p Over recent decades, America’s socialist consciousness has been shaped within different sociopolitical movements and taking different shapes. Within the organized communist movement it exists in the form of revolutionary socialist consciousness (scientific socialism). But at the same time, this type of consciousness also matures within the bourgeois-democratic movements and processes rooted in the liberal tradition. Here it appears as what Marx and 152 Engels used to call "bourgeois socialism". And finally, socialist consciousness is produced by the mass democratic protest movements of a nonproletarian nature, which uphold the intellectual and political tradition of left-wing radicalism.

p The Utopian nature of the socialist ideal shaped on a non-Marxist basis is more or less clearly pronounced. And so, although the postwar United States has failed to produce either Utopian novels comparable to the works of Bellamy or Howells or fundamental socialist Utopian doctrines, the socialist Utopian tradition lives on in America.

p Among the branches of the Utopian tradition, the socialist utopia displays what is perhaps the greatest gap separating the past from the present. In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was a kind of speculative fantasy, a distinct reaction to the contradictions of capitalism, often interpreting socialism as anticapitalism or, to be more precise, as capitalism turned upside down. Today’s socialist-oriented Utopian reacts not only to the ills of capitalism but also to the flaws (whether real or imagined) in the building of the existing socialist society. For this reason, his utopia is often critical both of capitalism as a system of social relations and of specific forms and methods used to translate the socialist ideal into reality—those that he regards as essentially incompatible with the ideal. And while in some cases this utopia claims to belong to the Marxist tradition and in others disavows it openly, it invariably develops outside Marxism, although sometimes borrowing Marxistsounding terminology.

p These qualities are inherent in the modern American socialist utopia; but it also displays distinctive features rooted in the nature of American politics, above all in the absence of a mass socialist movement and mass socialist organizations.

p One of the earliest forms of postwar Utopian socialism in America was Erich Fromm’s so-called communitarian socialism. Brought up in the critical theoretical spirit of the Frankfurt School, Fromm was never active in the socialist movement (although he did join the American Socialist Party in the 1950s) and always rejected socialist revolution. He saw methods of "social therapy" and " communitarian socialism" as its concrete form as the only effective way of making social relations more human and 153 attaining Marx’s ideal of the all-round man, a concept he found attractive. "The humanization of technological society," he wrote in one of his last works, "can find full expression only in a movement which is not bureaucratic, not connected with the political machines, and which is the result of active and imaginative efforts by those who share the same aims. Such a movement itself, in its organization and method, would be expressive of the aim to which it is devoted: to educate its members for the new kind of society in the process of striving for it".  [153•1 

p Fromm’s project in its first version formulated in the 1950s is connected with the socialist tradition only inasmuch as it is conceived as a way to eliminate the forms of alienation produced by capitalist social relations. In some other respects, it is closer to the romantic and democratic rather than to the socialist utopia.

p Fromm sets four groups of tasks designed, he believes, to "humanize technological society": "(1) Planning which includes the system Man and which is based on norms which follow from the examination of the optimal functioning of the human being. (2) Activation of the individual by methods of grass-roots activity and responsibility, by changing the present methods of alienated bureaucracy into one of humanistic management. (3) Changing of the consumption pattern in the direction of consumption that contributes to activation and discourages ‘passivation’. (4) The emergence of new forms of psychospiritual orientation and devotion, which are equivalents of the religious systems of the past.”  [153•2 

p In The Revolution of Hope Fromm sketched a specific plan to achieve these goals. He claimed it was necessary to organize the Movement to mobilize people of goodwill for the effort to humanize America. The Movement was to be guided by national and local Councils composed of competent people united by their common striving to humanize technological society and capable of influencing the public. The Councils would direct the work of the Clubs ("cultural, social, and personalistic centers"), each comprising 100 to 300 members, engaging in political education 154 and doing their best to influence various social forces so as to humanize the political process. Finally, the Groups, each with a membership of up to 25 people, would be the most numerous and active elements. It is in the Groups, Fromm maintains, that everyday transformation of Americans and the shaping of the new type of social relations could be carried out in the most vigorous way. "Their members would share a new philosophy, a philosophy of the love of life, its manifestations in human relations, politics, art, social organization.... None of these areas of human activities is isolated from each other, but each aspect gets its meaning by being related to all others.”  [154•1 

p In 1976 Erich Fromm produced his last book, To Have or to Bel, where he developed in detail his opinion of "communitarian socialism" as a new type of society in which the "mode of existence" would be oriented not on “having”, the way it is in modern industrialized society, but on the “being” of the individual, on the very process of his existence. As the first step toward such society, Fromm recommends that production be subordinated to "healthy consumption", whose forms would be chosen by the consumers themselves and not imposed on them by the corporations or the state. Fromm is convinced that it is the change in the structure of demand that would aid in the creation of "a new form of economic system, one that is as different from present-day capitalism as it is from the Soviet centralized state capitalism and from the Swedish total welfare bureaucracy".  [154•2  As to the socialization of the means of production, Fromm asserts that such a "general goal" without a concrete plan to humanize social relations cannot be a reliable guarantee of progress toward genuine socialism.

