I believe this is a wrong picture. The USA was just as abundant as Western Europe, but Social Democracy never developed. I believe the answer to why is obvious. From a class struggle perspective emigration from Europe forced the bourgeoise to make compromises. Labour, earlier an abundant resource, became scarcer as people left. But with technology still developing the situation changed. The working class got a stronger voice vis á vis the the bourgeoise. Accordingly the working class was able to constitute itself as a political party.
The USA was the total opposite. If workers objected to the working conditions, new waves of immigrants, willing to work under these circumstances, came all the time. As such, there was never an opportunity for the working class to constitute the party.
På Mon, 9 Feb 2004 16:22:07 -0800, skrev <dredmond at efn.org>:
> Quoting Brad Mayer <Bradley.Mayer at Sun.COM>:
>
>> Because to have Social Democracy, a country must first organize itself
>> something recognizable as Society.
>
> My own theory is that the US never developed social democracy -- because
> it didn't need to. The US was the hegemonic economic power of the world-
> system from 1945-1985, and could afford to pursue a politics of Cold War
> military Keynesianism, which sent GIs to college, built vast amounts of
> tract housing, automobilized the country, rebuilt Western Europe and
> Japan, accelerated the budding consumer culture, and spawned the mass
> university system.
>
> -- DRR
>
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