123655
THE FIRST
NEW NATION
SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET
The American nation presents two faces to
the world. The first is that of a virile and pro-
gressive society offering increasing abundance
and opportunity to all. The second is that of
a society infected with a corrupt affluence,
with an increasing laxity of morals and vul-
garity of taste, and with an ever-widening
gulf between its privileged and under-privi-
leged members.
The First New Nation undertakes to reconcile
these two images with the singular American
reality. It points out that the world has always
had this double vision of America, for Amer-
ica has always had this double vision of itself.
And it traces this peculiar American situation
to an original emphasis upon two distinctive
values: equality and achievement. These
values may complement one another or they
may contradict one another. To observe at-
tentively the constant interplay between them,
as Professor Lipset has done, is to win new
insight into what is so uniquely "American"
about American democracy.
The book helps to explain, for instance, why
American democracy displays such striking
differences from democracy as it is practiced
in other Anglo-Saxon nations (Canada, Aus-
tralia, Britain) or in the countries of Western
Europe. It sheds light on the distinctively
(continued on back flap)
THE FIRST
NEW
****************
NATION
OTHER BOOKS BY SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET
Political Man 1960
Social Mobility in Industrial Society 1959
(with Reinhard Bendix)
Union Democracy 1956
( with Martin Trow and James S. Coleman)
Qass, Status and Power 1953
(edited with Reinhard Bendix)
Agrarian Socialism 1950
THE FIRST
NEW NATION
THE UNITED STATES IN
HISTORICAL AND
COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET
Basic Books, INC.
Publishers
* New York
This book is published as part of the program of
the Research Group on Comparative Development of
the Institutes of International Studies and of
Industrial Relations at the University of
California (Berkeley).
1963 by Seymour Martin Lipset
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 63-17345
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Sophie Adler
To the memory of
WILLIAM LIPPMAN
(1894-1959)
Preface
In a real sense, this book pursues two substantive themes with which
I have been concerned in previous writings the problem of what was
once known in the Marxist literature as "American exceptionalism" and
the conditions for stable democracy.
In undertaking the study of a successful socialist movement in a Ca-
nadian province (Agrarian Socialism, 1950), I was initially interested in
learning why Canada, seemingly so akin socially to the United States, was
able to cast up a large socialist party when the United States could not.
Many of the sociological explanations for the weakness of American so-
cialism seemingly also applied to Canada. As the reader of The First New
Nation will discover, sections of it still are concerned with the sources of
structural variation between the two North American nations. The com-
parative sections of Social Mobility in Industrial Society (1959, with
Reinhard Bendix) were similarly stimulated by an effort to test the
thesis that political class consciousness was weak in the United States
because the United States had a much higher rate of mass mobility
than European nations. The research which sought to specify the ex-
tent of mass mobility (crossing the line between the manual work-
ing class and the nonmanual middle class) concluded that there were not
significant differences between rates of mobility, as judged by these crude
indicators, between industrialized Europe and America. (It should be
noted, however, because many readers have ignored the caveat, that this
book never contended that variations do not exist in rates of elite mo-
bility, particularly among those occupational strata which require high
levels of education.) Since the evidence with respect to mass mobility
did not sustain the hypothesis, Reinhard Bendix and I turned to an analysis
of the factors in American social structure which sustained the impression
that mobility was higher in America. My subsequent work on values and
the American class system presented here represents an elaboration of this
work which I began with Bendix, and I acknowledge my indebtedness
to him for helping me formulate my ideas on the subject.
My other two books, Union Democracy (1953, with Martin Trow and
viii Preface
James S. Coleman) and Political Man (1960), were addressed to analysis
of the social conditions of stable democracy the first on the level of pri-
vate governments, the latter dealing with nation-states. In the present
volume, I deal with both themes, the historical sources and the specific
nature of the American social system, and the varying ways in which
stable democracies, viewed comparatively, may occur. The last-named
issue, dealt with in Part III, is of particular importance, since it should
be clear that I am not holding up the American polity as an exportable
model for all efforts at democracy. It should rather be recognized that
the character of democratic polities may vary greatly, depending on
various elements in the social structure of nations with which the
political institutions must mesh. I think it particularly noteworthy that
the two major English-speaking democracies, sometimes thought of as
having similar political systems, differ considerably from each other
politically as well as socially.