p Practical realization of the principles of "industrial and political participatory democracy" is the second important condition of the building of the new society. This, Fromm explains, means that each member of a production or any other organization would play an active role in its life both at the level of the individual productive effort and at the highest level, when overall decisions are being taken that 155 affect the entire organization. This would also mean that the individual would be equally interested in the solution of problems affecting both the community and himself. "A true political democracy can be defined as one in which life is just that, interesting.”  [155•1  Naturally, Fromm adds, "active participation in political life requires maximum decentralization throughout industry and politics",  [155•2  because a humane society can be only decentralized and debureaucratized, with people never even contemplating things they are forced to do in a bureaucratic society where behavioral patterns are imposed on them from without.

p In his last book the American sociologist returns to the old Utopian idea (he expounded it in The Sane Society} of "guaranteed yearly income": "All persons, regardless of whether they work or not, shall have the unconditional right not to starve and not to be without shelter. They shall receive not more than is basically required to sustain themselves—but neither shall they receive less."  [155•3  Fromm stresses that this requirement is all the more important since "it is unacceptable to any system based on exploitation and control" and is therefore radically liberation-oriented.

p Fromm’s project is a typical armchair Utopia, a product of petty-bourgeois consciousness. Having acquired its general shape in the 1940s and 1950s (what came later were mostly additional details), it could not, either at that time or subsequently, serve as a feasible program for transforming American (or any other) society. Its humanism is abstract and devoid of any political, economic or organizational "logistical support". Nevertheless, the Utopia of "communitarian socialism" provided a sufficiently clear picture of the crisis non-Marxist socialist consciousness experienced in the United States from the 1940s to the 1960s, of the aberrant and illusory "critical thinking" which blamed dehumanization above all on technology, and on the manner of production and social organization incompatible with human needs in their abstract interpretation.

p In the 1960s and early 1970s, when democratic movements were on the rise in the United States, the search for a socialist alternative broadened. Although these movements generally developed outside the mainstream of socialism, some of the social projects advanced by the New Left displayed more or less noticeable traces of socialism. But it was "surrealistic socialism" (as Marcuse called it later), -couched in fine-sounding language but ignoring the actual trends in the development of modern American society and embodying the imperatives of abstract humanism.

p The New Left envisaged a society with its typical features including "(1) the elimination of ... labor which is enforced and determined by the private needs of monopoly capital ... and ultimately the creation of a truly post-scarcity society in which work would be converted into play and the market abolished by complete automation of the labor process...; (2) the creation of a non-repressive culture, governed by the conversion of need into desire, by the transformation of sexuality into Eros—that is, the passage from genital sexuality to an eroticizing of the whole human personality and the total social milieu—and by the freeing of the human body from repressive de-sublimated sex; (3) the creation of decentralized and fully libertarian communities of authentic selves—shored on a liberating technological and ecological base-where the fulfillment of the common good would be a necessary condition for the personal self-realization of all...; (4) the abolition of cultural ethnocentrism and the creation of a world-cultural community, free of economic avarice and political domination, and nourished by love and mutual self-understanding; (5) the abolition of private property, the collective ownership of the means of production, and the utilization of economic resources for the pacification and harmonization of all the peoples of the earth; and (6) the structuring of new, experimental social life paradigms-extended family structures, communes, etc.”  [156•1 

p It is easy to see that the striving for a break with " corporate capitalism" which permeated this program determined the nature of its free society ideals and its concepts of 157 socialism. It is also easy to see that the New Left wanted a break with established socialism (as they saw it), to them the epitome of “bureaucracy” and “etatism”. As a result, the image of socialist society presented by the theoreticians of the radical Left was a challenge to all, a slap in the face of all “bureaucrats”, “etatists” and “antihumanists”-the labels they often pinned on all who disagreed with them.

p The search for a socialist alternative continued after the radical Left movements of the 1960s and 1970s began to lose momentum.

