Authoritarian Socialism in America: Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist Movement

by Arthur Lipow

In Authoritarian Socialism Arthur Lipow raises important issues about the nature of democracy and defines the intellectual roots of the authoritarian side of the socialist tradition in America and distinguishes it from democratic socialism.

Genres: Politics, American History, History

Paperback

First published September 6, 1991

Reviews

[David Damiano · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arthur Lipow’s Authoritarian Socialism is an intellectual history of Edward Bellamy and the Nationalist movement which his 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward inspired. Bellamyism is commonly presented as a predecessor to the Debsian American socialist movement which emerged at the turn of the twentieth century in the form of the Socialist Party. Lipow presents Bellamy’s brand of socialism, if it can even be considered as such, as fundamentally at odds with the electorally-oriented, democratic socialism of the party of Berger, Hillquit, and Debs, on account of Nationalism’s authoritarian assumptions that collectivism could only be ushered in by a beneficent elite. Bellamyites and those inspired by Nationalism, perhaps most prominently Laurence Gronlund, were inherently suspicious of workers, considering them incapable of organizing by themselves a proper movement for their liberation, and doubly fearful of the consequences were they to organize into a radical political bloc. The solution was for an enlightened middle class elite, which was somehow apolitical and nonpartisan, to organize “from above” and coalesce the state into an all-encompassing bureaucratic apparatus which would ensure equality and efficiency, but not democratic rights or any meaningful form of suffrage. Nationalism thus represented all the fears of an anguished middle class, which felt itself being squeezed out of existence by the power of collective action both from above by the plutocracy via the trust and from below by the proletariat via trade unionism. In this respect, it is perhaps more apt to view Nationalism as a precursor to the Progressive movement more so than the socialist one.

Lipow expertly spells out the authoritarian views of Bellamy and those of a like mind, although especially in the first half of the book his writing can be long winded and feels repetitive in places. The last few chapters deal with what Lipow calls the second phase of Nationalism, when the movement latched itself onto the People’s Party. With the rise of Populism and billowing antimonopolist sentiment in the 1890s, Bellamy himself underwent something of a transformation whereby his antidemocratic views were softened and his aversion to class-based organization seemed to diminish. The hardline supporters of Bellamy’s original vision were aghast by this shift, and the Nationalist movement split on the issue of political action. Yet Lipow argues that while Bellamy was certainly evolving, his fundamental authoritarian views remained at the root of his ideology. Perhaps were he to live into the 20th century (he died of tuberculosis in 1898 at just 48 years old) Bellamy’s views would have evolved further still as the Socialist Party emerged as a genuine third party alternative on the American political scene. Either way, Bellamy is dualistic in the sense that his writing inspired many to join the ranks of socialism, as Eugene Debs attested, yet also through his authoritarian utopian ideas served as an icon for many who would later denounce socialism and the Socialist Party altogether.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant insights..