Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?

Author(s): Eric Foner

Source: History Workshop, No. 17 (Spring, 1984), pp. 57-80
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4288545
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Why is there no Socialism

in the United States?
by Eric Foner

It is now nearly eighty years since the German sociologist Werner Sombart raised
the question, 'why is there no socialism in the United States?' In the ensuing
decades, the problem has been a source of apparently endless debate among
historians examining the distinctive qualities of the American experience,
American radicals seeking an explanation for their political weakness, and Europeans alternately fascinated and repelled by the capitalist colossus to their west.
Indeed, long before Sombart, the exceptional economic and political history of
the United States commanded attention on both sides of the Atlantic.
Marx and Engels themselves occasionally sought to solve the riddle of
America, the land where, as Marx once put it, capitalism had developed more
'shamelessly' than in any other country. They could never quite decide, however,
whether the unique qualities of nineteenth-century American life boded well or
ill for the future development of socialism. Would the early achievement of
political democracy prove an impediment to class consciousness in the United
States or encourage it by making economic inequalities appear all the more illegitimate? Was the absence of a feudal tradition a barrier to the development of class
ideologies, or did it make possible the early emergence of a modern, socialist
political culture? If America was, in so many ways, the most capitalist nation on
earth, should it not also become the most socialist? Marx and Engels could never
quite answer such questions to their own satisfaction, and subsequent writers who

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have entered into the 'why is there no socialism'quagmirehave rarelybeen more

successful.'
In the end, MarxandEngelsremainedoptimisticaboutprospectsfor socialism
in the United States (Engels even advisingthe 'backward'workersof Britainto
learn from the example of the Knights of Labor.) Other observers, however,
believed that the nature of Americansociety precludedthe emergence of classbased political ideologies on the European model. In 1867 E. L. Godkin, the
Irish-borneditor of The Nation, sought to explainwhy, despite a wave of strikes
in the United States, the 'intense class feeling' so evident in Great Britaincould
not exist in America:
There [in Europe] the workingmanon a strike is not simply a laborerwho
wants more wages: he is a memberof a distinctorder in society, engagedin
a sort of legal war with the other orders.... His employeris not simply a
capitalistin whose profitshe is seeking a largershare:he is the memberof a
hostile class, which . . . it is consideredmean or traitorousfor him to hope
to enter. This feeling, we need hardlysay, does not exist in America. The
social line between the laborerand the capitalisthere is very faintly drawn.
Most successfulemployersof laborhave begunby being laborersthemselves;
most laborershope . . . to become employers.Moreover,there are . . . few
barriersof habit, manners or traditionbetween the artisan and those for
whom he works, so that he does not consider himself the member of an
'order.'Strikes,therefore,are in the United Statesmore a matterof business,
and less a matterof sentiment,than in Europe.... Should the worst come
to the worst [the Americanworker]has the prairiesbehindhim, a fact which
... diffusesthrougheveryworkshopan independenceof feeling, a confidence
in the future, of which the European knows nothing. Besides this, the
Americanworkingclass are in the enjoymentof politicalpower.2
I have quoted Godkin at some length, because the 'why is there no socialism'
debate has not advancedvery far beyond the answershe proposedover a century
ago. Godkin touchedupon nearlyall the elementsfrom which modem responses
to the question are generally forged: American ideology, social mobility, the
natureof the union movement,the politicalstructure.In this essay, I propose to
examinethe most recent trendsin this seeminglytimelessdebate. The essay is not
meant as a history of socialismin the United States, or as an exhaustivesurvey
of the immense body of literaturethat now exists on the subject (since nearly
every work on Americanradicalismand labor explicitlyor implicitlyproposesan
answerto the question,'whyis thereno socialism').It will not examineexpressions
of Americanradicalism,such as abolitionismand feminism,whose impact upon
Americanlife has been far more profoundthan socialism.I hope, however, both
to draw attention to the most recent contributionsto this debate, and to raise
questions about both the adequacyof specific explanations,and the underlying
premisesupon which the entire discussionappearsto rest. It mightwell be worth
raisingat the outset the questionwhetherthe experienceof socialismin the United
States is, in reality, exceptional,or whetherit representsan extreme example of
the dilemmaof socialismthroughoutwesternsociety.
To some extent, the 'why is there no socialism'debate remainsinconclusive
becausethe participantsdefinesocialismin diverse,sometimescontradictoryways.

Socialismand the UnitedStates

59

It is often unclear preciselywhat it is whose absence is to be explained. When

Sombartwrote, in the period before World War I, there existed a reasonably
unifiedbody of socialisttheory and politicalpractice.But since the shatteringof
the internationallabor and socialist movements by World War I, the Russian
Revolution, the rise of socialistand communistpartiesand, indeed, governments
hostile to one anotherbut all claimingthe mantleof 'socialism',and the emergence
of new forms of socialism in the Third World, it is impossibleto contend that
'socialism'retainsa coherentmeaning.Socialismitself possessesa history,but too
often, contributorsto the debate treat it as an ahistoricalabstraction.
Nevertheless,by commonconsent, the extremelyimpreciseproblem, 'why is
there no socialism in the United States' has been reduced to a discrete set of
questions. It does not mean, 'why has the United States not become a socialist
nation?', or even, 'why is there no revolutionarylabor or political movement?'
Rather, the problemis generallydefinedas the absencein the United States of a
large avowedlysocial democraticpoliticalpartylike the Labourparty of Britain,
the FrenchSocialistparty, and the Communistparty of Italy. From the strength
of such parties,moreover,Americanwritersgenerallyinfer a masssocialistconsciousness among the working classes of these countries. Thus, 'why is there no
socialism?'really means, why is the United States the only advancedcapitalist
nation whose political system lacks a social democratic presence and whose
workingclass lacks socialistclass consciousness?
Posed this way, the question does seem to have a primafacie plausibility,
although,as I will suggest,it maywell rest on assumptionsaboutwesternEuropean
politics and class relationsthat are out of date today and may never have been
fully accurate.One must, in other words, be wary of explanationsfor American
exceptionalismbased upon trends and phenomenaequallyevident in other countries. But this is only one of the pitfalls that characterizemany analyses of the
problem.Too often, it is assumedthat a fairlysimple, directconnectionought to
exist between the social structure,class ideologies, and political parties. Many
explanationsof the connectionexist, some, it is true, mutuallyexclusive. Poverty
is sometimes seen as a barrier to radicalism,sometimes as its most powerful
spur; social mobility sometimes is said to increase, sometimes to decrease class
awareness;ethnic cohesivenessis seen as an impedimentto class solidarity,or as
the springboardfrom which it emerges. But whatever the specific argument,
disproportionateinfluenceis too often assignedto a single element of the social
structure,and politics and ideology are too often viewed as simple reflectionsof
economic relationships.
Particularlyin the case of the United States, the conflationof class, society
and politics has unfortunateconsequences.One cannot assume that the absence
of a powerfulsocial democraticpartyimpliesthat Americanworkersfully accept
the status quo (although, as we shall see, such an assumptionis often made.)
Actually, what needs to be explained is the coexistence in Americanhistory of
workplacemilitancyand a politicsorganizedaroundnon-ideologicalpartiesappealing to broad coalitions, rather than the interests of a particularclass. David
Montgomeryhas expressed the problem succinctly:'Americanworkers in the
nineteenthcenturyengagedin economicconflictswith their employersas fierceas
any knownto the industrialworld;yet in their politicalbehaviorthey consistently
failed to exhibit a class consciousness.'Why was militancyin the factoryso rarely
translatedinto the politics of class? Labor and socialist parties have emerged

