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Socialism in the United States: Hidden in Plain Sight Robert Shaffer

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Socialism in the United States: Hidden in Plain Sight Robert Shaffer Social Education 80(1), pp 31–35 ©2016 National Council for the Social Studies Socialism in the United States: Hidden in Plain Sight Robert Shaffer Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has attracted some of the largest crowds of the 2016 become, as Sanders notes, broadly presidential campaign thus far: 11,000 in Phoenix, 25,000 in Los Angeles, and accepted—or at least part of mainstream 28,000 in Portland, Oregon. Sanders, a democratic socialist who for three decades debate. has won office as an Independent, is now running in the Democratic Party primaries. While he does not advocate the original goal of socialism—that “a nation’s resources The Invisibility of Socialism in U.S. and major industries should be owned and operated by the government on behalf of Textbooks all the people, not by individuals and private companies for their own profit,” in the As we seek to increase our students’ words of one U.S. history textbook1 —Sanders has put “socialism” back in American sophistication as citizens, discussing political discourse. Sanders’s ideas alongside those of other candidates, it is a matter of concern that Sanders assails the “billionaires” and tion—Social Security, banking regula- in the textbook accounts of U.S. history, the “1%,” charging that income inequal- tions, and collective bargaining provi- Socialists have often been hidden in ity has increased as median wages stag- sions, among others—was denounced plain sight. nate, and that the super-rich avoid their as “socialist” at first but has “become Most U.S. history textbooks note the fair share of taxes as shredded cam- the fabric of our nation and the founda- towering figure of American socialism, paign finance laws provide them undue tion of the middle class.” He added that Eugene V. Debs, who usually appears political influence. Only a “political the same is true for some of President three times: as the leader of the American revolution,” Sanders states—by which Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society pro- Railway Union jailed for leading the he means an insurgent movement of vot- grams, such as Medicare and Medicaid. 1894 Pullman strike; as the Socialist ers and activists, not a violent storming Indeed, Sanders squarely positions Party (SP) presidential candidate in of the barricades—can make the U.S. himself along one pole of the socialist the four-way 1912 race who received work for the majority of its citizens. His tradition, striving to improve people’s 6% of the vote; and as one of hundreds vision of democratic socialism begins lives without overthrowing capitalism jailed for opposing U.S. involvement in with the idea that “real freedom must entirely: “I don’t believe government World War I.4 Gary Nash graphically include economic security,” as he put it should own the means of production, emphasizes Debs’s powerful oratory and at Georgetown University in November but I do believe that the middle class public appeal,5 while Jesus Garcia and 2015, drawing on President Franklin and the working families who produce his co-authors use Debs’s progression Roosevelt’s call in 1944 for a “second the wealth of America deserve a fair from union leader to Socialist to intro- Bill of Rights.” Achieving that secu- deal.”3 duce the popular outrage over massive rity, Sanders believes, requires univer- Sanders’s electoral odds are long, economic inequality which inspired sal health care coverage (he favors the but his campaign reminds us as educa- the Progressive Era.6 While it is true, as “Medicare for all” model), tuition-free tors that there is a socialist tradition Donald Ritchie observes,7 that some access to public universities, public in American politics and society. Our Progressives feared the more radical sector jobs to rebuild “our crumbling students should know that Sanders Socialists—and President Wilson’s war- infrastructure,” initiatives to help achieve and his ideas did not appear from time jailing of Socialist leaders consti- full employment, a greatly increased nowhere; people with such views have tuted a devastating blow to the SP—it is minimum wage, and a sharply graduated often played important roles in reform equally true to say that Debsian social- income tax.2 movements. While sometimes labeled ism influenced Progressivism. Upton Drawing still further on FDR’s experi- by opponents as un-American, unrealis- Sinclair’s account of conditions in the ence, Sanders asserted at Georgetown tic, or simply destructive, many (though Chicago packinghouses spurred passage that much New Deal social legisla- by no means all) socialist goals have of the 1906 Meat Inspection Act, while January/February 2016 31 Eugene V. Debs, member of the Socialist Party of the USA and presidential candidate, speaks at a political meeting in New York on Aug. 17, 1912. (AP Photo) Margaret Sanger, who was a Socialist, leader A. Philip Randolph, who first ran and Walter Reuther of the United courageously disseminated information for public office as a Socialist in 