Toggle menu
Toggle personal menu
Not logged in
Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits.

American exceptionalism

From ProleWiki, the proletarian encyclopedia
More languages
Revision as of 13:05, 2 September 2023 by Ledlecreeper27 (talk | contribs)

American exceptionalism is the theory that U.S. capitalism is different from and superior to capitalism in other countries and that there is no basis for socialism in the United States.[1] It predicted that the United States would be able to avoid economic crises.[2]

History

Jay Lovestone, the leader of the rightist faction of the CPUSA, promoted American exceptionalism in the 1920s before being purged in 1929.[2] Stalin criticized these beliefs.[3]

References

  1. William Z. Foster (1952). History of the Communist Party of the United States: 'The American Working Class and Socialism'.
  2. 2.0 2.1 William Z. Foster (1952). History of the Communist Party of the United States: 'Building the Party of the New Type (1919-1929)'.
  3. “It would be wrong to ignore the specific peculiarities of American capitalism. The Communist Party in its work must take them into account. But it would be still more wrong to base the activities of the Communist Party on these specific features, since the foundation of the activities of every Communist Party, including the American Communist Party, on which it must base itself, must be the general features of capitalism, which are the same for all countries, and not its specific features in any given country.”

    Joseph Stalin (1929). Speech Delivered in the American Commission of the Presidium of the ECCI (p. 5). [PDF] New York: CPUSA.