America: a Marxist Legacy

I've noticed an interesting dichotomy in American history. As a country, America was founded on capitalist principles. However, due to America's unusual categorization in the history of the world's nations, it does not conform to the same literary standards of criticism as, say, Europe or Asia. America was founded and built by-and-large by the working class. The heart of the American story is the heart of the worker. Thus, Marxist criticism.

The birth of the republic in 1789 was the final nail in the coffin of European aristocracy in the New World. All royal titles were stripped, banned or otherwise forgotten, and the American people would build a nation with its bare hands, modest economy and experimental democratic government. The bulk of American literature, therefore, came from the working-class members of society. Despite this literary classification, however, American political and economic policy has been dictated by capitalist principles.

To my eyes this doesn't make any sense. I understand that our country is unique in its history and written heritage, but this seems backwards by all logical standards. Perhaps it is because the upper class of society has taken the place of the aristocracy in America, and even though they do not have the ability to silence the working class thanks to the Bill of Rights, they continue to, for the most part, control the country.

I simply wanted to point out how odd it was that a clearly Marxist literary history could belong to a country governed by the opposite principles.