1920, Autoworkers retained their Socialist ties about contraception to working-class organized the March on Washington even as the AFL-CIO as a whole became women. Milwaukee’s Socialist elected Movement in 1941, which forced FDR less critical of capitalism in the 1950s officials pioneered the provision of pub- to issue an executive order banning racial and 1960s. lic services and zoning regulation now discrimination in war industries. The Socialist Party-affiliated League standard in many cities. While the Socialists as an organized for Industrial Democracy helped to Socialist influence continued during political party declined further after launch Students for a Democratic the Great Depression and World War 1940, several leaders still made their Society (SDS) in 1960. SDS soon swung II. E.Y. (Yip) Harburg, a Socialist, who mark. Michael Harrington, their news- in an even more radical direction, espe- also wrote the songs of “The Wizard paper editor, wrote The Other America cially in its opposition to American for- of Oz,” penned the stirring song now in 1962, and that exposé of continued eign policy, and spread socialist ideas to generally considered the anthem of the poverty is generally credited as a spur a wide range of 1960s radicals. Sanders Great Depression, “Brother, Can You for Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. himself was a member of the SP youth Spare a Dime?”8 Six-time Socialist can- Harrington, in turn, best articulated the group at the University of Chicago in didate for president Norman Thomas, new Socialist strategy of working elec- the early 1960s. After a factional split who received almost a million votes in torally within the Democratic Party, of in 1972, the most visible SP offshoot 1932 and worked to push FDR to the being “on the left wing of the possible,” became the Democratic Socialists of left, was eulogized as America’s “social as he put it. Meanwhile, Randolph and America (DSA) in 1982. Harrington, its conscience” upon his death.9 The Social fellow Socialist Bayard Rustin were the most prominent member, died in 1989, Gospel tradition, which arose in the late main organizers of the now-celebrated but DSA later counted among its lead- 1800s, became more rooted in main-line March on Washington in August 1963. ers United Farmworkers co-founder Protestantism during the interwar period; Frank Zeidler, the last of the Milwaukee Dolores Huerta, Rep. Ron Dellums of the leading main-line non-denomina- Socialist mayors, worked tirelessly in the California, author Barbara Ehrenreich, tional magazine, The Christian Century, 1950s to legalize public sector collec- and philosopher and theologian Cornel editorialized just before the 1932 elec- tive bargaining—which had been omitted West. tion that “the existing capitalistic sys- from 1935’s National Labor Relations And yet, aside from Debs and other tem is basically unchristian and unjust,” Act—and Wisconsin became the first opponents of World War I, Socialists are and that the Socialist program was “far state to institutionalize the practice, in all but invisible in most secondary-level more closely in accord with the ide- 1959. Union leaders such as Jerry Wurf U.S. history textbooks, and, I imagine, als of Christianity than … either of the of the American Federation of State, from the lessons most teachers prepare. major parties.”10 African American labor County, and Municipal Employees Including this dissenting and activist Social Education 32 REUTERS/Aaron Josefczyk Supporters cheer for U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders during a campaign rally at Cleveland State University in Ohio, November 16, 2015. perspective in the curriculum is impor- the group’s origins and the mix of sup- arrested for distributing anti-draft litera- tant, and not that difficult. All secondary port and opposition it has received over ture in the case that led to Justice Oliver textbooks, for example, describe Sinclair’s the years—including the Socialist connec- Wendell Holmes’s 1919 “clear and pres- The Jungle and its impact as key examples tion. Sanger joined the SP after the 1911 ent danger” doctrine. With the Palmer of the muckraking and government regula- Triangle factory fire, and the following Raids and other attacks on labor activ- tion of business typical of Progressivism. year the Socialist New York Call pub- ists and leftists after the war, the NCLB While most textbooks explain Sinclair’s lished her serialized pamphlet, “What became the permanent ACLU.16 Thus, main goal as arousing sympathy for Every Girl Should Know,” on sex and an organization dedicated to defend- immigrant workers who toiled in unsafe sexually-transmitted diseases. When the ing free speech and other rights of all stockyards and packinghouses, only one Post Office censored one installment, the Americans began as an offshoot of the textbook among those I surveyed identi- newspaper left the page blank except for Socialist movement—an association that fies Sinclair as a Socialist.11 Another adds these words: “What Every Girl Should some ACLU critics are happy to note that the “radical” Appeal to Reason com- Know—NOTHING: By Order of the (and exaggerate) on the Internet.
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