ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the reason for there being no Socialism in the United States by specifying the particular conditions in which the American proletariat lives. It deals with the character of political life, since that is what every observer considers most obviously distinctive. There are therefore millions of people in America who during the last generation have immigrated from countries where Socialism flourishes. In 1900 Germans or working Americans of German parentage alone amounted to 3,295,350, of whom 1,142,131 were employed in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits; thus, the greater part were certainly wage labourers. Instead, the explanation is more likely to be found in the variegated mixture of the American population, which at the same time exhibits extremely homogeneous developmental characteristics, the determining factors of which are to be sought in the features of American life.