It is a foolish man who believes that he knows the sources of his
ideas. I shall not pretend, therefore, to try to specify them here. In
previous books, I have indicated some of those whom I regard as the
most important influences on my intellectual development, and I will
not repeat this discussion. I should indicate, however, that the general
theoretical perspective and methodology of this book owes much to
the classic work of Max Weber, who set standards for comparative and
historical sociology which no one has even come close to emulating.
With respect to the contents of this book, however, I think it appro-
priate to point out that much of my thinking about the relations of
values to behavior in American society has been heavily influenced by
Robert Merton's noted essay, "Social Structure and Anomie," and that
my efforts to locate the analysis of given societies in a comparative and
historical context have borrowed heavily from the work of Talcott
Parsons. On the methodological side, Karl Deutsch has shown the way
for those who seek to fully incorporate comparative historical and
social analysis into systematic social science. Both he and Parsons, who
have worked together on these problems, have shown the value to
scholarship of men who are not afraid to present new, incomplete, and
untested approaches for the rest of social science to elaborate or reject.
Significant innovators in any field must be prepared to learn that they
have been in error; these are the risks inherent in opening new perspec-
tives on old problems.
Although a few parts of this book, particularly some of the materials
in Part II, were initially written before the book was conceived as an
Preface ix
entity, work on the book as such began in 1960 during the year I spent
at Yale University as the Ford Visiting Research Professor of Political
Science and Sociology. I would like to express my deep gratitude to
the Yale Department of Political Science and particularly to its then-
chairman, Robert Dahl for the luxury of a year free from all university
duties combined with the opportunity to exchange ideas with a stimulat-
ing group of colleagues interested in many of the problems I was working
on. On my return to Berkeley, the continuing research on this book was
supported both financially and intellectually by the Training and Re-
search Group on Comparative Development of the Institutes of In-
dustrial Relations and International Studies of the University of Cali-
fornia. This group operates with a grant of funds from the Carnegie
Corporation. Composed of about ten men from the various social science
departments, it is now chaired by Reinhard Bendix. I would like to thank
the members of this group, particularly David Apter, David Landes,
Franz Schurmann, and Neil Smelser, for detailed critical readings of
sections of the book. In paying for various services which went into
this work, I also made use of funds from a grant which I have from
the Ford Foundation for the support of my "basic research."
My efforts to analyze behavior comparatively would be impossible
without the help of many friends abroad who have given freely of their
time to act as "research assistants" gathering data and, more important,
as consultants furnishing me with ideas on developments in their own
countries. I hope that it will be understood that they are in no way
responsible for my interpretation of behavior in their countries. Among
those who have taught me much are Frank Underbill and S. D. Clark
in Canada, Tom Truman and Ronald Taft in Australia, Mark Abrams
and C. A. R. Crosland in the United Kingdom, Michel Crozier and
Mattei Dogan in France, and Otto Stammer and Ralf Dahrendorf in
Germany. I would also like to express my particular indebtedness to
my friend Stein Rokkan, who, though based at the Christen Michelsens
Institute in Bergen, Norway, is perhaps as deserving of the tide of
European social scientist as anyone I know.
Three graduate research assistants, Ruth Ann Pitts, Arthur Goldberg,
and Gene Bernardi, contributed much to helping locate research data.
Daniel Bell of Columbia University and Irving Kristol of Basic Books
have given generously of their time and stock of ideas. I must par-
ticularly thank the latter for his suggestion that I write a book about
American society viewed comparatively. I should also like to acknowl-
edge the generosity of William Nisbet Chambers, who let me see a pre-
x Preface
publication draft of his book, Political Parties in a New Nation (since
published by Oxford University Press, 1963). Chambers and I discovered,
after each of us had written a draft of our books, that we were working
on similar topics defined in comparable terms. This discovery came in
time for us to exchange manuscripts and to take account of each other's
work.
Some materials contained in this book have been presented on earlier
occasions, either in print or at academic meetings. A summary of Part I
was given as a paper at the Fifth World Congress of Sociology at Wash-
ington in September, 1962, and is scheduled to be published in the Trans-
actions of that congress. Much of Chapter 3 uses materials presented in
my chapter of a book edited by Leo Lowenthal and myself, Culture
and Social Character (The Free Press, 1961); a brief preliminary state-
ment of some of my analysis of American religion was published in the
Columbia University Forum in 1959; and a previous discussion of the
relationship of the characteristics of the American trade-union move-
ment to the value system appeared in Industrial Relations (I, 1961-1962).
