>There's lots of literature, of
>course, on why there was no lasting socialist movement in America. I don't
>think you really have to look that far; America's constantly expanding
>economy, built on the continent's great wealth, produced a more powerful
>capitalist class able to provide more consistent upward mobility to
>successive generations of immigrants, as well as shelter from the two wars
>which ravaged Europe and served to raise the political consciousness of its
>working class. Immigration, as well as race, also served to divide the US
>working class to a greater degree than was the case with the more homogenous
>working classes in the European states.
All true, but there's also Dan Lazare's favorite argument: the constitutional structure of the US, with its divided government and federal system all designed to frustrate popular power.
Doug