Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?
Preface
Section summary
Sombart explains that these studies first appeared in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik and are reprinted with a few new figures. He decided to publish them as a book only once he was sure he had found the truth: his bourgeois friends in America agreed with him, and so did the socialist leaders, whose International Socialist Review reprinted most of the articles. The book supplements his Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung. Dated Breslau, August 1906.
The studies of the labour movement and socialism in the United States of America published here first appeared — in substantially the same words — in the twenty-first volume of the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. I have only added some more recent figures and a very few explanatory additions to the original text.
I decided on a separate edition only after I had gained the certainty that I had hit upon the truth in the main lines of my account. This certainty was given me by the judgements of those who know American conditions: not only have my bourgeois friends in America unanimously assured me of their agreement, but also — and this seems to me still more valuable — the leaders of the socialist parties have acknowledged the correctness of my view: the International Socialist Review, the official scientific organ of the S. P., has even printed the greater part of my articles word for word for its readers.
The studies may serve as a supplement to the chapters of my book Sozialismus und soziale Bewegung in which (in the latest edition) I have already attempted to sketch, briefly, socialism in the United States.