An early detailed analysis of the relationship of national values to the
conditions for stable democracy, as presented in Part III, was given at a
conference on "Internal War" sponsored by the Princeton University
Center of International Studies in September, 1961. This version will
appear in a volume of papers from that meeting which is being edited
by Harry Eckstein and Klaus Knorr and will be published by The Free
Press. A summary of the analysis of the value systems of the English-
speaking democracies presented in the latter part of this book was given
as the 1963 Maclver Award Lecture at the meetings of the Eastern
Sociological Society in New York in April, 1963. This lecture was
published in the August, 1963, issue of the American Sociological Re-
view. An early version of one chapter of this book was written and
published before the rest of it was outlined. This is Chapter 9, on party
systems and representation, which appeared in the first issue of the
European Journal of Sociology, in 1960. This paper was rewritten for
inclusion here because it offers an example of comparative analysis bear-
ing on problems discussed in the other chapters of Part III which employ
variables other than the basic value system.
As all authors well know, the final housekeeping details of finishing a
book, the editing, the checking of quotations and footnotes, the re-
typing of the completed manuscript, the reading and even revision of
galleys can take a large proportion of the time necessary to complete a
Preface xi
book. That these stages went much more quickly and efficiently than
anticipated I owe to the staff of the Institute of International Studies of
the University of California, particularly to Mrs. Cleo Stoker, the
administrative assistant who runs the shop*
SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET
Institute of International Studies
University of California, Berkeley
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
>ART I
AMERICA AS A NEW NATION 13
1. Establishing National Authority 15
The Crisis of Legitimacy and the Role
of the Charismatic Leader 16
The Problem of National Unity 23
Opposition Rights and the Establishment
of New Polities 36
The Need for "Payoff" 45
2. Formulating a National Identity 61
The Need for Autonomy and Neutrality 62
The Role of the Intellectuals 66
Revolution as the Source of National Identity 74
Conclusion 90
'ART II
;TABILITY IN THE MIDST OF CHANGE 99
3. A Changing American Character? 101
The Unchanging American Character 106
The Unchanging American Values and Their Connec-
tion with American Character 1 10
The Indequacy of a Materialistic Interpretation of
Change 122
Conclusion 129
xiy Contents
4. Religion and American Values 140
All-Pervasiveness, a Consistent Characteristic of Amer-
ican Religion 141
Secularity, a Persistent Trait of American Religion 151
Voluntarism, the Source of Religious Strength 1 59
5. Trade Unions and the American Value System 170
Social Structure: the Source of American Unionism 173
Societal Values and the Union Movement 1 78
Societal Values and Union Leadership 187
The American Political System and the Union Move-
ment 196
Other Equalitarian Societies: Canada and Australia 199
Conclusion 203
PART III
DEMOCRACY IN COMPARATIVE
PERSPECTIVE 205
6. Values and Democratic Stability 207
Value Patterns and a Democratic Polity 209
The United States and Great Britain 2 1 3
France and Germany 224
Social Change and Political Stability 239
7. Value Differences, Absolute or Relative: The English-
Speaking Democracies 248
Values and the Democratic Process 268
8. Values, Social Character, and the Democratic Polity 274
The Authoritarian versus the Democratic Personality 277
The Inner-directed versus the Other-directed Per-
sonality 281
Contents xv
9. Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 286
Social Structure and the Character of the Party System 289
Social Structure and Electoral Systems 293
Party Systems and the Bases of Social Cleavage 295
Consequences of the Different Systems 307
Conclusion 312
10. Epilogue: Some Personal Views on Equality, Inequality,
and Comparative Social Science 318
Inequality in America 321
The Ever-Present Conflict between Equality and In-
equality 340
Comparative Analysis 343
Name Index 349
Subject Index 356
THE FIRST
NEW
****************
NATION
****************
Introduction
There has been a quite extraordinary number of books published in
recent years that seek to analyze American society. Among those most
widely read and talked about have been the works of Vance Packard,
especially The Status Seekers; The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills;
The Organization Man by William H. Whyte; The Lonely Crowd by
David Riesman; Image of America by R. L. Bruckberger; America as a
Civilization by Max Lerner; and the Self-Conscious Society by Eric
Larrabee. These and other works arrive at roughly two sorts of con-
clusions:
According to the first view, America suffers from elaborate cor-
ruption in business and labor, and in law enforcement practices; from a
growing concentration of business power; from the influences of mass
media run by entertainment tycoons who satisfy the lowest common
denominator in popular taste; and from a wasteful expenditure of
resources directed to the enhancement of social status.