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in the United States, (indeed, Americans, in the late 1820s, created the first
'Workingmen'sparties'in the world) but they have tended to be locally-oriented
and short-lived.As Montgomeryobserves, the Americanform of socialismhas
centeredon controlof the workplace,ratherthancreatinga working-classpresence
in politics.3 'Whyis there no socialism' thus becomes a problemof explalningthe
disjunctureof industrialrelationsand politicalpracticein the United States.
Finally, there is the problem of proposed answers that simply explain too
much. Descriptionsof an unchangingAmericanideology, or timeless aspects of
the American social order such as mobility, leave little room for understanding
the powerful Americanradicaltraditionbased upon cross-classmovementsand
appeals to moral sentimentratherthan economic interest. Nor can they explain
those periodswhen socialistpoliticsdid attractwidespreadsupport.It is too little
noted that at the time Sombartwrote there was, in fact, socialismin the United
States. In the first fifteen years of this century, the American Socialist party
appeared to rival those in Europe, except the German, in mass support and
prospects for future growth. Around 1910, the American Socialist party had
elected more officialsthan its Englishcounterpart;certainly,Sombart'squestion
mightas readilyhave been asked about Britainas the United Statesbefore World
War I. Thus, what must be explainedis not simplywhy socialismis today absent
from American politics, but why it once rose and fell. Such a definitionof the
question, I will argue, requires that we 'historicize'the problem of American
socialism.Rather than assumingan unchangingpatternof Americanexceptionalism, we need to examinethe key periodswhen Americandevelopmentdiverged
most markedlyfrom that of Europe.
With these admonitionsin mind, let us review some of the most prominent
explanationsfor the weaknessof socialismin the United States. Probablythe most
straight-forwardapproachis the contention that the failure of socialismresults
from the success of Americancapitalism.Variousaspectsof the Americansocial
order, accordingto this argument,have led workersto identifytheir interestswith
the socio-economicstatus quo. This, indeed, was the burden of Sombart'sown
analysis.The economicconditionof workersin the United States, he insisted,was
far better than that of Europeansin terms of wages, housing, and diet. Socially,
moreover,they were far less sharplydistinguishedfromthe middleclassthan their
Europeancounterparts.And finally, they were consciousof being able to move
west if dissatisfiedwiththeirpresentconditions.The successof capitalism,Sombart
believed, made the Americanworker 'a sober, calculatingbusinessman,without
ideals.' 'On the reefs of roast beef and apple pie,' he added, 'socialisticutopias
of every sort are sent to their doom.'4
From FrederickJacksonTurner's'frontierthesis,' whichsaw in the westward
movementthe key to Americandistinctiveness,to more recent studiesattributing
the failure of socialismto high rates of geographicaland social mobilityand the
abilityof Americanworkersto acquireproperty,the successof capitalismhas been
seen as makingthe Americanworkingclass complacentand renderingsocialism
irrelevantto Americanpolitics. As anyone who has lived in both America and
Western Europe can testify, extremelyhigh rates of geographicalmobility are a
distinctive feature of American life. In the nineteenth century, each decade
witnessed a wholesale turnover of population in working-classneighborhoods,
presumablywith adverse effects on the possibility of creating permanentclass
institutions.5Even today, the lure of the Sunbeltdrawsworkersfromthe depressed

Socialismand the UnitedStates

61

industrialheartland,an example of the individual'safety-valve'that Turneridentified as the alternativeto class conflictin the United States. A recent varianton
the theme was the contention,popularduringthe 1960's,that the white working
class had exchangedmaterialsecurityand a privilegedstatusin relationto minorities at home and workers abroad, for a renunciationof economic and political
radicalism.Socialism,accordingto this view, could come to the United Statesonly
as the indirectresult of revolutionsin the thirdworld, or the activityof marginal
social groupslike migrantworkersand welfaremothers,not yet absorbedinto the
Americanmainstream.
Plausibleas they appear,the 'successof capitalism'and 'mobility'approaches
raise as many questions as they answer. First, they rest upon assumptionsabout
the standardof living of Americanworkersthat are rarelysubjectedto empirical
verification.Have the wage levels and ratesof socialmobilityof Americanworkers
alwaysbeen significantlyhigherthan in WesternEurope?Vague referencesto the
'scarcityof labor' in the United States do not suffice to answer that question.6
Manyimmigrantscomplainedthat certainaspectsof their lives -- the length of the
work day, the pace of factory labor - comparedunfavorablywith conditionsat
home.
More importantly,the preciseimplicationsof the abilityto acquireproperty
for class consciousnessand socialism are far more problematicalthan is often
assumed. A venerabletraditionof analysis, datingback at least as far as Alexis
de Tocqueville, insists that far from promotingpolitical stability,social mobility
is a destabilizingforce, raisingexpectationsfaster than they can be satisfiedand
thus encouragingdemands for further change. Certainly,recent American and
Europeanstudies of labor historysuggestthat the better off workers- artisanlsin
the nineteenthcentury,skilled factoryworkersin the twentieth,were most likely
to take the lead in union organizingand radical politics.7As for geographical
mobility, until historiansare able to generalize about the success or failure of
those millionswho have, over the decades,left Americanfarmsandcities in search
of economic opportunity,the implicationsof the extraordinaryturbulenceof the
Americanpopulationmustremainan open question.8But in anycase, the historian
must beware of the temptationsimply to deduce political ideology from social
statisticsor to assign disproportionateinfluence to a single aspect of the social
structure.And finally, the 'successof capitalism'formulacan hardlyexplain the
relative weakness of socialism during the Great Depression, which failed to
producea mass-basedsocialistmovement,or the radicalismof the 1960's,which
arose in a period of unparalleledaffluence.
Even more popularthan the 'socialmobility'thesis is the contentionthat the
very ethos of Americanlife is inherentlyhostile to class consciousness,socialisnm,
and radicalismof any kind. Probablythe best known expressionof this point of
view is Louis Hartz's The Liberal Traditionin America. To summarizeHartz's
argumentvery briefly,Americanswere 'bornequal', never havinghad to launch
a revolutionto obtain politicaldemocracyor social equality, with the result that
American ideology has been dominated by a Lockean, individualisticoutlook
againstwhich neither socialismon the left nor serious conservatismon the right
can make any headway.A thoroughlybourgeois'fragment'spun off by Europe,
Americapossessedonly one part of the Europeansocial order. Lackinga hereditaryaristocracyanda dispossessedworkingclass, it had no need for classideologies
and politics.

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No feudalism, no socialism. This oft-repeated aphorismsums up Hartz's

contention that socialismarises from a vision, inheritedfrom the feudal past, of
a society based upon a structureof fixed orders and classes. Without a feudal
tradition, and a sense of class oppressionin the present, Americansare simply
unable to think in class terms. Indeed, in its ideals of social mobility,individual
fulfilment, and material acquisitiveness,American ideology produced a utopia
morecompellingthananythingsocialismcouldoffer. Socialistscalledfor a classless
society;Americans,accordingto Hartz,were convincedthey alreadylived in one.9
Dominant in the 1950's, the 'consensus'school of Americanhistoriography
exemplified by Hartz has lately been supplantedby an interpretationof the
Americanpast markedless by ideological agreementthan by persistentconflict
amongvariousracialand ethnicgroupsand classes.The rise of the new social and
labor history,and a new sensitivityto the historicalexperienceof blacks,women,
and others ignored in Hartz'sformulation,have made historiansextremelywary
of broadgeneralizationsabout a unitary'Americanideology.' The work of Hartz,
RichardHofstadterand others appearsto a generationof historianswho came
of age in the turmoil of the 1960's as excessively celebratoryof the American
experience.

Actually, like Hofstadter'sThe AmericanPolitical Tradition,the first major

expressionof the consensusinterpretation,TheLiberalTraditionwas not a celebration of Americandistinctivenessat all, but a devastatingcritiqueof a political
cultureincapableof producinganythingapproachingan originalidea. There was
a right-wingbias in muchconsensuswriting(represented,for example, by Daniel
Boorstin, who gloried in the native pragmatismthat, he contended, enabled
Americansto escape the disruptivepoliticalideologiesof Europe). But Hartzand
Hofstadter,who shared Marxistbackgrounds,believed America'simprisonment
withinthe confinesof liberalideology renderedit incapableof understandingthe
social realitiesof the modernworld. They were concernedless with socialismand
its failure than with affirmingthe underlyingunities on which the American
experience was girded, and with supplyinga correctiveto older interpretations
that had mistakenthe familyquarrelsof Americanpoliticalpartiesfor ideological
strugglesover the natureof Americansociety.'0
The workof the new laborand socialhistory,as I have indicated,has battered
the consensusinterpretation.In contrastto the universaldiffusionof liberalvalues,
students of working-classculture have stressed the developmentof semi-autonomous working-classand ethnic culturesresting on an ethic of communityand
mutuality,rather than individualismand competition.11The idea of an unchallenged bourgeoishegemony is also weakened when one considersthat until the
Civil War, the most powerfulpoliticalclass in the United Stateswas composedof
southern slaveholdingplanters, a group bourgeois in neither its relationshipto
labor nor its social ideology. Althoughthe Old South was hardly'feudal'(a term
Hartz invokes without providing any precise definition), it was certainly prebourgeois in many respects. One might almost suggest that with its aristocratic
social order and disfranchisedlaboringclass, the South should, if Hartzis correct,
have providedfertile soil for socialism.12
Hartz's thesis has also been weakened from an entirely differentdirection:
intellectualhistory. Recent writingon eighteenth-centuryAmericanideology has
not simply dethroned Locke from the pivotal ideological role accordedhim by
Hartz, but has virtually expelled him from the pantheon of early American

