Stephen Henderson

UNST123 Prof. Bagley

5/21/14
Howard Zinn Reflection
Over the past few weeks, our class has seen a lot of different presentations all about
Howard Zinns infamous book, A Peoples History of the United States. And its been
fascinating, learning about so many different viewpoints and perspectives in the history of our
nation. Having read a chapter titled The Socialist Challenge, it was clear that there would be
some oddly differing opinions towards standard or expected American ideals presented.
Knowing this, the chapter surprised me with so much information on a large socialist
demographic that existed in the early 20
th
century. However, no matter what may be the case,
socialism could never be acceptably achieved in the United States of America.
That being said, an interesting theory exists, that had the United States instead been a
United Nations of America, some of those nations could easily exist with socialist regimes. The
true reason why socialism in America cannot work, is because of the massive population. 300
million people living under the guidance and control of a single government makes for a difficult
true democracy, let alone socialist government. To be honest, a lot of what our current
government stands for and exists to uphold is a broken, outdated, and simply irrelevant document
that we know as the Constitution. The Constitution was written over 200 years ago, in a time
when not only was the United States an infant country, we were also miniscule, and more than
impoverished in our own rights. While it is true that breaking away from the British monarchy
did in fact alleviate our economic status, the ideals laid down by our founding fathers were not
made for a country of extremely diverse population, regardless of its size. In 1776, there were
just over two million people in the United States. Now, 238 years later, that number has
increased by over 10,000%. Theres no way that the men who drafted the Constitution planned
for that kind of growth.
Even if they could have foreseen the population growth, westward expansion, or even
abolition of slavery, its not feasible that they could put together a perfect government. The most
interesting thing though, is that they did write in the ability for the American people to abolish
their government and create a new one if they saw fit. So the question is, why is it that if so
many people feel negatively about our government and the way that it operates, have we not yet
done what is our right as citizens of this country? It could be a generational issue, but only time
will tell if my generation is fed up with democracy enough to do something about it. Many
people say that my generation is the generation with nothing to show for itself. Well, we havent
had a chance to prove ourselves yet. No one in the generations before us had built a legacy
before turning 20, and even if they had, theres no way to tell how long that influence will last. I
want to believe that each generation has something worthwhile to give to the world, but its just
too early to tell right now. We may look back 20 years from now and say What were we
thinking? But as far as anyone knows today, the world is ending every time tomorrow comes
around.

Sources
"Generation Y." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 May 2014. Web. 21 May 2014.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y
Kish , J.N. . "US Population 1776 to Present." Google Fusion Tables. N.p., 3 Aug. 2010. Web.
21 May 2014.
https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?dsrcid=225439#rows:id=1
Zinn, Howard. A people's history of the United States. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. Print.