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Although Paul Wolfowitz apparently once had an association with the "Schachtmanites" it may have been before the Social Democrats USA was founded. Furthermore, this relationship may have existed only in Wolfowitz' youth. As now phrased, the sentence gives the impression that Wolfowitz falls into the pattern of several adult SDUSA members who left the organization for the Republican party and neoconservatism. This may not be the case. Although Wolfowitz's past is certainly an important issue I suggest further inquiry to make sure things are phrased in a non-exaggerated manner. In addition, the reference to the service of SD members in the Bush administration may be an inaccurate reference to SD members at the National Endowment for Democracy (not really a government agency). If NED is what is meant, then you should point out that the same SD members served at NED throughout the Clinton administration.

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There has been some very good stylistic cleanup of this article, but the question has still not been answered: Was Paul Wolfowitz ever a member of the SDUSA. I don't believe he was, although I have heard credible evidence that he was in the Schachmanite youth group that existed prior to the SDUSA. If someone doesn't come up with a citation for his SD membership in the next few months, I'm inclined to delete the sentence.--6 Jan. 2006

My understanding is that Wolfowitz spoke at SDUSA events but was not a member. metzerly 03:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV?

Peter G Werner has disputed the neutrality of this article. It would be helpful if he summarized his objections here so they could be addressed. -David Schaich 00:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that – I actually did write something, but I guess I never properly saved the page. Anyway, the reason I put up the NPOV tag is because the article's focus is almost exclusively devoted to SDUSA's alleged ties to neoconservatism and a critique of the organization's allegedly conservative stance on foreign policy, with almost no discussion of the organization's history, membership, stated goals, nor their take on whether they consider themselves to be neoconservative or not. The article reads as rather conspiratorial, really.

I'm not saying content expressing criticism of the organization doesn't have its place in the article – it most certainly does and is a vital part of any article about a controversial group. Its a question of balance, really, and it seems obvious to me that this article is very imbalanced, not to mention that, other than the neo-con stuff, the article has essentially stub-level information about the group.

Finally, I'll point out that a large part of the reason that the article is so severely imbalanced is that much of the content was contributed by User:Jacrosse. If you read the request for arbitration concerning Jacrosse, you'll note that Jacrosse was apparently was a partisan of a conspiracy theory that led from Max Schachtman to Neoconservatism. In fact, pushing that theory was his sole reason for editing Wikipedia, and his activity on that behalf was so obnoxious that he was banned from editing political articles for one year. This should be kept in mind when evaluating this article. Peter G Werner 00:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It seems to be more a matter of lack of content than of neutrality -- and somewhat justifiable lack of content at that, since the SDUSA doesn't really do much as an organization, so far as I can tell. They're mainly of interest as an important illustration of the evolution of many socialists from Trotskyism or other froms of leftist anti-Stalinism to centrism or neoconservatism. (I hope it's not a conspiracy theory to say that Schachtman was one of many who followed that path, and was one of the more influential individuals to do so.)

It's not necessarily criticism either; I expect opinions about it would depend on the reader's own politics and feelings about socialism and neoconservatism. Wandering through the SDUSA Web site, I found a copy of a recent Wall Street Journal article by Joshua Muravchik in which he states that many, though not all, members of the organization were happy to call themselves neoconservatives: "Mr. Kemble... rejected the badge "neoconservative" that many of us who had worked with him came to wear with pride."

I did look around a bit for information on their activities, and was able to find this 17-year old report, which seems well-documented. It mostly seems to spend most time on the individual activities of certain members, but I'll see if I can extract something from it for this article. Membership has to be tiny at this point. They were under 1,000 members in the 1980s and have been declining steadily since. -David Schaich 03:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Its still my contention that having the sole focus of the article be its role in the evolution of neoconservatism is strongly POV. Yes, the group is small and far from being very active, but if an organization is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about it, then its notable enough to have some discussion about their history and their own POV about their political mission, alongside critical discussion of the group and the airing of criticisms of it. That to me is simply NPOV at its most basic.

I'll note that Groupwatch is a very biased source and that should be taken into account when using them as a source. I think this is the one of the essential problems with this article – its very difficult, if not impossible, to have an NPOV article when every single source that you use is from a critic of that group. Its every bit as unbalanced as basing the whole article based only on sources written by the group itself or its supporters.