According to the other view, America is an affluent, highly demo-
cratic society in which the distribution of income, of status symbols,
and of opportunities for social mobility is becoming more even-handed
all the time; in which tolerance for differences in culture, religion, and
race is growing; and in which demand for the best in art, literature,
and music is increasing.
This book tries, in part, to reconcile these two pictures. To look at
America in a comparative and historical context is to point up the
fact that such contrasts have distinguished American society through
its history. The contrasts, moreover, are linked to two basic American
values equality and achievement. These values, though related, are not
entirely compatible; each has given rise to reactions which threaten the
other.
When I say that we value equality, I mean that we believe all persons
must be given respect simply because they are human beings; we believe
that the differences between high- and low-status people reflect ac-
cidental, and perhaps temporary, variations in social relationships. This
2 Introduction
emphasis on equality was reflected in the introduction of universal suf-
frage in America long before it came in other nations; in the fairly
consistent and extensive support for a public school system so that all
might have a common educational background; and in the pervasive
antagonism to domination by any elite in culture, politics, or economics.
The value we have attributed to achievement is a corollary to our
belief in equality. For people to be equal, they need a chance to
become equal. Success, therefore, should be attainable by all, no matter
what the accidents of birth, class, or race. Achievement is a function
of equality of opportunity. That this emphasis on achievement must lead
to new inequalities of status and to the use of corrupt means to secure
and maintain high position is the ever recreated and renewed American
dilemma.
America's key values equality and achievement stem from our
revolutionary origins. The United States was the first major colony
successfully to revolt against colonial rule. In this sense, it was the first
"new nation." For this reason, to see how, in the course of American
history, its values took shape in institutions may help us to understand
some of the problems faced by the new nations emerging today on the
world scene. For the values which they must use to legitimate their
political structure, and which thus become part of their political institu-
tions, are also revolutionary. Thus in addition to explaining "what makes
America tick," this book is designed to suggest how the sociologist's
analysis of value systems can contribute to the systematic study of the
development of a nation's institutions.
I do not mean to suggest that the new nations will necessarily re-
capitulate the American experience. Indeed, anxiety about the social
conditions that foster stable, non-authoritarian political relations in the
new nations of Asia and Africa has become a major preoccupation of
statesmen and academicians alike in the post-war era. A new field of
inquiry the study of development has emerged in economics, political
science, and sociology. Most scholarship in this area has understandably
devoted itself to a detailed examination of specific problems (e.g., eco-
nomic growth) or of specific politico-geographical entities; however, I
feel that a general analysis of the relation between a nation's values
and its institutions can be of some utility. Studying fundamental
processes rather than any specific disorder may actually be the shortest
road to correct diagnosis and cure of a particular problem. (For example,
study of the laws of blood chemistry may turn out to be more useful
Introduction $
in the cure of mental illness than the development of ad hoc generali-
zations based on psychotherapeutic efforts.) Therefore, the last section
of this book attempts to examine by comparative analysis of nations at
roughly similar levels of industrial development some of the relations
between a nation's values and the evolution of a stable polity that are
suggested by the American example.
The three sections of this book deal with the role of values in a
nation's evolution. However, each approaches this role from a dif-
ferent perspective. The first section, using America's first decades as a
point of departure, identifies some of the problems of new nations arising
from a break in the continuity of political legitimacy, and analyzes^ some
of the consequences of a revolutionary birth for the creation of a
national character and style. The secqnd section traces how values
derived from America's revolutionary origins have continued to influence
the form and substance of American institutions in later years. The third
section attempts to show by comparative analysis some ways through
which a nation's values determine its political evolution.