Socialismand the UnitedStates

63

thought. The political rhetoricof the AmericanRevolution, accordingto recent

studies, owed less to Lockean liberalism than to classical republicanism,an
ideology that definedthe pursuitof individualself-interestas a repudiationof that
'virtue' (devotion to the public good) indispensablein a republicancitizenry.
Eventually,liberalismtriumphedas the dominantrhetoricof Americanpolitical
culture, but not until well into the nineteenth century, and as the result of a
historicalprocesswhose outlines remainunclear.But if Hartz'sliberalconsensus
did not characterizeall of Americanhistory,then other elementsof his argument,
such as the absence of a feudal past, lose much of their explanatorypower. The
notion of an overarchingliberal consensus went far toward understandingthe
context within which Hartz wrote - America of the 1950's- but has proved of
little value in explainingthe strengthof challengesto the capitalistorder ranging
from the class violence of 1877 to the Knightsof Labor, Populism,and the old
SocialistParty.13
Nonetheless, Hartz's contention that even American radicals have been
trapped within a liberal ideology devoted to the defense of individualismand
private propertyis not entirely incompatiblewith recent studies of the radical
tradition.From Tom Paine's studieddistinctionbetween society and government
(the former an unmixed blessing, the latter a necessary evil) to abolitionists'
critique of all social and political relationshipsembodying coercion, to the
American anarchistswhose individualistoutlook differed so markedlyfrom the
class-orientedanarchistmovementsof Europe, a potent strandof the American
radicaltraditionhas rested upon hostilityto the state and the defense of the free
individual.The ideologies of nineteenth-centurylabor and farmers'movements,
and even early twentieth-centurysocialismitself, owed more to traditionalrepublican notions of the equal citizen and the independentsmallproducer,than to the
coherentanalysisof class-dividedsociety.
Pre-capitalistculture, it appears,was the incubatorof resistanceto capitalist
development in the United States. The world of the artisan and small farmer
persisted in some parts of the United States into the twentieth century, and
powerfullyinfluencedAmericanradicalmovements.The hallmarksof labor and
Populist rhetoricwere demands for 'equal rights,' anti-monopoly,land reform,
and an end to the exploitationof producersby non-producers.These movements
inheritedan older republicantraditionhostile to large accumulationsof property,
but viewing small propertyas the foundationof economic and civic autonomy.
Perhapswe oughtto standHartzon his head. Not the absenceof non-liberalideas,
but the persistenceof a radicalvision restingon small propertyinhibitedthe rise
of socialistideologies. Recent studiesof Americansocialismitself, indeed, stress
the contrastbetween native-bornsocialists,whose outlook relied heavily on the
older republican tradition, and more class-conscious immigrant socialists.
According to Nick Salvatore, Americansocialists like Eugene V. Debs viewed
corporatecapitalism,not socialism, as the revolutionaryforce in Americanlife,
disruptinglocal communities,underminingthe ideal of the independentcitizen,
and introducingclass divisionsinto a previouslyhomogenoussocial order.14
Salvatoreand other recent writersare not revertingto a consensusview of
American history, though their work explores the values native-bornsocialists
sharedwith other Americans.But ironically,at the same time that one group of
historiansstronglyinfluencedby the radicalismof the 1960swas dismantlingthe
consensusview of the Americanpast, anotherwas resurrectingit, as a theory of

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the 'hegemony'of middle-classor capitalistvalues in the United States. In one

versionof the consensus/hegemonyapproach,laborandcapitalwere seen as united
by an ideology of 'corporateliberalism'that, beneath an anti-businessveneer,
servedthe interestsof the existingorder. Governmentregulationof the economy,
hailedby Americanreformersas a meansof bluntingcapitalistrapaciousness,and
seen by manyradicalsas a steppingstone to a fully plannedeconomyand perhaps
even socialismitself, was now interpretedas the vehicle throughwhichcapitalists
were able to control the politicaleconomy without appearingto do so. Because
of the resiliencyof corporateliberalism,virtuallyall popularprotest movements
had been incorporatedwithinthe expandingcapitalistorder.15
A somewhatdifferentversionof the 'hegemony'argumentemphasizesculture
rather than political ideology. The rise of mass culture, the mass media, and
mass consumptionin twentieth-centuryAmerica, accordingto this view, not only
renderedobsolete the socialistgoal of buildingan alternativeculturewithincapitalist society, but shapedthe aspirationsof workers,makingleisureand consumption, rather than work or politics, the yardsticksof personalfulfilment.Recent
studies of nineteenth-and early twentieth-centuryAmericanradicalmovements
have focused not on such traditionalconcernsas politicalideology and organizational history, but on the creationof 'countercultures'within the largersociety.
Obviouslyinfluencedby the theoryof hegemony(and in some cases, by a perhaps
idealized understandingof the much-publicizedculturalactivitiesof the modern
ItalianCommunistParty), these workshave impliedthat the seedbed of socialist
politics is a counter-hegemonicset of culturalinstitutions,ratherthan the polity
or the workplace.But studies of the modernworkingclass have emphasizedthe
disintegrationof 'working-classculture.''Sociallife,' contendsone such analysis,
'is no longer organizedaround the common relation to the productionof both
cultureand commodities.The workingclass publicsphereis dead.'16
Unfortunately,the consensusinterpretationin its radical'hegemony'variants
still suffers from the problem of homogenizingthe Americanpast and present.
Indeed, in adoptingthe notion of hegemonyfrom Gramsci,Americanhistorians
have often transformedit from a subtle mode of exploringthe ways class struggle
is mutedandchanneledin modernsociety,into a substitutefor it. The sophisticated
analysisof a writerlike RaymondWilliams,who observeshow diverseideologies
can surviveeven in the face of apparent'hegemony',is conspicuouslyabsentfrom
American writing.'7The notion that mass culture and mass society render any
kind of resistanceimpossible, moreover, can hardly explain the dissatisfactions
reflectedin the radicalismof the 1960s. In the end, the 'hegemony'argumenttoo
often ends up being circular.Ratherthan being demonstrated,the 'hegemony'of
mass cultureand liberalvalues is inferredfrom the 'absence'of protest, and then
this absenceis attributedto the self-same'hegemony.'
An entirelydifferentset of answersto the 'whyis there no socialism'question
derivesfrom the sociologyof the workingclass itself, and examinesaspectsof the
Americansocial order that make it difficultfor workersto organizesuccessfully.
The assumptionis that socialist politics is unlikely to emerge in the face of an
internallydividedworkingclass. The traditionalassumptionthatcapitalistdevelopment must produce an increasinglyhomogenousproletariatwith a single set of
interests, representedby unions and a political party, has given way before a
recognitionof the manykindsof divisionsand stratificationsbuiltinto the capitalist
laborprocessitself. Divisionsbetweenthe skilledandunskilled,craftandindustrial

:'L*efti

5N

Industrial Worker, August 25, 1917

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workers, often reinforcedby divisionsalong lines of race, ethnicityand gender,

belie the notion of a unified working class. It is doubtful, however, that such
divisions are very useful in explainingthe unique features of American labor
history,for it appearsthat similarsegmentationexists in other advancedcapitalist
societies. The United States is hardlythe only countrywhere capitalistdevelopment has failed to producea homogenousworkingclass.18
Even more common than labor marketsegmentationas an explanationfor
the distinctive history of the American working class, is its racial and ethnic
heterogeneity.The complexweb of backgroundsfromwhichthe Americanproletariat emergedis often seen as renderingunity along class lines all but impossible.
the notion that the exceptionaldiversityof
Althoughapparentlystraight-forward,
the Americanworkingclass has inhibitedboth class consciousnessand socialist
politics, actuallyencompassesa numberof distinctapproachesto Americanlabor
history.
On the simplestlevel, it is easy to point to the criticalrole racismand ethnic
prejudiceshave played in shapingthe history of Americanlabor. For most of
Americanhistory, black workerswere systematicallyexcluded by most unions.
On the West Coast, prejudiceagainstthe Chinese shaped the labor movement,
helpingto solidifythe dominationof conservativeskilledcraftworkersover a lessskilledmajority.The racismof manylabororganizationsin turnfosteredprejudice
againstunions among minorityworkers.19And even in the case of white ethnic
groups, differencesof language, culture and traditionclearly made organization
difficultearlyin this century,whenmassiveimmigrationfromsouthernand eastern
Europe coincidedwith the rapid expansionand consolidationof monopolycapitalism.The constantredefinitionand recreationof Americanlabor(a processthat
continuestoday with new waves of immigration),also meant that working-class
institutionsand traditionshad to be rebuilt and battles refought over and over
again. 'The making of the American working class' (a subject yet to find its
historian)was a processthat occurredmany times, ratherthan once.
The diversebackgroundsfrom whichthe Americanworkingclass was forged
is sometimes seen as affectingclass consciousnessin other ways as well. Racial
and ethnic loyalties often drew men and women into cross-classalliances,while
racism, nativism, and ethnic hostilities inheritedfrom Europe all inhibited the
developmentof a consciousnessof workers'collectiveinterests.Immigrantgroups
created a complex network of ethnic social, religious and political institutions,
divertingworking-classenergiesfrom institutionslike unions and radicalpolitical
partiesthat explicitlysoughtto unite men and womenacrossethniclines.20Others
contendthat the culturalheritageof Catholicimmigrants,who comprisedso large
a portion of the industrialworkingclass, made them unreceptiveto any form of
political radicalism.In his pioneering study of Irish immigrantsin nineteenthcenturyBoston, OscarHandlinportrayeda religiouscommunitythat saw efforts
to changethe worldas at best futile and at worstsacreligious.Handlin'sargument
has sometimesbeen generalizedto the propositionthat ex-peasantimmigrantsare
inherentlyindifferentor hostile to radicalmovements.(This contentionbegs the
questionof why, for instance,groupslike Italianimmigrantsplayed so prominent
a role in the creation of the labor and socialist movementsin Argentina,while
allegedly eschewingradicalismin the United States.) Another line of argument
derivesfrom the large numbersof early twentieth-century'new immigrants'(Italians, Poles, Greeks, etc.) who were actuallymigrantlaborers, planningonly a

