A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of America who had split from the main organization in 1899.
Social Democrats, USA (SDUSA) is a social-democratic organization established in 1972 as the successor of the Socialist Party of America (SPA). The SPA had stopped running independent presidential candidates and consequently the term "party" in its name had confused the public. Moreover, replacing the "socialist" label with "social democrats" was meant to disassociate the group from the Soviet Union.
Norman Mattoon Thomas was an American Presbyterian minister who achieved fame as a socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.
The Social Democratic Party of America (SDP) was a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1898.
The Port Huron Statement is a 1962 political manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). It was written by SDS members, and completed on June 15, 1962, at a United Auto Workers (UAW) retreat outside of Port Huron, Michigan, for the group's first national convention. Under Walter Reuther's leadership, the UAW paid for a range of expenses for the 1962 convention, including use of the UAW summer retreat in Port Huron.
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker-owner who each have one vote.
The history of the socialist movement in the United States spans a variety of tendencies, including anarchists, communists, democratic socialists, Marxists, Marxist–Leninists, Trotskyists and utopian socialists. It began with utopian communities in the early 19th century such as the Shakers, the activist visionary Josiah Warren and intentional communities inspired by Charles Fourier. Labor activists, usually Jewish, German, or Finnish immigrants, founded the Socialist Labor Party of America in 1877. The Socialist Party of America was established in 1901. By that time, anarchism also rose to prominence around the country. Socialists of different tendencies were involved in early American labor organizations and struggles. These reached a high point in the Haymarket massacre in Chicago, which founded the International Workers' Day as the main labour holiday around the world, Labor Day and making the eight-hour day a worldwide objective by workers organizations and socialist parties worldwide.
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Many cooperatives, however, do have a degree of profit orientation. Just like other corporations, some cooperatives issue dividends to owners based on a share of total net profit or earnings ; or based on a percentage of the total amount of purchases made by the owner. Regardless of whether they issue a dividend or not, most consumers’ cooperatives will offer owners discounts and preferential access to good and services.
The Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS) was a socialist student organization active from 1905 to 1921. It attracted many prominent intellectuals and writers and acted as an unofficial student wing of the Socialist Party of America. The Society sponsored lecture tours, magazines, seminars and discussion circles all over the US to propagate socialist ideas among America's college population. The group expanded into a philosophy in the 1920s that did not focus exclusively or even primarily on college students. To symbolize the shift in emphasis, the group changed its name to the League for Industrial Democracy in 1921.
Cooperative economics is a field of economics that incorporates cooperative studies and political economy toward the study and management of cooperatives.
The Social Democracy of America (SDA), later known as the Cooperative Brotherhood, was a short lived political party in the United States that sought to combine the planting of an intentional community with political action in order to create a socialist society. It was an organizational forerunner of both the Socialist Party of America (SPA) and the Burley, Washington cooperative socialist colony.
The Young People's Socialist League (YPSL), founded in 1907, was the official youth arm of the Socialist Party of America. Its political activities tend to concentrate on increasing the voter turnout of young democratic socialists and social democrats affecting the issues impacting that demographic group.
The American Left can refer to multiple concepts. It is sometimes used as a shorthand for groups aligned with the Democratic Party. At other times, it refers to groups that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United States. Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and progressives believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, and socialists with international imperatives are also present within this macro-movement. Many communes and egalitarian communities have existed in the United States as a sub-category of the broader intentional community movement, some of which were based on utopian socialist ideals. The left has been involved in both the Democratic and Republican parties at different times, having originated in the Democratic-Republican Party as opposed to the Federalist Party.
The Intercollegiate League for Industrial Democracy was the official youth section of the League for Industrial Democracy and a de facto junior section of the Socialist Party of America during the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s. The organization merged with a student organization sponsored by the Communist Party, USA in 1935 to form the American Student Union.
Tom David Kahn was an American social democrat known for his leadership in several organizations. He was an activist and influential strategist in the Civil Rights Movement. He was a senior adviser and leader in the U.S. labor movement.
The Student League for Industrial Democracy (SLID) of 1946 to 1959 was the second incarnation of the League for Industrial Democracy's student group. It changed its name to the Students for a Democratic Society on January 1, 1960, and severed its connection to the LID in 1965.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships and parliamentary procedure, the founders conceived of the organization as a broad exercise in "participatory democracy". From its launch in 1960 it grew rapidly in the course of the tumultuous decade with over 300 campus chapters and 30,000 supporters recorded nationwide by its last national convention in 1969. The organization splintered at that convention amidst rivalry between factions seeking to impose national leadership and direction, and disputing "revolutionary" positions on, among other issues, the Vietnam War and Black Power.
The League for Industrial Democracy (LID) was founded as a successor to the Intercollegiate Socialist Society in 1921. Members decided to change its name to reflect a more inclusive and more organizational perspective.
The history of left-wing politics in the United States consists of a broad range of individuals and groups that have sought fundamental egalitarian changes. Left-wing activists in the United States have been credited with advancing social change on issues such as labor and civil rights as well as providing critiques of capitalism.
