Why Did Socialism Fail in the United States - Essay Example

America is perceived as an exceptional country by many political thinkers. In fact, the term American exceptionalism is generally used when people try to compare American societies with other societies. “There is no questioning the fact that, from the last quarter of the nineteenth century on, the most developed country has been the United States” (LIPSET & MARKS). In other words, the conditions of the working class were comparatively better in the United States than in any other country in the world from the latter half of 19 th century onwards. So, American workers never thought about forming a political party to safeguard their interests as it happened in Europe and other parts of the world.

Engels attributed the political backwardness of American workers to the absence of a feudal past. Thus, he wrote in 1890 that Americans "are born conservatives—just because America is so purely bourgeois, so entirely without a feudal past and therefore proud of its purely bourgeois organization" (LIPSET & MARKS).

Unlike many other societies in Europe and other parts of the world, feudalism had not many roots in American societies. In other words, the working class never experienced much trouble from the dominant wealthy community even though the American economy was a capitalist economy. The gap between the rich and the poor in American societies was not so wider and therefore the working class never faced any isolation in American social life. In short, the working class in America never felt the necessity of a political party to argue for their demands and thus a labor party or socialist party failed to prosper in America.

American economy developed on capitalist economic principles and it is difficult to achieve the objectives of true socialism in a capitalistic economy. Socialism and capitalism are entirely opposite economic principles. “George Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism has argued that the weakness of socialism in America is entire because of the "democratic character of American political institutions” (LIPSET & MARKS). Democracy gives more importance to human rights, freedom, equality, liberty, etc. It never advocates the implementation of socialism through forceful means as in the case of communism. It is difficult to achieve true socialism through democratic means. However, it should be noted that the living conditions of the poor people in America are better compared to those in some other socialist countries in the world. In other words, America succeeded in improving the living conditions of the poor people by following capitalist economic principles.

To conclude, a labor party failed to prosper in America mainly because of the absence of a feudal system in America. The capital economic system followed by America is the major barrier to achieving true socialism in America. However, the conditions of the poor people in America are far better than the conditions of the poor people in some of the socialist countries.