Why's America more conservative than other Western Nations? Plus party challenge

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I'm not sure if it is significantly more conservative than other industrialised countries. It has been much tougher territory for socialism than most but that is not exactly the same thing and is not an exclusive feature to the United States (i.e. the history of socialist politics in Canada is primarily one of noble failure). The fact that a large socialist party never established itself (although the SPA came close and maybe could have managed it with competent leadership: alas it had a saint instead) is significant and is unusual and has had important consequences (i.e. on the scope of social welfare policies etc), but is entirely explicable by the unusual structure of the American political system which happens to be wickedly effective at stymieing new political movements and at resisting structural change.

I'd argue that the structural explanation is typically over-emphasized when answering this question. There's something about American sensibilities that was not compatible with the style and the approach of the SPA. I'd also argue that the SPA's inception occurred at an unfortunate time, when racism was arguably at its peak and this racism was being applied against immigrant groups that the SPA relied on. When the SPA succeeded with "native-born Americans", it was in parts of the US that were very homogeneously "native-born". When the SPA succeeded outside of the West, it tended to do so with particular immigrant groups but not others.

This could also be said about Canada though so I'm not sure that it's a satisfactory answer.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well it depends on how far you take the structural explanation. To explain everything? No, I quite agree; that does not work. Here we have to look at social factors, political traditions and so on. But as you rightly point out most of the special factors that apply to the United States also apply to Canada, and this is where the structural explanation suddenly comes into its own.

[Torie]

Well it depends on how far you take the structural explanation. To explain everything? No, I quite agree; that does not work. Here we have to look at social factors, political traditions and so on. But as you rightly point out most of the special factors that apply to the United States also apply to Canada, and this is where the structural explanation suddenly comes into its own.

Canada is far less religious than the US isn't it?  And it didn't have the slavery history, or racial history, that the US does, which has had such a profound effect, and still does, on American culture and politics.

[TJ in Oregon]

One piece of it that hasn't been mentioned yet is just how relatively rural the US is in comparison to most of the other Western Nations it is compared to. Most of Europe is incredibly dense, and while Canada has a lower net density, a far greater fraction of the Canadian population lives in their major metro areas while most of their countryside is borderline uninhabitable.

[DC Al Fine]

One piece of it that hasn't been mentioned yet is just how relatively rural the US is in comparison to most of the other Western Nations it is compared to. Most of Europe is incredibly dense, and while Canada has a lower net density, a far greater fraction of the Canadian population lives in their major metro areas while most of their countryside is borderline uninhabitable.

FTFY?

[DC Al Fine]

I'd also suggest that "Toryism" was a major political ideology in Canada, which helps explain why its right wing parties often voted for parts of the welfare state. There isn't anything close to that in America.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Canada is far less religious than the US isn't it?  And it didn't have the slavery history, or racial history, that the US does, which has had such a profound effect, and still does, on American culture and politics.

The religious explanation can be thrown out (i.e. at the start of the twentieth century socialist politics had not trouble at all establishing itself in some regions with a profoundly religious dominant culture) and while Canada did not have those issues, it had some pretty significant ones of its own. Which have traditionally been brought up whenever the weakness of socialist/labour politics in Canada is contrasted with Britain/Australia/NZ.

[politicus]

Canada is far less religious than the US isn't it?  And it didn't have the slavery history, or racial history, that the US does, which has had such a profound effect, and still does, on American culture and politics.

The religious explanation can be thrown out (i.e. at the start of the twentieth century socialist politics had not trouble at all establishing itself in some regions with a profoundly religious dominant culture) and while Canada did not have those issues, it had some pretty significant ones of its own. Which have traditionally been brought up whenever the weakness of socialist/labour politics in Canada is contrasted with Britain/Australia/NZ.

Which ones?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Which ones?

The linguistic/cultural faultline that has always defined the country (and is actually the only reason - historically speaking - for its existence in the first place) and that it is a strange tacked together ramshackle country with poor internal communications (and this was more the case historically than it is now). Plus all the stuff that it has in common with the United States that DFB has already alluded to.

[Torie]

Canada is far less religious than the US isn't it?  And it didn't have the slavery history, or racial history, that the US does, which has had such a profound effect, and still does, on American culture and politics.

The religious explanation can be thrown out (i.e. at the start of the twentieth century socialist politics had not trouble at all establishing itself in some regions with a profoundly religious dominant culture) and while Canada did not have those issues, it had some pretty significant ones of its own. Which have traditionally been brought up whenever the weakness of socialist/labour politics in Canada is contrasted with Britain/Australia/NZ.

How about later on?  My impression is that the US has retained its religious intensity more or less over the course of the 20th century, while it waned in Northern Europe. Around 1900, there might have been considerably less of a difference.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Because later on is too late.