Because each section approaches the role of values from a different
perspective, its procedure is different. The first compares early America
with today's emerging nations to discover problems common to them
as new nations. The second concentrates on American history in later
periods: religious institutions and trade unions have been selected for
discussion in this section because they are critical cases. The third
compares political development in several modern industrialized democ-
racies, including the United States.
Talcott Parsons, perhaps the foremost contemporary exponent of the
importance of value systems as causal factors, has explained and justi-
fied their systematic use as explanatory variables in these terms:
That a system of value-orientations held in common by the mem-
bers of a social system can serve as the main point of reference for
analyzing structure and process in the social system itself may be
regarded as a major tenet of modern sociological theory. Values
in this sense are the commitments of individual persons to pursue
and support certain directions or types of action for the collectiv-
ity as a system and hence derivatively for their own roles in the
collectivity. Values are, for sociological purposes, deliberately
defined at a level of generality higher than that of goals they are
directions of action rather than specific objectives, the latter de-
pending on the particular character of the situation in which the
4 Introduction
system is placed as well as on its values and its structure as a
system. 1
Karl Deutsch too has pointed to the social scientist's need for general
variables to codify national experiences. He suggests that nations vary-
in their "wills" (a concept close to "central value systems") as a result
of differing historical experiences:
Will . . . may be described as the set of constraints acquired from
the memories and past experiences of the system, and applied to the
selection and treatment of items in its later intake, recall, or decisions.
Any self-steering system . . . requires some operating preferences. 2
The emphasis on values in this book does not, of course, negate other
approaches, but is intended merely to demonstrate that values are one
imgortanJL2H ce ^ variation among social systems. 3
Talcott Parsons himself disavows the notion that an emphasis on
values implies a monistic approach to social analysis:
1 Talcott Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies (Glencoe, 111.:
The Free Press, 1960), p. 172.
2 Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (New York, John
Wiley, 1953), p. 151. This book should be required reading for students of
development.
3 An excellent discussion of the general assumptions underlying the sociolog-
ical analysis of the central value system of societies may be found in Edward
Shils, "Centre and Periphery," in The Logic of fersonal Knowledge: Essays
Presented to Michael Polanyi on His Seventieth Birthday (London: Roudedge
& Kegan Paul, 1961), pp. 117-130.
Although many political analysts have attempted to relate various aspects
of the polities of different nations to specific structural components of the
value system, no one as yet has formulated a general theory in this area. Per-
haps the closest approximation to this may be found in Harry Eckstein,
A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton University Center for Interna-
tional Studies, 1961). Eckstein does not describe his approach as an effort to
relate general values to political systems but rather writes of the need for
"propositions relating governmental authority to other forms of social author-
ity" (p. xiii). He tries to relate the stability of political systems to their
congruence or lack of congruence with authority relations in non-political
areas, e.g., family, school, religion, and so forth. Since authority relations are
necessarily closely involved with the central value system, if they are not
to be conceived as core components of that system, Eckstein is essentially
engaged in what I would describe as value analysis.
Introduction 5
It should be clear that using values as the initial point of reference
for the structural analysis of social systems does not imply that they
are the sole or even the most important determinants of particular
structures and processes in such systems. . . . Beliefs and values
are actualized, partially and imperfectly, in realistic situations of
social interaction, and the outcomes are always co-determined by the
values and the realistic exigencies; conversely . . . "interests" are by
no means independent of the values which have been institutionalized
in the relevant groups. 4
Interestingly enough, Friedrich Engels whose Marxist approach gen-
erally underplays the independent significance of values recognized the
force that values exert on political change. It may be worthwhile to cite
a few of his descriptive comments on national polities:
It seems a law of historical development that the bourgeoisie can in
no European country get hold of political power at least for any
length of time in the same exclusive way in which the feudal
aristocracy kept hold of it during the Middle Ages. Even in France,
where feudalism was completely extinguished, the bourgeoisie as a
whole has held full possession of the Government for very short
periods only. ... A durable reign of the bourgeoisie has been pos-
sible only in countries like America, where feudalism was unknown,
and society at the very beginning started from a bourgeois basis. . . .
