The Lessons of “Sewer Socialism”
Milwaukee's “sewer socialists” were the most successful socialist organization in US history, running city hall and organized labor for decades. Their experience demonstrates the viability of a nondoctrinaire Marxism that pairs electoral campaigning for reforms with organizing working-class power oriented toward social democracy and socialism.
Scaremongering about democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who is now the mayor of New York City, closely resembles elite efforts over a century ago to stop socialists from winning another big-city mayoral race. On the eve of Milwaukee’s April 1910 election, one Democratic newspaper advertisement warned that under a socialist city hall “capital will be idle. […]
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