I don't contest that fact Shachtman's political evolution was one long drift to the center, and ultimately the right (though not without helping start some very notable political tendencies along the way). Its probably even accurate to say that some "Shactmanites" have ended up as neoconservatives. What I do see as basically a conspiracy theory are theories that place the whole phenomenon of neoconservatism at the feet of Shachtman or the SDUSA – this is largely a phantom touted by the paleoconservative and neo-Stalinist fringe of the anti-war movement and amplified by some very lazy journalism. (At its crudest, this theory seems to play into a mentality that boils down to "Neocon = Trotskyist = Jew".)

Seriously, show me one piece of writing by Wolfowitz, Kirkpatrick, or other notable neocon where they justify their policies on the basis of dialectics or historical materialism. (The closest I can think of is Francis Fukuyama, and if anything, he counted himself as a kind of anti-Marxist Hegelian.)

I find the term "neoconservative" problematic in itself – how many people actually call themselves "neoconservatives" rather than just have it foisted on them by others as a term of abuse? I simply don't think its appropriate to use Wikipedia as a vehicle to put words in other people's mouths, hence I'd be damn cautious about putting that label on people. Peter G Werner 04:39, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd welcome some more information from more sympathetic sources, but wasn't able to find any after some hours of searching. Groupwatch may be biased (I'm not familiar with them) but that deosn't necessarily invalidate their research and scholarship. The pages I linked to still strike me as sober and sound. That bit about historical materialism seems a straw man -- I've never seen any claims that neoconservatives are still Trotskyists, just that some once were, and perhaps retain some attitudes or habits of thought from their early years. As for the term itself, I was used to simply taking it at its face value -- "new" conservatives who were once on the left but moved into the conservative camp during the Cold War. Though the discussion at Neoconservatism make that seem a little naive. Still, I'll again note that Muravchik claims the label with pride and says many other SDs do as well, as do Irving Kristol and others. -David Schaich 15:34, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Never seen any claims that neoconservatives are still Trotskyists? That's one of the favorite warhorses of Justin Raimondo or antiwar.com and other anti-war paleocons, including Pat Buchanan. Here are several links where they claim exactly that: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. This was apparently Jacrosse's thesis as well when he was editing this and other articles related to Shachtman. I suppose if enough people actually buy into this conspiracy theory, it deserves some mention. However, the "neoconservatism as morphed Trotskysim" meme strikes me as a pretty fringe idea, and I think articles, like this one, that make that their central thesis suffer from a real lack of balance.

I'll contribute much needed edits to this article over the next several weeks. There's plenty of material on the SDUSA website, such as this "unofficial" outline of their ideas that I can at least add something up about their self-stated goals. I've also ordered a copy of the biography "Max Shachtman and His Left" from interlibrary loan, which I believe includes covers the founding and early years of SDUSA, and represents a piece of primary research rather than the kind of second- and third-hand stuff that comes from the "neocon conspiracy" crowd. Peter G Werner 16:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

One other thing – unless this statement: "A number of former members of the SDUSA serve in the current administration of George W. Bush including Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, and Ken Adelman." can actually be substantiated, it should be dropped. Is there any evidence, outside of conspiracy theorist literature, that Wolfowitz was ever a member of SDUSA? Peter G Werner 01:05, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, it seems accepted [7] [8] that Abrams was a member. The Michigan Socialist actually states that Wolfowitz was not a member, though I heven't been able to find any information on the claim that he's spoken at their meetings, or about Adelman. Ah, you removed it while I was looking around. Reasonable. -David Schaich 03:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I could see adding something about Wolfowitz and Jeanne Kirkpatrick giving speeches for them and something about Elliott Abrams being an early member. The earliest source given about Elliott Abrams was a 1986 article in Mother Jones, which I'll make a point of double-checking soon. Peter G Werner 03:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed this statement. Based on my research, there's nothing to substantiate it. The closest thing I could find was that Elliott Abrams was a member of the Young People's Socialist League during his college years in the late 1960s. In any event, SDUSA wasn't founded until 1973, and I see no evidence that Abrams was a member or even calling himself a socialist or social democrat by that point. Peter G Werner 02:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)