In the 1930s, the radical Leon Samson explained that Americans never went in big for socialism because they already had a creed, which made them happy, gave them work and made history meaningful. “Every concept in socialism has its substitutive counter-concept in Americanism,” Samson wrote, “and that is why the socialist argument falls so fruitlessly on the American ear. ... The American does not want to listen to socialism because he thinks he already has it.” The late great Kenneth Burke of Andover, NJ, grandfather to Tom and Harry Chapin, also mused about the failure of capitalism to transition to socialism.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 20:26:17 +0000