The Fall of Socialism

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The Fall of Socialism

Ever since the Great Depression, political and economic thought in America has moved consistently to the right, enough that reforms which passed years ago in other industrialized countries cannot even be mentioned in political discussion. In fact, there is a deliberate destruction of legitimate thought by equating it with a universal evil. Specifically, any reform which helps the lower classes - reforms such as welfare, universal health care, housing, and so forth ? are vilified as a socialist, and therefore communist, evil.

For years, the system was far different. Starting early in the Industrial Revolution, and climaxing in the Great Depression, the labor movement made a sustained effort to effect economic change in the United States ? putting in place such systems as Welfare and Social Security, while ending child labor and organizing unions to campaign for a 40 hour workweek and minimum wage. Even a brief glance at America before World War Two shows how truly diverse political discourse can be. Labor unions flourished and socialism was actively fostered by such magazines as Masses and the Liberator: "No humane and sensitive artist can assent to this vast Roman orgy of commercialism, this wholesale prostitution of the mind, this vast empire of cheapness and shallowness and hypocrisy that forms the current America" (Gold, 69).

Furthermore, in popular culture, celebrities spoke unabashedly of communist politics. Woodie Guthrie, for instance, celebrated labor victories in his works, spread communist philosophy, and even slipped communist lyrics into his most popular song, This Land is Your Land:

As I went walking, I saw a sign there;

And on the sign there, It said, 'PRIVATE PROPERTY.'

But on ...

... middle of paper ...

..., 1997. 370.

Gold, Mike. "A New Continent." Communism in America. Ed. Albert Fried. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 69-70.

Gould, Stephen Jay. "Natural Selection and the Brain." The Panda's Thumb. Ed. Stephen Jay Gould. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1980. 47-59.

"Great Society." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 2005 ed.

Guthrie, Woodie. This Land is Your Land.

Guthrie, Woodie. "An American Bard." Communism in America. Ed. Albert Fried. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997. 303-305.

Schrecker, Ellen. Many are the Crimes. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998.

Unknown Author. Taft-Hartley Labor Act. 2005. Columbia Encyclopedia. 27 Apr. 2005.

( http://www.bartleby.com/65/ta/TaftHart.html ).

Unknown Author. Taft-Hartley Act. 2005. SchoolNet. 27 Apr. 2005.

( http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhartley.htm )

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