Oops...:p

(3) The US political system is systemically and structurally biased against third parties: FPTP plus presidentialism combined make two-party politics a structural default, and heavy federalism further limits the ability of third parties to rise nationally.

Third parties were only workable in the era of rapid US expansion in the 19th century. It would take mergers with Mexico:confused: and Canada:confused: to change all that.

(4) The vote; in Europe, unions obtained a lot of influence in fighting for the vote. And of course many of the unions took on a very radical character plus a large membership. The US already had universal white male suffrage and this was actually a lost opportunity for unions, and by extension Marxism, to spread influence.

I've noticed how some of the more nationalistic AH.com members of other countries have tried to make the argument that the USA DIDN'T have True. Voting. Rights. for White Males because they could always find some state or county:rolleyes: that had some form of limited franchise in the early to mid-19th century...:p That, and that their own countries alreay HAD "true 'virtual' representation" by simply having people dedicated to answering for the peoples' redresses for their complaints.;)

Also, the whole concept of unions was taken VERY negatively in the non-working class American public. Unions did not reach true legal status (the police could no longer be sicced on them, nor privately hired thugs either) until the second term of the FDR Administration!:eek: And even that took Roosevelt breaking the back of the US Supreme Court by having the Fear of God put into them by his court packing bill.

Even so, socialism was actually a fairly influential strain of progressivism in the late 19th and 20th Century. By absolute numbers, the US Socialist Party was the largest socialist party in the world in the early part of the century, though of course proportionately smaller. Socialist movements had a lot of strength in heavily Jewish and German urban centers as well as in much of the rural Plains and Upper Midwest (the Dakotas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota). The party was destroyed by infighting over WWI, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the Wilson-era crackdown. It's possible that absent these factors, Socialists could have remained influential and could either have been absorbed into one of the two major parties (creating a heavy socialist influence) or united with other progressive groups to displace one of the two major parties.

TBH, I always saw the Socialists as in truth being absorbed by the New Deal, save for the more extreme Leftist wing of the Socialists. IIRC, the Socialist Party leadership decided (reluctantly) to support America's role in WWI. I doubt that if the Socialists of today were around then, that would still have happened.

I remember an article in Foreign Affairs concerning that very question. The chap who wrote it was a total leftist but he had some very valid points. One of the key ones was that the so-called working class became the so-called middle class and as such became property owners. Those are the people less likely to buy into a philosophy that shuns private property and those who had to earn their property the hard way are least likely to give it up to benefit those who they do not see as trying.

If this country keeps tipping into Gilded Age 2.0 (minus the child labor:eek:) the Socialists could make a comeback. Elizabeth Warren is no Socialist, much less a Marxist (nevermind what you see on Fixed News), but the open public support for her to make a White House run despite her endless Shermanesque statements definitely shows a growing hunger in the American Electorate somebody to DO something.

I'd also add co-opting of social liberal ideals by the two parties (One party over the other at times [1]) to mitigate the excesses of the Gilded Age capitalism did a good job at sapping whatever advantage socialist or Marxist parties had. [2] Why risk voting for a small-radical party that probably won't get elected when you can vote for a major party that supports similar, but tempered, solutions that has a good chance of winning? [3]

1] AFAIK, the GOP hasn't had liberal social ideas since the Southern Strategy. The Tea Party has just made that go turbo.

2] The CPUSA hit its all time membership numerically and proportionally in the USA in 1935, a period when Stalin's Great Terror was only a horrible rumor and FDR's New Deal was suffering after being partially broken by the Five Old Men of the Charles Evans Hughes Supreme Court.

3] Historically, such can only happen historically in local elections, where local corruption is so bad, so systemic, that the public just throws up its hands. My father told me of his hometown of Bridgeport, a major city in SW Connecticut. They elected the Socialist McLevy, who was re-elected again and again for many years. Ironically, on a very libertarian platform! No snow collections:p After he retired, back came the crooks, in both parties. It didn't matter. And Bridgeport became a hollow shell at a time when Cleveland, Detroit, and Pittsburg still had thriving industrial centers. [4]

4] I can remember as a teenager playing around the ruins of Bridgeport Brass and the Frisbee Pie company.:(

Race really undermined the possibility for even a strong, independent labor party a la Britain. [5]

5] For the African-American community, its always been a choice between the Dixiecrats:eek:, or the Party of Lincoln.:cool: Then it became a choice between FDR/JFK/LBJ/Clinton/Obama:cool: OR ELSE Reagan/Newt/W/Teabaggers:(

Small wonder the AA Vote has always been 90-10 one way or the other. They've never really been left with much of a choice. The FDR Era was probably the closest they've ever had to a real choice, and even then that depended on where they lived.

And even then it wasn't a guarantee. Look at the anti-German sentiment during World War I.

That was a brief spasm, very much regretted immediately postwar.

Or earlier if a Catholic of German origin, or worse a Jew.

Go back far enough, and you'll find enormous anti-German sentiments starting in the American Revolutionary War (Damned Hessians!:mad:) and going on long after right up until the 1848 Irish immigrations. By this time, the German-Americans had been assimilated, or were the local majority. Anti-Catholic bigotry was part of it, but being a Protestant wasn't a big help if you were German. They represented the first major non-British immigration wave in US history, and for xenophobic naturally born Americans, that was enough.

That prejudice even extended to of all people Major General William Frederick von Steuben, Inspector General of the US army [6] and one of the three American divisional commanders at Yorktown. [7] When Washington, as President, was going over a personal list of candidates to be appointed for a campaign against the Natives in the west, listed among Steuben's demerits: "...and a foreigner.":( This, about a man who came here for a short time in the role of a mercenary, decided he liked what he saw, gave up his title, and took American citizenship.:cool:

6] If Washington is considered The Father of Our Country, von Steuben is considered The Father of the United States Army.:cool: [8]

7] You don't see him in the famous painting of the Yorktown surrender because he volunteered to remain with his troops, as they were dedicated to guarding the British prisoners.

8] As his arrival was during the winter encampment of Washington's army at Valley Forge, this is why THAT particular winter is always referred to in American history books for schoolchildren. Washington's men would suffer worse winters, but it was there that von Steuben "forged" Washington's rag tag band of Continentals into a hardened professionalized force. It was at Valley Forge that was seen the true birth of the United States Army.:cool:

And he was gay...:p
 
I have a suspicion that the fact that Americans were the wealthiest people in the world up until the 1960s played a bigger role than racism. The timing is off if you want to blame race, as well; the Great Migration (the move of southern blacks to northern urban centers) really only took off in the 1920s, but it's not like the Socialist Party was booming before then.

Think Red Summer, 1919. Or the destruction of multiracial coalitions in the South.

A lot of extremely wealthy countries had, at the very least, labor parties. It's definitely a big factor, and decisive in Europe, but not a lone one. Having a very large, bleeding-sore race problem, and sectional-development issues related to this, is also what separates the US from the rest of the west at the time. Wealth, development, naval power and/or isolation is what separates the Anglosphere from Continental class rumblings.
 
Last edited:
Top