Socialismand the UnitedStates

67

brief stay in the United States. In 1910, for example, threequartersas many
Italians left for home as entered the United States. Not intendingto make the
United States a permanenthaven, Gerald Rosenblumargues, these new immigrantsreinforcedthe narrow'business'orientationof Americanlabororganizations:
higherwages, not efforts at social change, were what attractedthem to unions.21
Despite the popularityof what might be called the 'ethnic'interpretationof
the weaknessof Americansocialism,it is by no meansclear that culturaldivisions
were an insuperablebarrierto class consciousnessor political socialism.Racism
and ethnic prejudice are not, as they are sometimes treated, 'transhistorical'
phenomenathat exists independentof historicaltime and place. What needs to
be studiedis what kind of organizingand what conditionshave allowedunionsto
overcome pre-existingprejudices.Unions organizedon an industrialbasis have
undercertaincircumstancesbeen able to bringblack and white workerstogether.
The IndustrialWorkersof the Worldmanagedto lead successful,militantstrikes
earlyin this centuryby recognizingthat ethnicitycan, undercertaincircumstances,
generatedistinctiveformsof radicalprotest.This is especiallytrue whereclass and
ethnic lines coincide, as in turn-of-the-century
Americanindustrialcommunities.
Ethnic group solidarity,Victor Greene has argued, actuallyincreasedmilitancy
during strikes by immigrantworkers in the Pennsylvaniacoal fields, and the
IWW'stacticof establishingstrikecommitteescomposedof democratically-elected
representativesfrom each ethnic group, broughtto its strikes all the strengthof
the pre-existingnetworkof immigrantinstitutions.So long as each groupbelieved
no one group was receivingfavored treatment,the bonds of ethnicityin no way
contradicteda willingnessto work with others. Like many 'global'explanationsof
the failure of socialism, in other words, the ethnic approachproves too much:
ratherthan investigatingthe specificcircumstancesunderwhich racialand ethnic
divisionsinhibitclass solidarity,it assumesthat a diverseworkingclass can never
achieve unity in economic or politicalaction.22
From the recent emphasisupon the resiliencyof immigrantsub-cultureshas
emerged the latest explanationfor the failure of American socialism. In The
RadicalPersuasionAileen Kraditor,a formerradicalhistorianwho has repudiated
her earlierwritingsand taken a prominentrole in a new conservativehistorians'
crganization,argues that the very strengthof ethnic culturesrenderedpolitical
radicalismirrelevant to the immigrantproletariat. In early twentieth-century
America, accordingto Kraditor,workerswere able to create culturalenclavesso
self-sufficientthat they saw no need for far-reachingpolitical change: all they
wantedwas to be left alone, enjoyingrelativelocal autonomy.Those radicalswho
did try to organize in lower-classcommunitieswere perceived either as misfits
who had rejectedtheirculturalinheritanceor as representativesof a hostileoutside
environment.In a sense, Kraditor'sbook representsa rightward,but in some
ways logical, extension of the new social and labor history. Her emphasisupon
the culturalresiliencyof immigrantworkers'ethnic communitiesreflectsa major
preoccupationof recent historicalwriting,as does her subordinationof political
and ideological considerationsto ones of culture. Correctlycriticizingan older
stereotypeof the unifiedclass-consciousproletariat,Kraditorsubstitutesanother
equally ahistoricalconstruct, the self-satisfied,community-orientedworker, for
whom the privatesphereis sufficientunto itself and who is thereforeuninterested
in radicalideologies or politicalchange.23
Related to the compositionof the Americanworkingclass, of course, is the

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distinctivecharacterof Americantrade unionismitself. Why, despite a historyof

labor violence unparalleledin Europe, does organizedlabor in the United States
appearso muchmore conservativeand apoliticalthan its Europeancounterparts?
Sometimes,attentionis drawnto the exclusionarypoliciesof AmericanFederation
of Laborunions, whose craftbasis of organizationreinforcedpre-existingdivisions
between skilled and unskilledworkers,and excludedlarge numbersof workersblacks, women, new immigrants,etc., from the labor movement. Indeed, it has
been arguedby JamesO'Connorthat, in a nationin whichno more than a quarter
of the workforcehas ever belongedto tradeunions,the higherwages of unionized
workersare, in effect, subsidizedby lower-paidnon-unionworkersvia inflation.
Other writerscontend that the problemis not the nature and role of unionsper
se, but the fact that laborleadershave constantlysoughtto undercutthe militancy
of the rank and file, preferringaccommodationswith capital to prolongedclass
struggle.Whetherthis is a questionof the perfidyof individual'misleaders'or the
growth of bureaucraticstructuresisolating officials from their membership,the
result has been a union movementuninterestedin posing a politicalchallengeto
capital.
No one, however, has satisfactorilyexplained how and why a presumably
militant rank and file constantlychooses moderate 'misleaders'to representit.
And it should be noted that the implicit portrait of class-consciousworkers
betrayed again and again by a corruptor moderate leadershipassumes a unity
and militancyamong Americanworkersthat other approachesto the 'failureof
socialism'question have discounted.One might, in fact, argue that at a number
of pointsin Americanhistory,the imageof a moderateleadershipcurbinga radical
rank and file ought to be reversed.In the 1930s, for example, it is now clear that
socialist and communistorganizersplayed a pivotal role in galvanizingworkingclass protest and creatingthe CIO industrialunions.24
Thus far, we have consideredapproachesto the question of socialismthat
focus upon on the society or the workplace.An alternativepoint of view looks to
the nature of the American political system since it is a political party whose
absenceis to be explained.Variousaspectsof Americanpolitics,it is argued,have
made it difficultfor labor or socialistparties to establishthemselveseffectively.
First, there is the early achievementof politicaldemocracyin the United States,
the 'free gift of the ballot' as Selig Perlmantermed it. Unlike the situation in
Europe, the vast majorityof male Americanworkersenjoyed the suffragewell
before the adventof the industrialrevolution.In England,class consciousnesswas
galvanized, at least in part, by the struggle for the vote and the exclusion of
workersfrom the suffrageparalleledand reinforcedthe sense of a class-divided
society learned at the workplace.In the United States, however, the 'lessons'of
the polity were the opposite of those of the economy. In the latter, the worker
often perceivedhimselfas a memberof a distinctclass;in the former,he thought
of himself as an equal citizen of the republic.Alan Dawley, indeed, writes that
'the ballot box was the coffin of class consciousness' in nineteenth-century
America. Not only were the major parties remarkablyadept at absorbinglabor
leaders into political office, but the early achievement of political democracy
gave workersa vested interestin the existingpoliticalorder. Americanworkers,
accordingto this argument,developeda strongsense of their 'rights'in both polity
and workplace, but were not convinced of the necessity of launchinga direct
nationalpoliticalchallengeto capital.Perhapslaborpartiesneveradvancedbeyond

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69

the local level in the United States becauseworkersdid not see the nationalstate
as being under the control of a hostile class. And even on the local level, Ira
Katznelsonargues,workerstraditionallyallocatedeconomicissuesto unions,while
politics revolved not around questions of class, but rather the distributionof
patronageamong competingethnic groupsby urbanpoliticalmachines.25
The unusualstructureof Americanpolitics has also affected the possibilities
for socialistparties.The electoralcollege method of choosingthe presidenthelps
entrenchthe two-partysystem (since votes cast for a thirdcandidatewho cannot
achieve a majorityare 'wasted'). The size and regional diversityof the country
has made it difficultto translatelocal laborstrengthinto nationalpower. American
politicalpartieshave proven remarkablyadept at absorbingprotest, adoptingthe
demandsof reformersin watered down form, and forcing radicalsto choose in
elections between the lesser of two evils. The contrast between the American
1930's,when FranklinD. Roosevelt'sNew Deal made broadconcessionsto labor
and therebycementedan alliancewith the union movement,and the conservative
policiesof Depression-eraBritishgovernments,is only one exampleof the remarkable flexibilityof Americanparties. To liberal historians,such actions vindicate
the receptivityof the Americanpoliticalorderto demandsfor reform;to radicals
they often appearas frustratingbarriersto trulyradicalchange.26
Other political factors have also inhibited the rise of labor and socialist
politics. Americanhistorianshave yet to assessthe full implicationsof the disfranchisement of southern blacks from the late nineteenthcentury until the 1960's.
Here was a group comprisinga significantportionof the Americanworkingclass
that, when given the opportunity,proved receptive to parties like the Populists
whichsoughtfar-reachingchangesin Americanlife. Theirexclusionfrompolitical
participationshifted Americanpolitics to the right while entrenchingwithin the
Democratic party a powerful bloc of Southernreactionaries.At various times,
immigrantsand most migrantlaborershave also been barredfrom voting. Industrial workers, moreover, have never formed anythingapproachinga majorityof
the Americanelectorate. In a vast nation, predominantlyruraluntil well into this
century, parties resting exclusively upon labor could not hope to win national
power. In 1900, the United States was already the world's foremost induistrial
power, yet a majorityof the populationstill lived in places with fewer than 2500
residents.
A final 'political'considerationoften stressed by historianssympatheticto
Americansocialismbut minimizedby those who are not, is outrightrepression.
The Populistswere deprivedof electoralvictoriesthroughoutthe Southby blatant
fraudin the 1890's.Violence by federaland state troops and privatepolice forces
suppressedstrikeson manyoccasions,andcourtinjunctionsdefeatedmanyothers.
The first Red Scare of 1919-20, whichjailed and deportedradicalleaders, devastated both the SocialistPartyand IWW. The second, after WorldWar II, effectively destroyedthe CommunistParty.27
Each of these 'political'approachescontains an element of plausibility,but
many suffer from a shortcomingshared by other explanationsfor the failure of
socialism:they invoke aspectsof Americanpoliticscommonto other countriesto
explainAmericanexceptionalism.To take one example,virtuallyevery European
socialistmovementsufferedgovernmentalrepressionat one time or anotherin its
history, sometimes far more severe repressionthan anythingexperiencedin the
United States (very few Americanradicals,after all, were ever executed by the

