First time poster, long time lurker, so I apologize in advance for any breach of etiquette.
For most of the Twentieth century many western European countries had socialist parties with a considerable following and that came to power on several occasions. Defining socialist as that of the variety practiced by the British Labour party prior to Tony Blair’s reforms. Parties with a general commitment to principles of welfarism, redistribution, social justice and Keynesian Economics.
Although my knowledge of American Political history is not extensive I believe no such movement or party ever made much headway there. And I was wondering why.
A few thoughts that occurred to me were:
While I seriously doubt the Democratic Party could be described as socialist in nature, I believe it has used policy taken from that tradition. I’m thinking of the New Deal in particular here. This possibly stole the thunder of any emerging further left wing parties.
I also recall something about Henry Wallace, who I believe was FDR’s vice president for a time launched a Progressive party more in the mould of those I’ve mentioned above but it sank like a stone due to allegations of communist infiltration. This may have been true I can’t recall.
Finally wasn’t there a crackdown on socialist leaders after the First World War? This is pretty hazy in my mind so I could be wrong.
I’d like to make it clear I’m not making any kind of moral judgement here. I’m not saying I wish this had happened or thank god it didn’t. Just that this Political creed found favour on one side of the Atlantic why not the other?
Oh and if this should be General Questions please move it Mr. Moderator sir. However I doubt there will be a definitive answer so this seemed like a better bet.
There’s a book, “It Didn’t Happen Here” by Seymor Lipset and Gary Marks that asks the same question. Their answer is that there were a number of factors, among them our winner take all electoral system, which discourages small parties, large scale immigration (the immigrants stayed involved in ethnic organizations and didn’t unify into one working movement), and the failure of Socialist parties to ally themselves with the labor unions.
Excellent First Post (plus I’m a “fox” person myself…)!
Socialism came pretty close. Look at the returns for Freddy Roosevelt’s first election. Socialist parties were pretty big. But the fact that in America’s worst economic downturn ever, the socialists still could not win tells me something.
Frankly, I don’t think the culture of America promotes socialism, technical rules of election law aside. America is the “land of the free” and freedom to make money and be as successful as your talent, initiative, and drive will take you. Socialism, rightly or wrongly, tends to be opposed to that ideal, for reasons irrelevant to this discussion.
Welcome to the Board, Fox in the Snow. That’s an exellent question. Another theory I’ve seen is that Roosevelt’s New Deal helped avoid pressure for even more socialistic policies.
Actually, my preferred explanation is that Socialism is more-or-less incompatible with America’s well-established Constitutional, free-enterprise structure. It took a fair amount of monkeying with the Constitution to get the New Deal and other social legislation approved by the Supreme Court.
“Monkeying with the Constitution”? Please. The Court simply changed its mind about what the Constitution meant, specifically regarding the interstate commerce clause. Moreover, the Court’s pre-1935 commerce clause jurisdprudence was rather less than consistent, allowing federal regulation of state matters in certain instances and striking it down in others.
Plus, even before the New Deal cases that threw open the door once and for all to federal management of the national economy, there was nothing whatsoever to stop the individual state governments from socializing to their hearts’ content.
So, my question to you is this: Please identify those portions of the Constitution that allegedly create legal barriers to the adoption of socialism. Better yet, show me the cases where the Constitution was invoked to shut down a socialist program.
[list=A]
[li]It is perceived as “foreign” or “alien to the US”. Our provincialism is a barrier.[/li][li]The Europeans who favored it stayed in Europe & implemented it. There is little motivation to immigrate-then agitate. Why move, when you can stay home & create change within the system?[/li][li]Hi, Opal! :)[/li][li]The US sees itsself as engaging in a long-term experiment in Government—our Republic. Why switch to another experiment, when you could tweak the one you have?[/li][li]It would get in the way of our cultural competetiveness.[/li][li]Our religious community opposes it, usually.[/li][/list=a]
As I recall my history, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) was declared unconstitutional. Then Roosevelt threatened to “pack the court.” As as result of his threats, the Court became more compliant with his programs.
There is a strong streak of individualism in the US that was strongly reinforced by the frontier (See Frederick Jackson Turner). Americans like to see themselves as strong and self-reliant (funny how the independent small farmer has been replaced by highly subsidised agribusness - but the myth remains) There is also the consumer culture aspect, which puts a premium on individual acquisition of goods (and drives a good portion of the economy).
One of the most important milestones in this regard was Henry Ford’s wage hikes at Ford ($5 a day!) which were shrewdly designed to transform workers into consumers.
When the American economy skyrocketed after WWII, the auto industry was profligate in aceding to union wage increase demands. Their most important demands being met, unions (often at odds with management in other countries) became largely economic rather than political enitiies.
Great. Now show me how the NIRA was struck down because it was a socialist program.
NIRA was not declared unconstitutional. In fact, a single set of regulations adopted pursuant to NIRA got knocked down because the Court determined Congress had no authority to legislate regarding transactions that do not “directly affect interstate commerce.” Schechter Poultry, 295 U.S. 495 (1935). The Court decided that the wage and hour limitiations adopted for and applicable in the NYC metropolitan area “are imposed in order to govern the details of [the poultry companies’] management of their local business.” Thus, the Court did not decide that NIRA itself or the particular regs at issue were unconstitutional because they were socialist; the same analysis would have prevented the feds from eliminating local wage and hour requirements.
