Roots of American Socialism and Why It's Been Maligned

I think what stuns me most often is how many people are totally ignorant of the socialist roots our country actually has. Capitalism nearly destroyed the world's economy post-WWI, and the Great Depression was a direct result of corporate and individual greed. In its wake, socialism was deemed a viable alternative, and it was through the 1930s and into the 1940s that many socialist programs were put into place in order to help American people from starving. Unfortunately, though, as war time waned, in order to keep factories producing high-grade steel, many unions' power was slashed, making it harder and harder for American workers to fight for what they needed. Prior to that point, unions were immensely useful in allowing American workers to reduce their hours and get better pay. Truman slashed their powers to break a union-led stalemate that was preventing American companies from supplying materials overseas and generating massive profits.

After WWII, American steel manufacturers were radically refitted from war-time use to supplying steel to Europe, and America basically rebuilt European infrastructure at an immense profit. Because unions were basically stripped of their powers, companies started making a huge amount of profit and a new rhetoric was adopted to keep that status quo the norm. Socialism, at that point, began to threaten the amount of power manufacturers and growing companies had over the workforce.

Conveniently, Soviet Russia quickly became America's greatest enemy after WWII, and so began a cultural war between the two world powers. America ramped up its patriotic rhetoric during the late 1940s and 1950s to indoctrinate Americans into believing that capitalism was the superior way of life, and so Americans, many of whom were enjoying an age of prosperity, bought into it wholesale. Schools began to educate students in the way of Christian moral values to fight against the godless Soviets, patriotism came at an all-time high, and the American people signed over their ability to organize and control their wages in order to avoid modern-day witch hunts instigated by a paranoid government egged on by powerful businesses.

That's not to say that there aren't obvious issues I haven't oversimplified, or that there weren't moments of socialist programs that grew out of a country steeped in capitalism (Eisenhower's highway system, for example, made our modern way of life possible). In the story of history, it's actually been the socialists who have been on the side of the people. It's those hunting socialists like the witches of old that have been the villainsaw.