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state.) The Spanishlabor and communistmovementssufferedunderFranco, the

ItalianunderMussolini;Germansocialistsfaced Bismark'santi-socialistlaws. Yet
all managedto survive,and some emergedstrongerthan ever. The 1919and postWorldWar II Red Scareswere not confinedto the United States. Why, one may
ask, has repressionproved more effective against radicalsin the United States
than elsewhere?Of course, one might argue that the very opennessof American
politics, the normalityof democraticprocedures, makes it difficultfor radical
movements to deal with repression when it does appear. American radicals,
because of the democraticpoliticalculturefrom which they have emerged, have
lacked the traditionof undergroundorganizationthat might have enabled them
to survive repressivegovernments.Of course, one might also ask why, if the
state has been unusuallyrepressivein the United States, Americanworkershave
persisted in viewing the national government as somehow being above class
politics.
Other politicalexplanationsalso leave importantquestionsunanswered.The
electoralcollege systembiases Americanpoliticstowardsa two-partysystem, but
does not explain why socialistshave been unable to replace the Republicansor
Democratswith a socialistor labor party(as the Republicansreplacedthe Whigs
in the 1850's.) The fact that industrialworkers form a minority of the total
population is hardly unique to the United States. Socialist and labor parties
everywherehave come to power by appealingto middle-classand ruralvoters as
well as industriallaborers.In every industrialcountry,moreover,a considerable
minorityof workershas alwaysvoted for non-socialistparties.The implicitcomparison between a class-consciousEuropeanworkingclass and the politicallyfragmented Americanproletariatmay not stand up to careful scrutinyof European
politicalhistory.
Thus far, the answersto the socialismproblemhave been largely'external'they have focusedupon aspectsof Americansocietyandpoliticsthathaveinhibited
the growth of socialist politics and working-classconsciousness.There are also
explanationsthat mightbe describedas 'internal'- those that focus on the nature
and presumed errors of radical movements themselves. Such an approachhas
an obvious appeal for more optimisticleft-orientedhistorians.For if essentially
unchangingaspectsof Americansociety- socialmobility,the 'Americanideology,'
the nature of the political system - are responsiblefor the failure of socialism,
there appearsto be little reason to hope for a futurerevivalof socialistfortunes.
If, however, tactical, strategicor ideological errors sabotagedprevious socialist
movements, then perhaps future radicalscan learn from past mistakes, avoid
repeatingthem, and rebuildAmericansocialism.
The 'internal'approachalso has the virtueof directingattentionto the actual
historiesof pastsocialistmovementsandthe specificcircumstancesthatcontributed
to theirrise and fall. After all, if one acceptsas sufficientan 'external'explanation,
one need not study in any detail the history of particularattempts to create a
socialist politics in the United States. The 'internal'approach,in other words,
tends to 'historicize'the socialismquestion, forcingthe historianto examine the
specific contingenciesthat affected the failure of socialist parties, rather than
focusingon generalizationsaboutAmericansociety so sweepingas almostto stand
outside historyitself. Not surprisingly,the two periods of Americanhistorythat
have attractedmost attentionfrom those interestedin tracingthe historyof past
socialisms, are the first two decades of this century, and the 1930's and 1940's.

Socialismand the UnitedStates

71

Both stand out as eras when the trajectoryof socialistmovementsin the United
States diverged most markedlyfrom that of their Europeancounterparts.Why
did the Socialist and Communist parties fail to build upon their undoubted
successes and establish themselves as permanentparts of the American body
politic?
One kind of internalapproach,associatedmost prominentlywith Daniel Bell,
argues that American socialists and communistsfailed to attractbroad support
because of their sectarianorientationand concernwith ideologicalpurityrather
than the give and take essentialto successin Americanpolitics. 'In the worldbut
not of it,' they eschewedreformsin favorof a preoccupationwith socialistrevolution, therebyisolatingthemselvesmore or less by choice. A somewhatanalogous
argumentis that of JamesWeinstein,who begins by challengingBell's portraitof
the Socialistparty, insistingthat between 1900 and 1919 it acted as a traditional
reformistparty, taking ideology less seriouslythan the winningof votes. In the
end, however, accordingto Weinstein,the partysuccumbedto the kind of ideological rigidity described by Bell, the attempt of one faction, allied with the
Comintern, to impose the Soviet model of a highly-disciplined,ideologically
correctpartyuponwhathad been a broadcoalitionin the mainstreamof American
politics.28

Despite its successin winninglocal elections (the Socialistpartyby 1912had

elected some twelve hundredlocal officialsand thirty-threestate legislators,and
controlledmunicipalgovernmentsin such cities as Schenectady,Milwaukeeand
Berkeley) and attractinga respectablevote for Eugene V. Debs for presidentin
1912(900,000ballots, or six per cent of the electorate),the Socialistpartysuffered
from a numberof internalweaknesses.Paul Buhle stressesthe nativismof many
Socialistparty leaders and their unwillingnessto reach out to the new immigrant
proletariat.The party'selectoral obsession, which led it to measurethe advance
of socialismalmost solely in terms of the ballot box, led it to neglect organizing
when votes were not at stake. Preoccupiedwith electoral strategies, the party
failed to respond to the massive upheaval of the unskilled immigrantfactory
workersbetween 1909and 1919.Wherewas the Socialistpartyat McKee'sRocks,
Lawrenceor the great steel strike of 1919?The IndustrialWorkersof the World
demonstratedthat it was possible to organizethe new immigrantproletariat,but
despite sympathyfor the IWWon the part of Debs and other left-wingsocialists,
the two organizationswent their separateways. Here, indeed, was the underlying
tragedyof those years: the militancyexpressedin the IWW was never channeled
for political purposes while socialist politics ignored the immigrantworkers.
Indeed, the Socialist party's strengthlay not among factory workers but in an
unusualamalgamof native-bornsmall farmers,skilled workersin certain cities,
ethnic groups from the Russian Empire like Finns and Jews, and professionals
and intellectuals.Leon Trotskywas perhapsunkindwhen he remarkedthat the
AmericanSocialistswere 'a partyof dentists.'But its thinnessamongthe industrial
workingclass was certainlyamongthe party'smost debilitatingweaknesses.29
Another explanationfor the decline of American socialism focuses on the
crisis brought about by World War I. The Socialists'principledopposition to
America'sparticipationin the warfundamentallytransformedthe party,alienating
many native-bornmembersand intellectuals,while attractinga new constituency
among immigrantworkers. Ironically,at the moment of its final collapse, the

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Socialist party for the first time accurately reflected the composition of the
Americanproletariat.
Oppositionto the war laid the partyopen to the massiverepressionthat was,
at least in part, responsiblefor its demise. One may speculate whether, had
American Socialists, like their European counterparts,supported the war and
perhapseven entered a coalitionwartimegovernmentas junior partners,as the
Labourpartyin Britaindid, they mighthave shieldedthemselvesfrom repression
and establishedtheir politicallegitimacy.(Of course, given the experienceof our
own times, one may well ask whether participationin governingan imperialist
nation involves a socialistparty in an inevitablesacrificeof principle,at least so
far as foreignpolicyis concerned.)Whatis clearis an outcomefraughtwith irony,
in view of the assumptionthat Americansocialismis so much weaker than that
of Europe. Of the two great 'isms'createdby the nineteenthcentury- socialism
and nationalism- the latter in western Europe proved far the strongerin 1914.
Socialistinternationalismwas crucifiedon the crossof socialistsupportfor the war
effort. Wasthe Americanparty'soppositionto the wara courageousact of suicide?
At least, history ought to record that the American Socialist party went to its
death not because there was less socialismin the United States than in Europe,
but because, apartfrom the RussianBolsheviks,the Americanwas the partythat
remainedmost true to socialistprinciples.
If the periodbeforeWorldWarI representedone opportunityfor the development of a masssocialistpartyin the United States, the 1930'sappearsto represent
another. By the mid-thirties,the Communistparty had establisheditself as the
major force on the socialist left. The achievementsof the communists,recent
researchhas made clear, were indeedimpressive.Movingfar beyondthe electoral
emphasisof the old Socialistparty, they understoodthat struggle,on a varietyof
frontsis the most effective meansof mass mobilizationand education.In contrast
to the socialists'isolationfromthe militantstrugglesof the pre-WorldWarI years,
the communiststook the lead in a remarkablearrayof activities- union-building,
demonstrationsof the unemployed,civil rightsagitation,aid to republicanSpain,
etc. Indeed, the wide variety of their activities becomes all the more amazing
when it is rememberedthat the party at its pre-warpeak numberedwell under
100,000 members.30

