America doesn't really have a working class

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an

exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

--John Steinbeck

“socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

For me, a telling anecdote that first clued me into this hypothesis was when I debated Jacobin writer Meagan Day in 2018. When I pointed out that very few Americans are financially destitute, she responded that “it’s not just destitution, it’s disappointment”, and proceeded to describe her own frustration with the two unpaid internships she went ... See more