I.6. The Position of the American Worker in the State

All that I have set out so far about the peculiar position of the American worker towards politics and in politics makes plausible (I hope) why the proletariat in the United States has so far kept away from forming a party of its own; it explains, one might say, the absence of an official representation of socialist views. But it does not yet explain sufficiently why these views themselves are so weakly developed in America, why the attitude, affirming state and society, that we have come to know rules the broad circles of the American working class. For we do not, after all, wish to rate this so low as to trace back all the expressions of its joyful optimism solely and exclusively to the chances of obtaining an office in the state. Here too we must look for the reasons more deeply, and we find them, for the inward aversion of the American worker to socialist tendencies (in the embittered European sense), in good part again in the peculiarity of his political situation. In particular, his love for the existing state is certainly explained also by the political position that he occupies in this state.

It is a peculiarity of the American citizen, observed by many, that he sees in the constitution of his country a kind of divine revelation and consequently reveres it with believing awe. He has the feeling towards the “Constitution” as towards something holy, which is removed from the criticism of mortals. There has rightly been talk of a “constitutional fetishworship”.

In this view the American worker too is brought up from childhood, in the school and in public life. And he has no reason to change the opinion that has been inoculated into him in every way when he comes to reflect for himself. For in fact everything in the way of rights that he can fairly claim is guaranteed by the constitution to him, the representative of the great mass, of the “people”.

We have already come to know the radical-democratic character of the constitution in detail, when we tried to form an idea of the extent of the suffrage. But beyond all those individual rights goes the provision of the constitution that it can itself at any time be changed by, and only by, the people in direct vote. With that the whole constitution — which again has its like only in Switzerland — is placed on the basis of the sovereignty of the people. The sovereign people alone decides what is to be law in the sphere of the American Union. This legal situation, however, has had a series of far-reaching consequences for the shaping of the spirit that rules public life. It has first produced, and brought to an uncanny unfolding, what one may call the democratic phrase.

The frequent calling-up of the citizen at the elections has furthered this development. Again and again rings out the appeal to the “sacred rights of the people”; again and again the simple man feels himself surrounded with the whole exalted nimbus of the “sovereign”. “We, the free people of America” … “We, the people of the State of …, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom …”: that booms in the American’s ears from childhood on. The last and poorest prole has a share in the sacred sovereignty; he is the people, and the people is the state. (Formally!)

From this there now grows in every individual a boundless feeling of power, however imaginary it may be: in his consciousness it is an undoubted reality. “The citizen believes that he is still king in the state and that he can put things in order if only he wills it. The words of the popular orator: ‘When the American people rises in its might and majesty’ — are by no means mere phrases for his audience. Each individual among them believes in this mysterious power that calls itself the ‘American people’ and that nothing is able to resist; he has a mystical confidence in the efficacy of the popular will, he speaks of it with a kind of religious ecstasy. This confidence often stands in striking contrast to what has really been achieved or even striven for. The citizen mostly does not stir a finger to remove abuses in public life, but he lives in the firm conviction that he need only will in order to put an end to them. And this conviction keeps alive within him the love of right, the hatred of wrong, like a fire from which a spark seldom appears, but which does not go out, and which can at any moment break out into a flame of enthusiasm that spreads light and warmth.”

Most closely connected with this, however, is a last, essential peculiarity of political life in the United States: that is, the overriding importance that “public opinion” has for everything that happens. It is at bottom the real governing power, to which the judicial authorities are subject just as much as the executive and the legislative bodies. We saw that there is no party government in America in the sense that England, France and Italy have it. That is connected on the one hand with the peculiarity of the party relations there, but on the other hand with the circumstance emphasised here, that by the constitution the sovereign people stands above all public powers, and can, so to speak, send them home at any moment. Consequently the elected representatives of the people — no matter whether they belong to the category of judicial or administrative officials or are members of the parliaments — are subject to the unceasing control of the masses, whose will (so long as it is not expressed in the votes) finds its expression precisely in the mysterious “public opinion”.

The President and the governor (mostly) have, as is well known, the right of veto over resolutions of Congress and of the state legislatures. But they will exercise it only when they are sure of having “public opinion” behind them. Then, however, the parliaments too will forgo carrying through the bill (which after it has been returned they can enforce with a two-thirds majority). The efficacy of “public opinion” is naturally heightened by the short electoral periods. This predominance of “public opinion”, however, must in turn contribute to raising beyond measure the consciousness of power in every ordinary citizen. If the general “mood of the people” really decides the course of politics, then that must produce in the individual citizen, and so naturally also in the “worker”, who is after all formally equal in every respect with the richest trust magnate and who moreover knows that the mass of his fellows is behind him as the decisive factor at the elections, an intense feeling of participation in the working of political life, going beyond even the efficacy of his individual rights guaranteed by the constitution. In “public opinion” the relative strength of the individual social groups vanishes completely, which comes plainly to light, for example, in parliament or in the class membership of the individual officials. The little man can imagine, since he after all helps to make “public opinion” himself, that through it, in spite of every contrary appearance, he is after all the one who in the last resort determines the destinies of the state.

To this comes the fact that “public opinion” in America — until recently at least — has always behaved sympathetically towards the specific interests of the workers. The worker is thus strengthened in two ways in the consciousness of counting for something in the state. Shall he not then keep his joy in this commonwealth? In a commonwealth that not only grants him full share in public life, in which he is also valued politically and socially as a full citizen? He, whose favour all the authorities make it their concern positively to court? The worker over there has subjectively the full right to throw out his chest proudly and to say with head held high: “civis americanus sum”.

But of course: with this formal equality of rights in the state alone it is not yet done. As it was said in the “Doléances” during the French Revolution: “The voice of liberty proclaims nothing to the heart of a wretch who is dying of hunger.” A radical-democratic constitution may well attach the mass to the form of the state, but it will not be able to prevent a criticism of the ruling society, and in particular of the existing economic order, if this does not also guarantee the people a materially tolerable existence. So one will never be able to seek the reasons for the absence of a popular movement hostile to state and society exclusively in the peculiarity of the political position of the masses. Rather, this must be matched by what one can call, in sum, the economic situation. The task of the following section shall be to furnish the proof that the economic situation of the North American proletarian too is suited, or more correctly was suited, to preserve him from the snares of socialism.