Socialism and America

by Irving Howe

In six thoughtful, engagingly written essays, Howe surveys a movement he has known firsthand since the 1930s and reflects on its future. "Howe is a marvelously thorough and suggestive critic" (San Francisco Chronicle).

Genres: Politics, History, American History, Nonfiction, Theory, Essays, Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Reviews

[Jack R.]

The first half: a dour retelling of socialism's demise (strictly form the vantage point of the old Socialist Party of America) from its near-electoral mainstream breakthrough in the 1910s (in which, to Howe, an heir of right-wing sewer socialists) to total irrelevance in the age of Roosevelt. Everything that could go wrong did, from anti-pragmatic idealists either splitting the party or unable to keep it together to an outright failure to compose strategies for dealing with Wilsonian progressivism (and oppression) and the broad acceptance with welfarism in the 1930s. Howe points to the Communist Party's "Popular Front," full of Americanism and unity with the Rooseveltian order, as a route the socialists should have pursued. Indeed, Howe believes that the Popular Front has many lessons for contemporary socialists.

Second half: on socialism's American future. Howe emphasized that socialism failed to take hold in America because of the latter's prevailing myth of exceptionalism; it is thus culture, primarily, that hampers socialism's progress. Howe then provides a thorough-going defense of a socialism with liberal democractic-characteristics. Understandable, as Howe was a founder of the Democratic Socialist's of America, whose committed to democracy is currently much higher than its advocacy of liberal principles (foreign and domestic). Lastly, in examining future potential socialist political economies, Howe hammers home the view that socialism is not equivalent to a property-free society, but one in which there exists an economic that workers have a democratic stake in. Hence. Howe does not nail a particular vision for future society, but he suggests a democratic socialism with a regulated market, independent unions, corporations (although small), and worker self-management.

I am no socialist (although I am not opposed to voting for a nice, moderate social democratic in the European-style if need be) and I doubt that even Howe's accommodating, liberal socialism would be successful (indeed, notice how little our author talks about laws, something that his tentative schemes would require a whole upending of to account for a near-fundamentally different economic arrangement). Nevertheless, two cheers for a socialism that allows the worker freedom to work honorably, to speak contentiously, and to vote frequently.

[Andy Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit technical and a bit dated, but a really good read nonetheless.

[Matthew Matheson]

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[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

a quiet reflective view of the U.S. left