(Incidentally, NIRA was already set to expire a couple weeks after the Court issued the Schecter Poultry opinion. There had been no attempt to extend it. In practical effect, the opinion was a nullity.)
The Schechter Poultry analysis of what does and what doesn’t “directly affect” interstate commerce was quickly rejected. See NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U.S. 1 (1937). Facing basically the same kind of legislation, the Court decided tho abandon the old direct/indirect effect on interstate commerce test, deciding that it was all a matter of degree. Not even the more recent U.S. v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), goes anywhere near the thoroughly discredited Schechter Poultry.
<<unions (often at odds with management in other countries) became largely economic rather than political enitiies.>>
That sounded misleading - American unions have had a history of political activity. By this I meant unions sought not to upset the applecart, but have a larger piece of the pie. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?)
Fox in the Snow,
To get look into the mind of a fairly prominent American who pushed a socialist-type agenda, I recommend you read the biography of Huey Long. He opposed FDR & his New Deal for not doing enough for the poor.
If memory serves me, his plan was to confiscate all personal wealth exceeding $2 million and doling out a few thousand each to the needy…talk about vote buying.
Fortunately (IMHO), there were enough people who saw through his corruption & his rhetoric. He ended up dead as a result of friendly fire.
I think socialism did take off in the U.S., a man from 100 years ago might look at our society today and conclude that socialism is alive and well.
The U.S. never got as extremist in socialism as some of our European counterparts but that doesn’t mean that many socialist reforms didn’t become part and parcel of our society
By the start of the Great Depression, the idea of private ownership and small, weak federal government were well established ideas across a wide range of political views.
The New Deal can be considered largely socialist. The measures were considered by many as more desirable than “going all the way”. Politically, it permitted retaining some but not all of the earlier ideas but stealing the socialists thunder.
Which seems to be a good summary of the ideas in the book you mentioned. Very interesting, thanks.
Most of you seem to be saying that socialism didn’t succed in the US because it is some how inimical to American attitudes and culture.
This may well be true now but the fact the socialists did make considerable progress in the thirties perhaps suggests that it was less universial in the past.
Certainly the politically and economic reasons stated, such as FDR’s political guile and the different approch of american Unions seem more compelling to me.
Libertarian, Fabianism? Sorry you lost me.
To Intrude on December and minty green’s argument. My knowledge of the US constitution is sketchy at best. But in what way is socialism unconstitutional? To pick an example out of the air would it be unconstitutional to set up a National Health Servise similar to the British one?
Interesting analysis, minty. I appreciate your Constitutional explanations all the more, because I cannot keep up with you on a case by case discussion.
ISTM that one point to clarify is what socialism means. www.dictionary.com says
By this definition, government regulations alone are not socialism, no matter how onerous the regs are. OTOH aahala represents a widely-held POV that views New Deal regs partial socialism – “retaining some but not all of the earlier ideas but stealing the socialists’ thunder.”
If I understand your post, Schechter Poultry would have limited both federal regulation AND federal ownership to truly interstate situations. “Interstate commerce” was more narrowly defined 65 years ago. E.g., I’m familiar with some of the Constitutional history of insurance regulation. SCOTUS had decided that insurance was intrastate commerce by the 1869 case, Paul v. Virginia. They didn’t reverse themselves until the Southeastern Underwriters case in 1944.
In any event, when I mentioned a “Constitutional, free-enterprise structure,” I didn’t mean to reference just SCOTUS. Rather I meant the the Constutional understanding of the whole country. As Learned Hand wrote,
Fox in the Snow asks – would it be unconstitutional to set up a National Health Service? IMHO it would have been unconstitutional prior to Roosevelt, just as federal insurance regulation was unconstitutional. OTOH an individual State Health Service might not have been barred by the federal Constitution.
Today, National Health would probably be held Constitutional. AFAIK Social Security and Medicare haven’t been tested in the courts. If they now pass Constitutional muster, then National Health ought to be OK as well.
No, I wouldn’t say that at all. There has never been an “interstate commerce” limitation on the federal government’s power to own and manage its own property. Congress can spend money on whatever it wants. If the feds had wanted to purchase or seize (with compensation, of course) the Schechter Poultry Company, there would have been no constitutional impediment to its doing so. I then could have paid the workers a minimum of $.50/hr. and established a 40 hr. week just like the regulations at issue in the actual case. What Congress could not do under Schechter Poultry–but undoubtedly can do ever since Jones & Laughlin Steel–was regulate that particular area of commerce. Ownership is not a form of “regulation” subject to interstate commerce clause scrutiny.
The 10th Amendment is not now and never has been a substantive restriction on the power of the federal government. It is nothing more than a truism that all power is retained except what has been surrendered–it does NOT define what has been surrendered. For further details, see here.
I dearly wish people would get that through their heads. Seems like whenever anybody doesn’t like what the feds have done and can’t make a legal argument that it’s wrong, they just point to the 10th Amendment and claim victory. Nope, sorry, it don’t work that way.
Whereas Marxist socialists believe that socialism must come through revolution and violence, Fabianists believe in a quieter gentler approach of steady democratic movement, typically bridging private ownership of resources and government ownership of resources with government control of privately owned resources. Like in the United States, for example.
You may call me Lib. And I join others in welcoming you to Straight Dope Great Debates.