In England, the bourgeoisie never held undivided sway. . . . The
English bourgeoisie are, up to the present day, so deeply penetrated
by a sense of their social inferiority that they keep up, at their own
expense and that of the nation, an ornamental caste of drones to rep-
resent that nation worthily at all State functions; and they consider
themselves highly honored whenever one of themselves is found
worthy of admission into this select and privileged body
Parliamentary government is a capital school for teaching respect
for tradition; if the middle-class look with awe and veneration upon
what Lord Manners playfully called "our old nobility," the mass of
the working-people then looked up with respect and deference to
what used to be designated as "their betters" the middle-class. . . . 5
Furthermore, in accounting for the "rebellious" behavior of the French
and German workers, as contrasted with the British, Engels (writing in
4 Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies, p. 173.
5 Friedrich Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (Chicago: Charles H.
Kerr and Co., 1912), pp. 37-43.
6 Introduction
1892) stressed the strength of specific values, not class relationships. To
keep the masses in line, once they are aware of their political rights, one
must rely on "moral means" And England was more stable than various
continental societies because it had not broken with traditional religion.
"Religion must be kept alive for the people that was the only and last
means to save society from ruin. Unfortunately for themselves, they
[the continental bourgeoisie] did not find this out until they had done
their level best to break up religion forever." 6
For Engels and other Marxists, of course, "juridical, philosophical, and
religious ideas are the more or less remote offshoots of the economical re-
lations prevailing in a given society." But these ideas account for varia-
tions in societies having the same "economical relations." 7 Such statements,
while clearly outside the formal Marxist framework of analysis, may be
viewed as attempts to analyze systematically variations within major his-
torical epochs and to go beyond the ad hoc descriptions of most Marxists,
*Loc. cit. This is an area of considerable scholarly controversy. Elie
Halevy in his classic History of the English People in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury (London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1961), also refers to the evangelical revival
in the eighteenth century to explain "the extraordinary stability which English
society was destined to enjoy throughout a period of revolutions and crises"
(Vol. 1, p. 387). However, his causal analysis was somewhat different from
that of Engels. He pointed out that the evangelical sects were largely middle-
class movements, that the working class was not directly involved. The Non-
conformist churches "gave the middle class distinctive beliefs, a distinctive
religious organization and a self-respect which respected without envying the
aristocracy" (Vol. 4, p. 337). "But by becoming the religion of the middle
classes it had separated the latter, not only the upper middle, but the lower
and the lowest middle class, from the common people and had deprived the
latter of the leaders they required to wage the war against the rich which
they wanted to lead. Deprived of leaders, the populace fell back into a
state of incoherence, demoralization, and at last apathy" (Vol. 4, p. 395).
Reinhard Bendix, however, suggests that religious revivalism did contribute
to reducing the radicalism of the English workers. See his Work and Author-
ity in Industry (New York: John Wiley, 1956), pp. 60-73. Most recently
the English Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn has argued that religious
revivalism among English workers in the nineteenth century did not affect
their radicalism. See his* Social Bandits and Primitive Rebels (Glencoe, 111.:
The Free Press, 1959), pp. 126-149; while Gustav Rimlinger, "The Legitima-
tion of Protest: A Comparative Study in Labor History," Comparative Studies
in Society and History, 2 (1960), pp. 329-343, has attempted to show that
it did so contribute.
7 Engels, Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, p. 43. (Emphasis mine.)
Introduction j
or indeed of most economists concerned with "non-economic" factors. 8
The approach to value analysis in this book assumes a perspective
taken by Max Weber. Much of contemporary sociology has neglected
his insight in explaining differences in national systems by specifying
key historical events which set one process in motion in one country
and a second in another. He, in fact, used the analogy of loaded dice:
once the dice came up with a certain number they would tend to come
up with the same number again. 9 In other words, historical events
establish values and predispositions, and these in turn determine later
events. In this way values become determinants of the direction of social
change. Following the logic of Weber's analysis of the genesis of
capitalism, we may argue that the existence of certain values is a pre-
requisite for some of the characteristics of contemporary America.
Furthermore, these characteristics may become more pronounced as
these values interact with material conditions.
By emphasizing the role of values in political evolution I am attempting
to connect studies of historical change with basic assumptions in contem-
porary sociological theory. Seen in the light of Weber's methodology, the
sociological emphasis on key values in a social system is an effort to re-
late the operation of the system to elements rooted in its history. 10 Within
these historical "givens," furthermore, a certain body of theoretical prop-
ositions states what kind of system is operating, its relations with external
systems, its internal relations, its tensions, its contradictions, and so on.
