The Socialist Party USA (SPUSA) is a multi-tendency democratic-socialist party in the United States. The party states that it is the rightful continuation and successor to the tradition of the Socialist Party of America, which had lasted from 1901 to 1972.
The party is officially committed to left-wing democratic socialism. The Socialist Party USA, along with its predecessors, has received varying degrees of support, when its candidates have competed against those from the Republican and Democratic parties. Some attribute this to the party having to compete with the financial dominance of the two major parties, as well as the limitations of the United States' legislatively and judicially entrenched two-party system. The Party supports third-party candidates, particularly socialists, and opposes the candidates of the two major parties.
Opposing both capitalism and "authoritarian Communism", the Party advocates bringing big business under public ownership and democratic workers' self-management. The party opposes unaccountable bureaucratic control of Soviet communism.
Read more about Socialist Party USA: History, Founding, Presidential Tickets
Famous quotes containing the words socialist, party and/or usa:
“Men conceive themselves as morally superior to those with whom they differ in opinion. A Socialist who thinks that the opinions of Mr. Gladstone on Socialism are unsound and his own sound, is within his rights; but a Socialist who thinks that his opinions are virtuous and Mr. Gladstone’s vicious, violates the first rule of morals and manners in a Democratic country; namely, that you must not treat your political opponent as a moral delinquent.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is hereby earnestly proposed that the USA would be much better off if that big, sprawling, incoherent, shapeless, slobbering civic idiot in the family of American communities, the City of Los Angeles, could be declared incompetent and placed in charge of a guardian like any individual mental defective.”
—Westbrook Pegler (1894–1969)