ABSTRACT
The continued weakness of socialism in the United States has been a major embarrassment to Marxist theorists who assumed that the cultural superstructure, including political behavior, is a function of the underlying economic and technological structure. Karl Marx and Engels clearly had no coherent explanation for the failures of socialism in America during their lifetimes. A number of socialist observers who sought to explain the lack of class consciousness in America as compared to Europe suggested it was due to differences in their origin and history. The most important event affecting radicalism in the world and America was the Russian Revolution. The conception suggested by Gramsci that Americanism represents a distinct ideological alternative to socialism, one that is accepted by American workers, was independently developed and elaborated at about the same time by two quite different individuals: Hermann Keyserling, a conservative German aristocrat, and Leon Samson, an American socialist.