Sometimes, if one utilizes a stable equilibrium model, one emphasizes the
self-regulating and restorative mechanisms. For the purposes of this book,
I have tried to think in terms of a dynamic (that is, moving or unstable)
equilibrium model, which posits that a complex society is under constant
pressure to adjust its institutions to its central value system, in order to
8 Engels* emphasis on values may not be as "heretical" as it appears. Marx
himself once stated, "We know that the institutions, manners and customs
of the various countries must be considered, and we do not deny that there
are countries, like England and America, . . . where the worker may attain
his object by peaceful means." Quoted by Andrew Hacker, "Sociology and
Ideology," in Max Black, ed., The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons (Engle-
wood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1961), p. 289. Hacker goes on to say that
"It is remarks like this which turn scholarly heads gray."
9 Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences (Glencoe, 111.: The
Free Press, 1949), pp. 182-185.
10 For an excellent discussion of the relationship between the concerns of
historical and social science, see David M. Potter, People of Plenty (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1954), esp, pp. 3-72.
8 Introduction
alleviate strains created by changes in social relations; and which asserts
that the failure to do so results in political disturbance.
The attempt to generalize about the development of social systems in
this way has been questioned by some sociologists, e.g., Barrington Moore,
Jr., 11 C. Wright Mills, 12 and George Lichtheim. 13 Basically, these critics
argue that all complex social systems must be analyzed primarily from a
historical point of view. They feel that the analysis of the consequences
of specific historical situations is a more adequate "explanation of the
'system' " than is the effort to specify the interrelated functions served
by the system and its parts at any given time.
This criticism, that the efforts to formulate generalizations about sys-
tems necessarily conflicts with the analysis of historical processes, is un-
warranted. 14 The attack aimed at sociological theory for ignoring the
Marxian "principle of historical specification" has been discussed by Lewis
Feuer, a student of both scientific methodology and Marxian thought. Af-
ter pointing out that Marx never used the expression, "the principle of
historical specification" (which Mills attributed to him), Feuer goes on
to state:
There is, to my mind, a bit of obscurantism in "the principle of his-
torical specification" which, at the present time, obstructs the advance
of social science. The principle rightly warns us to specify clearly the
variables in our sociological laws; do not, for instance, enunciate as
a law for all economic systems what may be true only of a compet-
itive capitalist one. The principle has its obvious counterpart in
physics. Kepler's laws, for instance, are laws for the motions of plan-
ets, not for masses in general. But Kepler's laws turned out to be
special cases of the Newtonian Laws which did apply to all masses.
And, in a similar sense, the laws of different societies might likewise
be special cases of the operation of universal psychological and soci-
11 Barrington Moore, Jr., "The New Scholasticism," World Politics, 6 (1953-
54), pp. 122-138; also "Sociological Theory and Contemporary Politics,"
American Journal of Sociology, 61 (1954-55), pp. 107-115. See also his
Political Power and Social Theory: Six Studies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1958).
12 C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1958).
18 George Lichtheim, Marxism (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962), pp. xiii-
xix.
14 S. M. Lipset and Neil Smelser, "Change and Controversy in Recent
American Sociology," The British Journal of Sociology, 12 (1961), pp.
41-51.
Introduction
ological laws. To specify the historical structure would simply then
be to state the social initial conditions which would bound the op-
eration of the universal laws in the specific historical situation. We
cannot indeed understand how one social system evolves into an-
other without using some guiding kws of a common human nature;
the revolt of men against their society's mores and values would be
otherwise unintelligible. 16
To be sure, since there are relatively few existing societies to compare,
specific hypotheses about their evolution are less subject to verification
than generalizations about, say, the development of individual persons,
where many more cases can be compared. And because social systems are
complex units, we must rely on historical case studies as our basic method
for the study of national evolution. However, this does not rule out gen-
eralization altogether. 16 The historical case study approach need not con-
centrate solely on the unique. It can draw out generalizations that can ap-
ply to all similar cases, and can test and elaborate general hypotheses.