Given the mass militancyof the CIO and rangeof partyconcerns,why did a
largersocialistor laborpoliticalpresencenot emergefrom the Great Depression?
Some accountsstressthe resiliencyof the politicalsystemitself, the way President
Roosevelt managedto absorblabor militancyinto a redefinedDemocraticparty
coalition. Others point to the internecinewarfarebetween AFL and CIO unions
as sabotagingefforts toward the creation of an independentlabor party. Still
others blame the Communistparty'squest for legitimacy,especiallyin its Popular
Front period. The party's determinationto forge an alliance of all anti-fascist
elements, including the Democratic party, and its ideological emphasis upon
American nationalism('Communismis twentieth-centuryAmericanism'as the
mid-thirtiesslogan went), foreclosedthe possibilityof independentsocialistpolitics. Accordingto James Weinstein, here also lay a cardinaldifferencebetween
the old socialists, who at least had made socialisma part of Americanpolitical
discourse,and the 1930scommunists,who saw themselvesas the left wing of the
New Deal coalition.3'
But like the old Socialistparty,the communistswere unableto cut the gordian

Socialismand the UnitedStates

73

knot of the relationshipbetween nationalismand socialism.On the one hand, the

party achievedprimacyon the Left partiallyby virtue of its relationshipwith the
USSR, the only existingsocialiststate. On the other, the Sovietconnectionproved
a point of vulnerability,opening the party to repressionas 'un-American'after
WorldWar II, and leading to inevitablequestionsas to whetherspecificpolicies
reflectedAmericanor Soviet interestsand realities.It is not clear, however, how
muchemphasisought to be put on the Soviet connectionfor the party'sfailureto
grow in size. After all, every Communistpartyin the worldhad to deal with the
Comintern.What is certainis that the CP was most successfulpreciselywhen it
was most American. As Maurice Isserman'srecent study demonstrates, the
Popular Front, whatever its relationshipto socialist ideology, was exactly the
policy that most Americancommunistsdesired, and the party'smembershipwas
highest in the mid-1930sand again toward the end of World War II, precisely
when socialismand nationalismcoincided.Indeed, recentstudiesof the war years
criticizethe partyfor subordinatinglabor militancyto the war effort and a quest
for nationalistlegitimacy,via the no-strikepledge.32(The implicitassumptionthat
calls for greatereffortsto win the waralienatedAmericanworkersconcernedonly
with their paychecksmay, however, be open to question.)
Through the no-strike pledge, subordinationof criticismof the Roosevelt
administration,and the decision to transformitself from a party into a 'political
association'the Communistparty sought 'legitimacy'- a permanentfoothold in
Americanpolitics- duringWorldWarII. The experienceof warandthe resistance
movements did legitimize European Communistparties as defenders of their
nations (no one, whateverhis political outlook, could call the Frenchor Italian
Communistparties'un-French'or 'un-Italian'after the experienceof WorldWar
II). But Americancommunistsended up with the worst of both worlds. The nostrike pledge alienated shop-floormilitants, without winning 'legitimacy'from
those with the power to dispenseit, the price, perhaps,of tryingto exist at all at
the very focal point of world imperialism.The party remainedvulnerableto the
wave of repressionthat beganwith the onset of the Cold War. The base communists had laboriouslycreatedin the labormovementwas effectivelydestroyed,with
disastrousconsequencesfor the entire directionof the post-warlabor movement.
Let us return,in conclusion,to our originalquestion.Whyis thereno socialism
in the United States? As we have seen, all the explanationsthat have been
proposed- the internaland the external, the social, ideological, economic, and
cultural- have a certainmerit, and all seem to have weaknessesas well. Nor can
we simply add them all together in a kind of mixed salad and feel satisfiedwith
the result. Perhaps the debate has gone on for so long and so inconclusively
becausethe questionitself is fundamentallyflawed.Perhapsbeginningour investigation with a negativequestioninevitablyinvites ahistoricalanswers.
Like a kindredquestion that has bedeviled the study of Americanslavery'whywere there no slave rebellionsin the United States?'- the socialismquestion
rests on a numberof assumptionsthat may not survivecarefulanalysis.The rise
of socialism,or the outbreakof slaverebellions,are definedas normaloccurrences,
whose absence needs to be explained. In the case of slavery, the question is
premisedupon the convictionthat the 'normal'humanresponseto severe repression is armed rebellion, an assumptionfor which humanhistory, unfortunately,
does not offer much support.In the case of socialism,the premise is that under
capitalism,the workingclass will develop class consciousness,expressedin unions

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and a labor or socialistpoliticalparty, and that consequentlythe failureof either

to emerge must be the result of some outside interference.No one asks, for
exanmple,'why is there no feminism in Europe?' (a legitimate question when
eitherindependentfeministmovementsor the historicalparticipationof womenin
socialistpartiesin Europe and the United States are compared)becausesocialism
is held to be an inevitable,universaldevelopmentundercapitalismwhile feminism
is assumedto emergefrom local, contingenciesthat varyfromcountryto country.
In the end, of course, 'whyis there no socialism'rests upon an interpretation
of history that accordssocialisma privilegedposition among radicalmovements
because it arises inexorablyout of the inner logic of capitalistdevelopment,and
holds out the promiseof a far-reachingsocial revolution.To the Marxistparadigm
that underliesthis vision, I have no objection. But it does seem to me that the
empiricalevidence that justifies the question - the existence of mass Labour,
Socialistand Communistpartiesin westernEurope and not in the United States
- fundamentallycontradictsthe Marxistfoundationof the question. A Marxist
question,in other words, arisesfrom a non-Marxistoutcome, for the 'absence'to
be explainedis not socialism(a revolutionarytransformationof society) but the
existence of politicalpartiesof a decidedlysocial democraticbent that aim at no
such transformation.The Left parties of Western Europe have without doubt
improvedthe conditionsof life of their constituents,but they have provedincapable of using their impressivepolitical strengthto reshape fundamentallytheir
societies. They have, one mightsay, promotedliberalismand egalitarianismmore
successfullythansocialism,andpresentedthemselvesas the proponentsof modernization and social rationalizationratherthan class rule, thus operatingin ways
more analogousto AmericanpoliticalpartiesthaneitherAmericansor Europeans
would care to admit. The issue for Western European socialist parties is not
preciselysocialism,but the equitabledistributionof the productsof capitalism.In
other words, one might well ask not 'why is there no socialismin the United
States,' but, 'why has there been no socialist transformationin any advanced
capitalistsociety?'
To put the question this way challengesanother underlyingpremise of the
socialism question: American exceptionalism.Too often in Americanhistorical
writing,'Europe'is posited as an unchangingclass-consciousmonolithin contrast
to the liberal, bourgeois United States. In much American writing, 'Europe'
equalsFrance,and 'France'equalsthe FrenchRevolution.The heroicstrugglesof
Europeanworkersand socialistsare highlightedand the more recent erosion of
working-classconsciousnessand socialistideology ignored. Too often, American
historiansequate the officialdoctrineof 'revolutionary'labormovements,such as
the French earlier in this century, or political platformscalling for collective
ownershipof the means of production,with a pervasivesocialist consciousness
amonga majorityof workers.They ignorethe fact that largenumbersof European
workershave alwaysvoted for 'bourgeois'parties.Americancommentatorsoften
cite the history of British labor as one example of class-conscious'European'
working-classdevelopment,unawareof the debates among Britishwritersabout
whatsome see as an exceptionalabsenceof socialismcomparedwith the continent.
Certainly, recent events demonstrate that 'the containment of . . . working-class

movements within the limits of trade union economism and social democratic
reformism'is hardlyuniqueto the United States.33
To abandonAmericanexceptionalismas an organizingtheme is not, of course,

One Big Union Monthly, July 1920

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to assert that the historyof every capitalistnation is identical.The historyof the

