Socialist Parties and Why They

¶ … socialist parties and why they have been so much more successful in Western Europe than in the United States. The writer explores the basis for the party foundation and examines the fear Americans have of such beliefs. There were three sources used to complete this paper.

In the beginning of history, the world was one society with one idea of how it should be run but as mankind evolved, the world began dividing into regions, areas and population. As this division took place, each area set up rules and boundaries as guidelines by which they would conduct their lives. In more recent history political foundations began to emerge and those foundations were the determinates of the way the society under that regime would be conducted.

For the most part, the Western world is divided into two types of regime, socialist and democratic. The United States has been under a democratic form of government since its inception while areas of Western Europe have been highly loyal to the socialist form of government. The socialist form of government while thriving in Western Europe has failed to garner any significant support in the United States. One will find if one examines the societies that the people's desires, goals, ambitions and concerns are not that different. The difference between the two areas when it comes to the socialist parties is not the people, but the stagnation already being experienced when socialism was first introduced as a viable option.

SOCIALISM

Before one can begin to understand why socialism is successful in Western Europe and not in the United States, one must have an understanding of socialism itself.

Socialism is a political foundation by which many Western European nations are ruled.

Socialism refers to a broad array of doctrines or political movements that envisage a socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are subject to social control (Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism)."

At first glance, socialism appears to demand equality and fairness among all who live by its doctrines. It seems to mean that nobody will be wealthy as long as there is poverty. On paper and in theory, this sounds like a desirable and viable plan however, in the United States it never took hold because of the very foundation that America was built on.

The modern socialist movement had its origin largely in the working class movement of the late-19th century. In this period, the term "socialism" was first used in connection with European social critics who condemned capitalism and private property. For Karl Marx, who helped establish and define the modern socialist movement, socialism implied the abolition of money, markets, capital, and labor as a commodity (Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism)."

WHY it WORKED in EUROPE

One of the chief reasons that the concept of socialism worked in Western Europe was because of the need to improve the working conditions of the working class there. Conditions for those who worked were sometimes horrific with no protection for the workers. The introduction of socialism to that population at a time when change was so desperately needed came at a time when anything would have been tried to better the situation.

In America, the working class has always had a voice in the way they were treated. There were of course times when workers were being oppressed as well, and it was during those times that unions began to take their foothold in the working world, but it never came close to the conditions that workers endured in Western Europe.

The term "socialism" is often used to refer to an economic system characterized by state ownership of the means of production and distribution. Especially during the Great Depression, many socialists considered Soviet-style planning a remedy to what they saw as the inherent flaws of capitalism, such as monopolies, business cycles, unemployment, vast inequalities in the distribution of wealth, and the exploitation of workers (Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism)."

Americans, however, felt differently. Americans were raised in a nation that prides itself on the American dream. The entire American Dream is based in the belief that if one works hard, treats people fairly and strives for success they will achieve it.

Millions of immigrants come to America annually for the purpose of obtaining the American Dream that they have heard so much about back in their homeland.

Another element in the failure for socialism to take hold in the United States dates back to the early 1900's when socialism and communism were interchangeable for many and the fear of communism was gearing up.

Following World War I the U.S. went through a period of fear and paranoia when it came to communism or socialism commonly called the Red Scare (Zionism, socialism and United States support for the Jewish colonization of Palestine in the 1920s Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Summer, 1996 by Lawrence Davidson (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_n3_v18/ai_19129728).

It was an expression of the widespread anxiety brought on by a war that had dragged the U.S. into European affairs (Zionism, socialism and United States support for the Jewish colonization of Palestine in the 1920s Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ), Summer, 1996 by Lawrence Davidson (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_n3_v18/ai_19129728)."