In 1906, a German distinguished (somewhat neglected) economist and sociologist Werner Sombart published Why is there no Socialism in the United States? – a book which will become a famous work on American exceptionalism to this day (along with a pioneering and penetrative Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville). There are a number of reasons given by Sombart for the weakness of Socialism in the US: the lack of a feudal heritage in the American short history; unlike the European nations that retained numerous remnants of traditional attitudes and institutions, the U.S. was almost completely dominated by the spirit of competition, material acquisitiveness and individualistic culture; and a favorable attitude toward capitalism held by workers in America.
Sombart also made two additional points regarding the failure of expansion and reception of socialist ideas and the lack of radical political consciousness. Sombart argued that the worker in America had a high esteem for the American system of democratic government and his own participation…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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