American Socialism, World Order, and the Problem of Peace
The Vision of Scott Nearing
Sometimes the best way to grasp the big picture is to allow those who have influenced social change — or who seek revolutionary action — to speak for themselves. In this case, we’re allowing an historical advocate of world socialism to present his vision, thus granting us a window into the utopian ideals that are sold as solutions to perceived international problems.
Background: Scott Nearing (1883-1983) was an economics professor, a prolific author, a noted lecturer, and a radical proponent of socialism in America. Eugene V. Debs, the five-time Socialist candidate for US president once said, “Scott Nearing! He is the greatest teacher in the United States.”1
Nearing’s influence was evident on university and college campuses across America, and he was a recognized peace activist during the anti-war campaigns of the 1960s and 70s. From the early twentieth century to later in his life, he was known for his affiliations with a number of socialist and communist-linked organizations, including the International Workers Order, Friends of the Soviet Union, and the World Peace Congress.2 In 1927 he joined the Communist Party, but after completing his Dollar Diplomacy manuscript, Moscow deemed Nearing too unorthodox and withheld publishing permission. Due to this censorship Nearing resigned from the Party, however “the Party did not agree to his voluntary departure and expelled him with a stinging denunciation.”3 Even so, Nearing maintained a strong pro-communist position. During a Miami, Florida speaking engagement in 1964 he was asked, “Are you a card-carrying Communist?”
Nearing responded, “I am not now a card-carrying Communist but I am a Communist.”4
Beyond his radical political and economic posture, Nearing was acknowledged for his nature conservation and homesteading abilities. His book, The Good Life, co-written with his wife Helen, chronicles a devotion to simple living, gardening, and hard work. And while their homesteading lifestyle gained them a favorable reputation in the back-to-the-land movement, it was Nearing’s dedication to international socialism that will be remembered in world government circles.
The following text is an excerpt from Mr. Nearing’s essay titled American Socialism, World Government and Peace.5 Notice the unity-in-diversity theme and the suggested use of regionalism – albeit under a more national guise – as foundational to creating a world system of socialism.
Excerpt from…
American Socialism, World Government and Peace
When the United States takes up the task of building socialism, Japan, Canada and the NATO countries and the members of the Bandung Bloc will easily fall into line, if they have not previously joined the peoples dedicated to the building of a socialist world.
Once the balance has been tipped toward collectivism, the large segments of the world engaged in building socialism, plus its new recruits and allies, could ignore or laugh off scattered vestiges of capitalism in Switzerland, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and parts of Latin America.
Social engineers, humanitarians, idealists and utopists are face to face with this task: Make the United States socialist. Having tipped the world balance decisively away from capitalism toward socialism, the builders of a new social order will face the next problem: making sure that a socialist world can coexist without resorting periodically to armed violence…
…Before world peace can be maintained, even under socialism, a firmly knit international government must be established. Presumably, such an international structure will consist of agencies which bind nations and peoples into a flexible but workable whole.
At the base of the structure will be national or regional units. Unitary, closely knit structures like France and Italy are such national units. Federations such as the United States of Mexico and the United States of America are such regional units. Fourscore of these political units would make up a workable United Nations Authority or United States of the World.
Such an organization, to be effective, must be flexible, because of the wide range of cultural institutions to be found even among the socialist nations which are in existence at the time of this writing. Attempts to reduce these nations and peoples to a uniform pattern would produce hostility, resistance and finally rebellion against the world authority. An effective world authority would undertake to ensure the widest possible range of choice, decision and action in the areas composing the world organization. The component elements of the world body would enjoy home rule in the same sense that the cities of Illinois enjoy the right to handle their own city problems or the provinces of composing Canada determine their own provincial affairs.
Theoretically, at least, the more local autonomy or home rule exercised by the nations and regions composing the world authority, the more vital and dynamic would be the entire organization of world life.
Side by side with local home rule, the United World Authority must have the means to deal effectively with matters which concern two or more of the nations or regions which make up the world organization. Home rule in local affairs must be paralleled by a central organization with delegated powers sufficient to deal with problems concerning the welfare of several nations and areas. This federal principle of home rule in local affairs and central administration of matters of general or common concern has worked with varying degrees of effectiveness in Switzerland, the United States and the British Commonwealth. In the federal principle lies the key to effective world organization.
Under existing world conditions, the extreme emphasis placed on ‘independence,’ ‘self-determination’ and ‘national sovereignty’ tips the balance against the workableness of a world authority. The provisions of the United Nations Charter limiting the function of the General Assembly, and giving five nations permanent seats in the Security Council and therefore permanent veto power, preserve the sovereignty of the Big Five by providing each of them with the possibility of obstructing or crippling United Nations action and thus outlawing measures which are distasteful to one among the fourscore members of the United Nations organization. A socialist world federation, which aimed to preserve peace and order and to provide for the general welfare, must limit national sovereignty sufficiently to enable the world organization to make and implement decisions in matters concerning the general world welfare.
Events of the past decade make it increasingly evident that the world economy, as at present constituted, will grow more collective rather than less as the years pass. A collective world economy will necessitate a collective political and social superstructure. The collectivist trend, progressive for this historical period, is blocked at the moment by capitalist survivals, chiefly those in the United States and the British Commonwealth. Making the United States socialist would open the way to world progress at the same time that it increased the probability of world peace.”
Endnotes:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm
For a list of organizations Nearing had connections with, see the Biographical Dictionary of the Left, Volume 1 (Western Islands, 1969), pp.471-472.
Guenter Lewy, The Cause that Failed: Communism in American Political Life (Oxford, 1990), pp.8-9.
Francis X. Gannon, Biographical Dictionary of the Left, Volume 1 (Western Islands, 1969), pp.471-472
The full text of this essay can be found in the book, Toward A Socialist America: A Symposium of Essays, edited by Helen Alfred (Peace Publications, 1958).