United States is, in importantways, unique, as is that of England, France,
Germany, and every other country. But a preoccupationwith the exceptional
elements of the American experience obscures those common patterns and
processesthat transcendnationalboundaries,most notablythe globalexpansionof
capitalismin the nineteenthandtwentiethcenturiesandits politicalandideological
ramifications.It also diverts attention from the 'Americanizing'influences so
prominent in Western Europe during the past generation. America, Sombart
wrote, was 'the land of our future.' Are not the economies, and the working
classes, of both America and Europe today being transformedby the decline of
old basic industries,the backboneof traditionalunionismand socialism?Is not
European politics, like European popular culture, becoming more and more
'American,'with single-issuemovementsrisingto prominenceandpoliticalparties,
even those calling themselves socialist, emphasizingthe personalitiesof their
leadersand their appealto the entireelectorate,ratherthan a carefully-delineated
ideology representingthe interestsof a particularsocial class?WesternEuropean
Socialist and Communistparties today occupy points on the political spectrum
rangingfrom distinctlymoderate (the Italian, Danish and PortugueseSocialist
parties) to various shades of left and some, like the British Labour party, are
bitterly divided againstthemselves. In such a situationit is not at all clear that
'socialism'retainsany clearly-definedpoliticalcontent.
Perhaps,becausemasspolitics, mass culture,and mass consumptioncame to
America before it did to Europe, Americansocialistswere the first to face the
dilemmaof how to define socialistpoliticsin a capitalistdemocracy.Perhaps,in
the dissipationof class ideologies, Europe is now catchingup with a historical
process alreadyexperiencedin the United States.34Perhapsfutureexpressionsof
radicalismin Europe will embody less a traditionalsocialist ideology than an
'American'appeal to libertarianand moral values and resistanceto disabilities
based upon race and gender. Or, perhapsa continuingworld economiccrisiswill
propel politics in both WesternEurope and Americadown a more class-oriented
path. Onlv time will tell whether the United States has been behind Europe in
the developmentof socialism,or ahead of it, in socialism'sdecline.

NOTES
An earlierversionof this paperwas deliveredat the conferenceon 'Whyis thereno socialism
in the United States' in May 1983, organizedby the Centre d'EtudesNord-Americaines,
Ecole des HautesEtudesen SciencesSociales,Paris,andwillbe publishedin the proceedings
of the conference.
1 Among the many reviews of the 'why is there no socialism?'debate, two of the
betterrecentsurveysare: SeymourMartinLipset,'WhyNo Socialismin the United States?',
in Sourcesof Contemporary
Radicalism,SewerynBialerand SophiaSluzer,ed., New York
1977, 31-149, which containsan interestingsection on how Marx, Engels, and other European socialistsviewedthe problem,andJeromeKarabel,'TheFailureof AmericanSocialism
Reconsidered,'SocialistRegister,1979, 204-27. See also R. LaurenceMoore, European
Socialistsand the AmericanPromisedLand, New York 1970. An excellent collection of
discussionsof the historyof Americansocialismand introductionto the Sombartquestion
is JohnH. M. Laslettand SeymourM. Lipset,ed. Failureof a Dream?:Essaysin theHistory
of American Socialism, Garden City, N.Y., 1974. Still indispensablefor the history of
socialismin the United States is Donald D. Egbert and Stow Persons, ed., Socialismand

Socialism and the United States

77

AmericanLife, 2 vols., Princeton,1952,the secondvolumeof whichconsistsof an exhaustive

bibliography.
2 E. L. Godkin,'The LaborCrisis,'NorthAmericanReview,CX (July, 1867), 177-79.
3 David Montgomery,'The Shuttle and the Cross: Weavers and Artisans in the
Kensington"Riots"of 1844,'Journalof Social History,V (Summer,1972); Montgomery,
WorkersControlin America,New York 1979. JamesR. Green, The Worldof the Worker,
New York 1980, also stresses the predominanceof 'control'issues in labor struggles.An
excellent recent study of the rise and fall of local labor partiesin the 1880'sis Leon Fink,
Workingmen'sDemocracy:The Knightsof Laborand AmericanPolitics,Urbana1983.
4 WernerSombart'soriginalessay has recentlybeen printed,for the firsttime in its
entirety, in English translation:Why Is ThereNo Socialismin the UnitedStates?,White
Plains 1976.
5 The view that the acquisitionof propertyand high rates of geographicalmobility
explainthe failureof socialismis expressed,for example,in StephanThernstrom'sinfluential
Poverty and Progress, Cambridge 1964. Peter Knights, The Plain People of Boston,
1830-1860, New York 1971, exemplifiesa host of studies of the high rate of population
turnoverin nineteenth-century
Americancities. See also the self-congratulatory
conservative
versionof the 'successof capitalism'argumentin JamesNuechterlein,'RadicalHistorians,'
Commentary,October, 1980.
6 A recentinvestigation,PeterShergold,Working-Class
Life: The'AmericanStandard'
in ComparativePerspective,1899-1913, Pittsburgh1982, concludesthat skilled workersin
Pittsburghdid enjoy higherwages thantheirEnglishcounterparts,but that the unskilleddid
not.
7 For an interestingrecent example,see RonaldSchatz,'Union Pioneers:The Founders of Local Unions at GeneralElectricand Westinghouse,1933-37,'Journalof American
History,LXVI (December, 1979), 586-602.
8 The idea that the West functionedas an effectivesafetyvalve for easternlaborwas
disprovennearlyfiftyyearsago in CarterG. Goodirchand Sol Davidson,'TheWageEarner
in the WestwardMovement,'PoliticalScienceQuarterly,L (1935), 161-85 and LI (1936),
61-116. Quantitativemethodshave become far more sophisticatedsince then, but students
of geographicalmobilityare still generallyunableto ascertainwhethermen andwomenwho
moved in searchof economicopportunityactuallysucceededin betteringtheirconditionsof
life. The essentialrawmaterialfor suchstudiesis the manuscriptcensusreturns,usingwhich
it is easy to discoverthat an extremelyhigh percentageof urbanworking-classpopulations
had 'disappeared'from one census to the next (a period of ten years). But not knowing
wherethese individualswent, it is impossibleto locate themin the next census,to determine
their occupation,wealth, etc.
9 Louis Hartz, The Liberal Traditionin America, New York, 1955. The 'fragment'
argumentis expandedin Hartz'sTheFoundingof New Societies,New York 1964. One may
wonder, however, why Australia, another 'bourgeoisfragment'society did give rise to a
powerfulLabourparty.
10 Richard Hofstadter, The AmericanPolitical Tradition,New York 1948; Daniel
Boorstin, The Geniusof AmericanPolitics,Chicago1953.
11 The 'pre-bourgeois'characterof the Old South is arguedeffectivelyin the works
of Eugene D. Genovese. See ThePoliticalEconomyof Slavery,New York 1965;TheWorld
the SlaveholdersMade, New York 1969;and Roll, Jordan,Roll, New York 1974.
12 Muchof this workwas inspiredby HerbertG. Gutman,Work,Cultureand Society
in Industrializing
America,New York 1976.
13 The most significantrevisionistworkson the ideologyof the AmericanRevolution
are J. G. A. Pocock, TheMachiavellianMoment,Princeton1975,whichsees republicanism
extendingwell into the nineteenthcenturyas an organizingparadigmof Americanpolitical
thought,and GordonS. Wood, The Creationof the AmericanRepublic,1776-1787,Chapel
Hill 1969, which dates the 'end of classicalpolitics'and the triumphof liberalismfrom the
adoptionof the federalConstitutionin 1788.Joyce Applebyhas recentlysoughtto resurrect
the idea of a dominantliberalideology, in a more sophisticatedformulationthan Hertz's.
See her 'CommercialFarmingand the 'AgrarianMyth'in the Early Republic,'Journalof
AmericanHistory,LXVIII (March,1982).
14 For the individualiststrainin Americanradicalism,see EricFoner, TomPaine and
RevolutionaryAmerica, New York 1976;YehoshuaArieli, Individualismand Nationalism

78

History Workshop Journal

in AmericanIdeology, Cambridge1964; StaughtonLynd, IntellectualOriginsof American

