50 Years Ago: Is a socialist policy applicable to America?

The widespread ignorance of class interests among workers in USA offers no permanent hindrance to our socialist policy. That ignorance is due to certain causes, and the lack of interest in revolutionary ideas amongst the masses is a phase which is true of every country for a time.

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The comparatively recent industrial growth and commercial expansion of the USA offers one reason for the so-called ‘better conditions’ of labour. This is partly responsible for the lack of interest in social change amongst the workers there. This lack of interest, however, is not simply a reflex of ‘better’ conditions but a result of capitalist propaganda by press, priest and schoolmaster, which is more powerfully and carefully used in American life than perhaps any other country, to mould the working class millions to capitalist views. The extremely careful selection of and control over teachers in school and college to avoid any advanced political views being taught, is notorious.

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The primitive and highly-organized and well-financed religious bodies of America still have a remarkably large influence in USA. These agencies of propaganda employed to keep the workers submissive, are effective because temporarily the conditions in the United States have not caused deep and lasting discontent.

(From an article by Adolph Kohn, Socialist Standard, July 1927.)