THE POLITICS OF OPPORTUNITY

Trying to account for the absence of a self-conscious, politically cohesive working class in the United States, Karl Marx observed in 1852, that, "though classes, indeed, already exist, they have not yet become fixed, but continually change and interchange their elements in a constant state of flux."

There have been other explanations.

_In Why is There No Socialism in the United States?_ (1906), Werner Sombart, a left-leaning German economist, cited the availability of Western farmland-even though, in 1906, the frontier was "closed." On other points, Sombart was more perceptive. He noted that the American belief in political equality, iri "the efficacy of the People's will," firmly attached almost all citizens to the existing political system.

Like Tocqueville 70 years earlier, Sombart also put great store in the easy American sense of social equality. "The worker," he wrote, "is not being reminded at every turn that he belongs to a 'lower' class." Moreover, American wage earners lived rather well compared to their European counterparts, and their standard of living was rising.

"All Socialist utopias," he observed, "came to nothing on roast beef and apple pie."

But the most important ingredient of all in the American "proletarian psyche," in Sombart's view, was the opportunity to "escape into freedom." Reluctantly, he concluded that there was some truth to the "rags to riches" sagas that he had heard everywhere in the United States during a visit in 1904. "A far from insignificant number of ordinary workers ascend the rungs of the ladder of the capitalist hierarchy to the top or almost to the top." Others rose more modestly, he noted, but rose nonetheless.

In the years since, both American and foreign scholars have offered fresh theories to explain the scant appeal of egalitarian socialism in the United States. Among them: 1) the continual influx of various immigrant groups hindered working-class solidarity; 2) enormous _geographical_ mobility hampered efforts to unite workers; 3) American socialist leaders were inept organizers and divided among themselves.

To read the full article, click _Download PDF._ -----------------------------------------------