With the partial exception of the presidential campaigns that Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas waged in the early 20th century, socialism has been a marginal force in American politics.
asserted
socialism → wag → politics
By the turn of the 21st century, the ideology seemed definitively dead, discredited by the failures of its totalitarian variant in the Soviet Union and its democratic one in postwar Britain.
asserted
ideology → seem → Britain
Last month, a Gallup poll showed that 43 percent of American voters see socialism favorably—an all-time high.
asserted
percent → show → high
Seven candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won congressional primaries and are highly likely to win election as Democrats on November 3.
asserted
candidates → back → November
Two others finished in the top two spots under California’s nonpartisan primary system and face moderate Democratic incumbents in the general election.
asserted
others → finish → election
Zohran Mamdani, of course, was elected mayor of New York last year, and could be joined by Janeese Lewis George in Washington, D.C. and Nithya Raman in Los Angeles.
uncertain
Mamdani → elect → Angeles
Why is socialism having a moment in the United States?
asserted
socialism → have → States
Some answers can be found—paradoxically enough—in a book titled Why is There No Socialism In the United States?, first published in Germany in 1906.
asserted
answers → find → 1906
The author, German political economist Werner Sombart, gave a nuanced account of why America’s version of democratic capitalism enjoyed far more public support than socialism.
asserted
version → give → socialism
And a Sombart-style analysis, applied to today’s situation, can also help explain why socialism is starting to turn the tables.
asserted
socialism → apply → tables
Sombart was not trying to understand why there was no socialist system in the United States; that would have been absurd since in his era no country yet claimed to be socialist.
asserted
country → try → era
Strongly influenced by Marxism, Sombart found this anomalous.
asserted
this → influence → Marxism
According to Marx, class conflict should intensify as capitalism advanced, producing a proletarian socialist movement.
uncertain
capitalism → accord → movement
But this hadn’t happened in the United States, even though “nowhere on earth have the economic system and the essence of capitalism reached as full a development as in the United States.”
asserted
system → happen → States
Ergo, he acknowledged, “The doctrine of the inevitable socialist future is refuted by the facts.”
asserted
doctrine → acknowledge → facts
Sombart’s search for the truth led him to study American political culture and social mores, somewhat in the manner of Alexis de Tocqueville.
asserted
search → lead → Tocqueville
Sombart was also a colleague of Max Weber, whose work on the Protestant “spirit of capitalism” he contested but admired.
asserted
he → contest → capitalism
The two professors made extensive tours of the United States in 1904.
asserted
professors → make → 1904
Sombart conducted a sophisticated examination of the U.S. political system and an exhaustive comparative analysis of working-class living standards in the United States and Germany.
asserted
Sombart → conduct → States
What struck him first and foremost was American workers’ generally favorable attitude toward markets and money-making, based on their origins as self-selected, fortune-seeking immigrants.
asserted
struck → strike → immigrants
They were indeed infused with a capitalist spirit.
asserted
They → infuse → spirit
And, to a degree that truly impressed Sombart, this attitude had a basis in reality.
asserted
attitude → impress → reality
With statistical data that covered page after page of his book, he showed that the American proletariat was better fed, housed, and clothed than the German one.
asserted
proletariat → cover → one
“All socialist utopias come to nothing on roast beef and apple pie,” he observed.
asserted
he → come → beef
Like Tocqueville, Sombart took note of the relative social equality among the classes in America.
asserted
Sombart → take → America
Despite income inequality, he wrote, the worker “carries his head high.”
asserted
worker → write → head
Social mobility was also much greater than in Europe, enhanced by the option of seeking a better life in a new town or in the still thinly-populated West.
asserted
mobility → enhance → West
Perhaps most important of all, workers had had the franchise (for white men) since the Jacksonian era.
asserted
workers → have → era
Elections for a myriad of local, state, and federal offices occupied their time and attention, with political participation channeled through the two parties, each of which operated as a “machine” for choosing candidates, gathering votes, and distributing patronage.
asserted
each → occupy → patronage
A two-party system created disincentives for workers to start or join a new socialist party—especially since, as Sombart put it, both Democrats and Republicans “have a strongly populist streak in their characters.”
asserted
Democrats → create → characters
The upshot was that American workers felt no class consciousness as Marx had predicted, but rather a sense of inclusion and, indeed, patriotism.
asserted
Marx → feel → inclusion
In their eyes, the political and economic system seemed legitimate.
asserted
system → seem → eyes
And while a legitimate system can always be reformed, it does not call for a radical overhaul such as the one socialists propose.
asserted
socialists → reform → one
“Among American workers one finds none of the opposition to the state that is to be found in continental European socialism,” Sombart wrote.
asserted
Sombart → find → socialism
Sombart’s analysis has its problems.
asserted
analysis → have → problems
His generalizations about working-class life in the United States were sweeping and idealized.
asserted
generalizations → work → States
He underestimated such episodes of intense class conflict as the Pullman Strike of 1894.
asserted
He → underestimate → 1894
Jim Crow and white supremacy created obvious obstacles to working-class solidarity in America, but Sombart paid little attention to them.
asserted
Sombart → create → them
At a time when mostly black sharecroppers toiled across the rural South, he wrote that “there is no half or wholly feudal peasantry.”
asserted
he → toil → South
Indeed, his only mention of race was to rebut the argument that America had no socialism because “the so-called Anglo-Saxon race” was “by nature” resistant to it.
asserted
race → rebut → it
…and 29 more, not listed.
The Aporia