[RFayette]

Canada is far less religious than the US isn't it?  And it didn't have the slavery history, or racial history, that the US does, which has had such a profound effect, and still does, on American culture and politics.

The religious explanation can be thrown out (i.e. at the start of the twentieth century socialist politics had not trouble at all establishing itself in some regions with a profoundly religious dominant culture) and while Canada did not have those issues, it had some pretty significant ones of its own. Which have traditionally been brought up whenever the weakness of socialist/labour politics in Canada is contrasted with Britain/Australia/NZ.

People forget just how strong the religious left was in North America during 1900-1950.  Think child labor.

True.  The Social Gospel is really just the predecessor of the modern social justice movement.  It's just that now, the rights the social justice types are fighting for (LGBT, feminism, aborrion rights, etc.) run counter to mainstream Biblical Christianity, whereas in the past, movements like civil rights had strong scriptural support.

[Torie]

For those who think religiosity is a red herring, does heterogeneity have something to do with it? If a society is quite homogeneous, then there is more empathy perhaps, and less focus on viewing other groups as a problem, or a source of competition, or a threat, deflecting from economic equality issues. Better to keep the blacks, or Irish or whomever down vis a vis oneself, rather than focus on lifting up the less fortunate as a whole.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

It's interesting theory, but I wouldn't take too much atock by it. After all Japan is very ethnically homogenous and also one of the more conservative nations in the First World. Similarly, Canada as Al noted, has been ethnically heterogenous since the beginning with the francophones and the natives yet is widely considered more left-wing than the U.S.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The fact that a large socialist party never established itself (although the SPA came close and maybe could have managed it with competent leadership: alas it had a saint instead)

And what could be more American than that? In terms of ideologues anyway.

EDIT: I note that nobody has mentioned Ireland in this thread.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The fact that a large socialist party never established itself (although the SPA came close and maybe could have managed it with competent leadership: alas it had a saint instead)

And what could be more American than that? In terms of ideologues anyway.

EDIT: I note that nobody has mentioned Ireland in this thread.

Many European Socialist parties had incompetent ideologues as leaders for a very long time. I don't see what in terms of personality/attitude would make Debs any less effective than Kautsky or Guesde.

[angus]

Comparable to other Western nations, our left is their right and our right is extremely far-right compared to European countries and possibly Canada. 

I'm not sure that this is a supportable conclusion.  On what parametrization do you make this claim?

My guess is that our far leftists are about as far left as it gets, and similar statements could be said about the very far right.

I do know that one objective measure of how far left or right a country is would be the percent of the aggregate GDP that is government spending.  2015 figures are incomplete; the World Bank figures from 2014 are as follows for OECD countries:

19.0     AUSTRALIA    
28.4     AUSTRIA    
30.7     BELGIUM    
17.0     CANADA
10.0     CHILE    
20.6     CZECH REPUBLIC    
30.1     DENMARK    
16.3     ESTONIA    
31.0     FINLAND    
31.9     FRANCE    
25.6     GERMANY    
24.0     GREECE    
22.1     HUNGARY    
16.5     ICELAND    
21.9     IRELAND    
15.5     ISRAEL    
28.6     ITALY    
-----     JAPAN    
10.4     KOREA    
23.5     LUXEMBOURG    
-----     MEXICO    
24.7     NETHERLANDS
20.8     NEW ZEALAND    
22.0     NORWAY    
20.6     POLAND    
25.2     PORTUGAL    
18.4     SLOVAK REPUBLIC    
23.7     SLOVENIA    
27.3     SPAIN    
28.1     SWEDEN    
19.4     SWITZERLAND    
12.5     TURKEY    
21.7     UNITED KINGDOM    
19.2     UNITED STATES    

In the first column is percent GDP spent on social services; in the second is that name of the corresponding country.  Dashes occur when data wasn't available.  Also, I copied and pasted, in good faith, but there may be some error.  From this you can see that the US is somewhere in the middle in this regard.  You might be able to adjust for income levels and other factors.  This is unmassaged data.

The US is tenth of 32 (ignoring blanks) when sorted by smallest GDP spent on income.  Only Chile, Korea, Turkey, Israel, Estonia, Iceland, Canada, Slovak, and Australia were lower.  On this parameter, you could make a case for your point.  We're number 10 of 32. 

Why?  Well, that's another question.  I wasn't surprised to see France in the lead (ignoring Mexico and Japan, who do not have data), but why does the US spend less than 2/3 of the other OECD countries on social services?  I suspect that it has to do with our political culture.  If you leave off the Asian nations, and split the remainder into countries in Western Europe and those to whom Europeans immigrated between 1700 and 2000, you'll see that Australia, Canada, and the USA are very low on the list, while France, Finland, Belgium, and the like are high on the list.  There's probably a PhD dissertation in politics or anthropology or something like that in there.  Tweeze it out.  Don't expect us to do all your work, but I do think that you could make a story out of this.