Radicalism,New York 1968;David DeLeon, TheAmericanAs Anarchist,Baltimore1978.
For the 'smallproducer'radicalideology,see LawrenceGoodwyn,DemocraticPromise:The
PopulistMomentin America,New York 1976;ChesterMcA. Destler,AmericanRadicalism,
1865-1901,New London 1946. For socialistthought,MariJo Buhle, Womenand American
Socialism1870-1920, Urbana1979;Nick Salvatore,Citizenand Socialist:Eugene V. Debs,
Urbana1982.
15 JamesWeinstein,TheCorporateIdealin the LiberalState1900-1918,Boston 1968;
GabrielKolko, The Triumphof Conservatism,New York 1963. HowardZinn, A People's
Historyof the UnitedStates,New York 1980, portraysradicalmovementsas alwaysbeing
suppressedor absorbedwithinthe liberalframework.
16 Works examiningradicalismas the expressionof an alternativeculture include
Goodwyn, DemocraticPromise;CharlesLeinenweber,'Socialistsin the Streets:The New
York City SocialistPartyin WorkingClassNeighborhoods,1908-1918,'Scienceand Society,
XLI (Summer, 1977), 152-71; and 'The Origins of Left Culture in the United States:
1880-1940,'a specialissue of CulturalCorrespondence,
Spring,1978.The quotationis from
Stanley Aronowitz, 'Cracksin the Bloc: AmericanLabor'sHistoricCompromiseand the
PresentCrisis,'Social Text,V (Spring,1982),45-51. See also John Alt, 'BeyondClass:The
Decline of IndustrialLaborand Leisure,' Telos, XXVIII (Summer,1976), 55-80.
17 RaymondWilliams,'Base and Superstructurein MarxistCulturalTheory,' New
Left Review, 82 (November-December,1973), 3-16. For less sophisticatedAmericanuses
of the idea of hegemony to explain the weakness of radicalism,see Aileen Kraditor,
'AmericanRadical Historianson Their Heritage,' Past and Present, 56 (August, 1972),
136-52; MiltonCantor, The DividedLeft, New York 1979.
18 Richard C. Edwards, Michael Reich, David M. Gordon, eds., Labor Market
Segmentation,Lexington 1975; David M. Gordon, RichardC. Edwards,Michael Reich,
SegmentedWork,Divided Workers:The HistoricalTransformation
of Labor in the United
States, New York 1982; Alistair Reid, 'Politics and Economics in the Formationof the
British WorkingClass: A Response to H. F. Moorhouse,'Social History, III (October,
1978), 347-62.
19 Philip S. Foner, OrganizedLabor and the Black Worker,New York 1974;AlexanderSaxton, TheIndispensableEnemy, Berkeley, 1971.
20 This is the argumentof Mike Davis, 'Why the U.S. WorkingClass is Different,'
New Left Review, 123 (September-October,1980), 3-46. It is also emphasizedin the latest
evaluationof the Sombartquestion, John H. M. Laslett, ReluctantProletarians:A Short
ComparativeHistoryof AmericanSocialism,Westport1984.
21 Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants,Cambridge1941; StanleyAronowitz, False
Promises:The Shapingof AmericanWorkingClass Consciousness,New York 1973, whose
thirdchapter,an excellentsurveyof the formationof the Americanworkingclass, seems to
accept the notion that Catholicimmigrantsof peasantbackgroundare inevitablyconservative;GeraldRosenblum,ImmigrantWorkers:TheirImpacton AmericanLaborRadicalism,
New York 1973.
22 Victor Greene, The Slavic Communityon Strike,Notre Dame 1968;Eric Foner,
'Class, Ethnicityand Radicalismin the Gilded Age: The LandLeague and IrishAmerica,'
MarxistPerspectives,2 (Summer, 1978), 6-55; Melvin Dubofsky, We Shall Be All, New
York 1969. The phrase 'transhistorical'is taken from the importantessay by BarbaraJ.
Fields, 'Ideology and Race in AmericanHistory,' in Region, Race, and Reconstruction:
Essaysin Honor of C. VannWoodward,J. MorganKousserandJamesM. McPherson,ed.,
New York 1982, 144. For an exampleof the overcomingof racismby one industrialunion,
see Gutman,Work,Cultureand Society,ch. 3.
23 Aileen Kraditor,TheRadicalPersuasion,1890-1917,BatonRouge 1981.Kraditor's
earlier work, which she now claims was writtenunder the influenceof 'liberalideology,'
includesMeansand Ends in AmericanAbolitionism,New York 1969, and TheIdeas of the
Women'sSuffrageMovement,New York 1965. She is now a memberof the editorialboard
of Continuity,a conservativehistorians'journal.
24 JamesO'Connor,The Fiscal Crisisof the State,New York 1973;JeremyBrecher,
Strike,San Francisco1972,whichstressesspontaneouslabormilitancy,dampenedby union
organizationitself; Philip S. Foner's multi-volumeHistoryof the Labor Movementin the
UnitedStates,New York, 1947- ), emphasizingthe conservativetendenciesof laborleaders,

Socialism and the United States

79

especiallythose of the AmericanFederationof Labor. For the 1930's,see Schatz, 'Union

Pioneers,'and Bert Cochran,Laborand Communism,Princeton,1977,which,whileunsympatheticto communistunionists,providesconvincingevidenceof theirpivotalrole in creating
CIO unions. Melvyn Dubofsky questionsthe extent of rank-and-filemilitancyduringthe
Depression in 'Not So "TurbulentYears": Another Look at the American 1930's,'
Amerikstudien,XXIV (1980), 12-20.
25 Selig Perlman,A Theoryof the Labor Movement,New York 1928, 167; Alan
Dawley, Class and Community:The IndustrialRevolutionin Lynn, Cambridge1976, esp.
ch. 8; Ira Katznelson,City Trenches:UrbanPoliticsand the Patterningof Classin America,
New York 1981. David Montgomery,Beyond Equality,New York 1967, also stresseshow
politicsserved as a 'safety-valve'for labor discontent.
26 For Roosevelt's flexibility,see Mike Davis, 'The Barren Marriageof American
Labourand the DemocraticParty,'New Left Review, 124, (November-December,1980),
43-83. Allan Brinkley, Voicesof Protest,New York 1982, demonstratesthe hold of FDR
on voters otherwiseattractedto radicalism.ChristopherLasch, 'The Decline of Populism,'
in TheAgonyof theAmericanLeft, New York 1969,is excellenton how apparentconcessions
to radicalgroupsrarelyinvolvefundamentalsocial change.The electoralcollege system,in
which the party carryinga state wins the state's entire electoral vote for its presidential
candidate,penalizesthirdpartieswhose strengthis widelydispersed,while allowingregionally-concentratedthird partiesto carryenough states to disrupta presidentialelection by
throwingthe contest into the House of Representatives(as happenswhen no candidate
receivesa majorityof the electoralvote.)
27 A recentstudyof the Socialistpartystressingrepressionis JamesR. Green, GrassRoots Socialism:RadicalMovementsin the Southwest1895-1943, Baton Rouge 1978. For
the firstRed Scare, see WilliamPreston,Jr., Aliens and Dissenters:FederalSuppressionof
Radicals,1903-1933, Cambridge1963;for the second, David Caute, The GreatFear, New
York 1978.
28 Daniel Bell, MarxianSocialismin America,Princeton1967;JamesWeinstein,The
Decline of Socialismin America1912-1925, New York 1967. Of course, every European
Socialistpartyexperiencedthe same splitbetweenthose adoptingthe Bolshevikmodel, and
those preferringtraditionalsocial democraticpolitics. See Albert S. Lindemann,The 'Red
Years':EuropeanSocialismversusBolshevism,1919-21, Berkeley, 1974.
29 Paul Buhle, 'Debsian Socialismand the "New ImmigrantWorker",'in William
O'Neill, ed., Insightsand Parallels,Minneapolis,1973,249-304. JohnH. M. Laslett,Labor
and the Left, New York, 1970,relatesthe declineof socialismin the unions.The best history
of the Socialistparty remainsDavid Shannon, The SocialistPartyof America,New York
1955.
30 The astonishingvarietyof partyactivitiescomes througheven in hostile accounts
like Cochran,Laborand Communism.See also MarkNaison, Communistsin HarlemDuring
the Depression,Urbana 1983, and RadicalHistoryReview,23 (1980), an issue devoted to
the historyof Communistpartiesin Europeand the United States.
31 Davis, 'The BarrenMarriage';James Weinstein,AmbiguousLegacy: The Left in
AmericanPolitics,New York 1975.
32 Maurice Isserman, WhichSide Were You On?, Middletown,Ct., 1981; Nelson
Lichtenstein,Labor'sWarat Home: The CIO in WorldWarII, New York 1982). A more
sympatheticaccountis Roger Keeran, The CommunistPartyand the Auto WorkersUnion,
BloomingtonInd., 1980). See also RadicalAmerica,IX (July-August1975), a specialissue
on Americanlaborin the 1940's.
33 Reid, 'Politicsand Economics.'MarianneDebouzy, 'LaclassouvriereAmericaine:
rechercheset problemes,' MouvementSocial, 102 (January-March,1978), 3, notes the
tendency of Americanhistoriansto make unwarrantedassumptionsabout the European
workingclass. Perry Anderson summarizesthe 1960's debates on 'the whole tragedy of
Englishlabourhistory'in ArgumentsWithinEnglishMarxism(London, 1980), 44 46. For
general problemsof Social Democraticparties, see Adam Przeworski,'Social Democracy
as a HistoricalPhenomenon,'New Left Review, 122 (July-August,1980), 27-58. Bruce M.
Stave,ed. Socialismand the Cities,PortWashington,1975,discusseshow Americansocialists
acted in those communitieswhere they achievedlocal power.
34 This was the arrestingthesis of Lewis Corey, an Americancommunistwho wrote
duringthe 1930'sunder the name Louis Fraina.He arguedthat classicalsocialismwas a

History Workshop Journal

80

stage in the developmentof capitalism,a stage the United States, becauseof the extremely
rapidexpansionof capitalismin the late nineteenthand twentiethcenturies,in effect leaped
over. In Europe, classicalsocialismof the Second Internationalvariety assistedthe bourrevolution,a historicaltask unnecessaryin
geoisie in completingthe bourgeois-democratic
the United States. Harvey Klehr, 'Leninism,Lewis Corey, and the Failureof American
Socialism,'LaborHistory,XVIII (Spring1977), 249-56.

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