p This search, conducted amid a reappraisal of values, was reflected, inter alia, in the "revolutionary socialism" concept formulated by Michael Lerner who interpreted socialism as "the ownership and control of the means of production, and, through that, the control of all areas of life, by the majority of people who work. So socialism is another way of saying ’power to the people’.... Socialism is radical democracy, democracy extended to every area of our collective lives.”  [157•1 

p This ownership and control by the people, Lerner underlines, open the way to self-determination and self- realization, and, consequently, to a life of “beauty”, pleasure", “love” and “wisdom”.

p Lerner sets great store by the revolutionary potential of youth (above all students), national minorities ( especially Blacks) and women;he stresses that a majority revolution in which scores of millions of people would be involved and which, he believes, is the only type of revolution practicable in America, is impossible without vigorous participation by the working class (in his view, comprising most hired labor). Here, he notes, it is important to prepare the masses in advance for directing sociopolitical processes. Lerner proposes the establishment of mass organizations of the "people’s councils" type which, operating at industrial enterprises, in offices, colleges and universities, and in residential areas, could aid in the elaboration of alternative decisions on a broad range of issues and, in the final analysis, in the rallying of the masses to the struggle against the existing institutions. As a result, the “councils” could take political power into their own hands, and this would 158 be the beginning of a protracted process of socialist transformation.

p The "revolutionary socialist" is a dedicated opponent of violence. He would like the revolution to be completely nonviolent, and in this he echoes most 19th-century Utopian socialists who opposed revolution. Realizing, however, that the American bourgeoisie will not give up power without a fight, Lerner reluctantly acknowledges the revolutionary’s right to resort to necessary violence, at the same time exhorting him to exercise extreme caution.

p No doubt, Lerner’s project is a step forward compared to the plans of the New Left, let alone of Erich Fromm. But he fails to take into account either the actual conditions in which the American working class exists, or the level of its political awareness, or the actual alignment of forces within the nation, or the nature of the social revolution—to say nothing of the fact that he offers a narrow and primitive interpretation of what socialism is all about.

p A discussion of the socialist ideal formed on a Utopian basis would be incomplete without mention of the socalled democratic socialism represented by Michael Harrington and other members of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee he chairs. Harrington maintains that the capitalist era is drawing to a close, since our time is the twilight of the era that has lasted four centuries.  [158•1  He postulates that the self-destructiveness of capitalism— a feature inherent in it—is gaining momentum, and the United States is no exception. This “self-destructiveness” is supposed to stem from collectivization—that is, from the use of "political mechanisms to allocate economic resources rather than relying on the market".  [158•2  Given certain conditions this trend may open the way to socialist transformations.

p Although Harrington leaves open many issues of strategy and tactics involved in these transformations and refrains from drawing a specific picture of a socialist America, he does formulate certain principles which highlight his vision of socialism. He is convinced that the question of 159 property in and control of the means of production is a central issue of direct relevance to social transformations. But since he believes that the self-destructiveness of capitalism works in favor of socialism, the foremost task is to channel this process along democratic lines, that is, to work toward a consistent and all-round realization of democratic principles. "Where the men and women of 1776 fought to make democracy the principle of our political life, we strive to make it the principle of our economic and social life as well.”  [159•1 

p Harrington rejects the social, economic and political structures which exist in the socialist countries, just as he does the strategy and tactics of socialist change typical of these nations. He advocates “democratic” socialization and collectivization via the use of legal mechanisms and institutions of power—specifically, the use of the Democratic Party which, in his opinion, could be transformed, should the circumstances be favorable, into a mass party of the Left.

p Harrington’s program follows socialist lines since it envisages a radical transformation of property relations and the elimination of capitalist exploitation. But it is Utopian because, like many others, it fails to take into account actual trends in the development of capitalist America.

p One can approach the socialist Utopian projects arising in the United States today from different angles. From the political viewpoint, all theoretical constructs discussed here (and others in the same bracket) merely lead away from the practicable path of transforming capitalist society, the path mapped out by scientific socialism. The prescriptions compiled by Fromm, Lerner or Harrington are incapable of curing the ills of capitalism—whether in the United States or anywhere else—to say nothing of offering any new productive ideas concerning further development of the communist social formation. In this sense one can, with justification, say that modern American Utopian socialism is barren, even that it displays clear signs of deterioration compared to what it used to be in the 19th century.

But there is another, educational aspect to the problem. 160 It is entirely possible that for some critics of capitalism— especially those who come from the middle strata and who, for this or that reason, are not yet ready to accept scientific socialism-Utopian socialist projects may prove to be a preparatory stage they will leave behind when they grasp the truth. In the words of A.L. Morton, "utopianism may be compared to a bridge, which, when one is on the far side of a river, is a means of crossing it, but which, when once crossed, leads only backwards.”  [160•1