Thus there is no necessary clash between developing general sociological
hypotheses and taking historical specificity into account. "Much may be
gained by using analytical concepts to guide our historical inquiry, and by
using the results of historical inquiry to modify our concepts regarding
present day problems." 17
The analyst of societies must choose between a primarily historical or
15 Lewis Feuer, "A Symposium on C. Wright Mills's 'The Sociological
Imagination/ " Berkeley Journal of Sociology (University of California, De-
partment of Sociology), 5 (1959), pp. 122-123.
16 Another criticism that has been leveled at the sociologist's attempt to
generalize by comparing the histories of several nations is that he must
inevitably rely extensively on secondary authorities, without going back to
the original sources. T. H. Marshall, one of the deans of British sociology,
has justified this practice: "Nothing is more unreliable than the first-hand
account of an eye-witness, nor more liable to deceive than diaries and cor-
respondence whose authors thoroughly enjoyed writing them. And even
the accounts of treasurers cannot always be accepted as representing the
final and absolute truth. It is the business of historians to sift this miscel-
laneous collection of dubious authorities and to give to others the results of
their careful professional assessment. And surely they will not rebuke the
sociologist for putting faith in what historians write." Sociology at the
Crossroads and Others Essays (London: Heinemann, 1963), pp. 36-37.
17 Karl W. Deutsch, S. A. Burrell, R. A. Kann, M. Lee, Jr., M. Lichterman,
R. E. Lindgren, F. L. Loewenheim, R. W. Van Wagenen, Political Community
and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1957), p. 14.
10 Introduction
a primarily comparative approach for a given piece of research. He must
choose simply because each of these requires a different mode of generali-
zation. But even if he chooses one approach, he cannot ignore the other.
Without examining social relations in different countries, it is impossible
to know to what extent a given factor actually has the effect attributed to
it in a single country. For example, if it is true that the German Stand-
estaat (rigid status system) has contributed to the authoritarian pattern of
German politics, why is it that similar status systems in Sweden and Swit-
zerland are associated with very different political patterns?
Such an example suggests thatj^mparisons may better enable the re-
searcher to evaluate the effect of specific factors in the development of
single national patterns. Three chapters in this book, " A Changing Amer-
ican Character?" "Religion and American Values," and "Trade Unions
and the American Value System," use comparative materials in this way.
On the other hand, the analyst obviously cannot ignore specificJustor-
ical events in attempting to assess what is common to the evolution of
different nations. Chapter 6, "Values and Democratic Stability," attempts
to show how the French and American revolutions have affected the value
systems of these two countries so that they differ greatly from other
countries with similar economic structures. And varying value systems, in
turn, influence the political stability of the nations in question. "Party
Systems and the Representation of Social Groups" (Chapter 9) shows
even more clearly the necessity to focus on specific historical events in a
comparative analysis, for the electoral systems in each of the countries
described are themselves an important determinant of the degree to
which the polities of the various countries are stable.
In the end the choice between a primarily historical or a primarily
comparative approach is a matter of relative emphasis. If the analyst
stresses an historical approach, he must use comparative materials to
show to what degree his findings are specific to the country he is study-
ing. If he selects an essentially comparative approach, he should employ
historical detail to show how specific social conditions affect the opera-
tions of the general relationships he has discovered.
A general theory of social development can scarcely be formulated
from the analyses presented in this book. Much more evidence and con-
ceptual clarification are necessary before any such theory is possible.
However, comparisons between America's development and that of other
nations may silhouette some of the problems involved, for instance, in
establishing a new nation. Consider the following:
One of the necessary conditions for a stable democratic polity is a clear
Introduction 1 1
distinction between the source of sovereignty and the agent&/.f authority.
In a nation which has broken sharply with the traditional sources of le-
gitimacy, the dominant political ideologies are the products of a revolu-
tionary mood, and hence are most often populist: they emphasize that
sovereignty comes from the people. They will therefore also be tempted
to emphasize that authority should be exercised by the people which is
almost never feasible. A populist source of the values which legitimate the
authority structure is inherently unstable because in its purist sense it
would promise the citizenry more direct control over the government
than it could possibly have.
In democracies, the rights of the minority must be respected. Populism
has a tendency to deny these rights, to assume that those whose values do
not agree with the basic consensus of the society should be driven out.
The populist source of the values which legitimate authority in post-
revolutionary societies must be supplemented with a respect for the rule
of law if a stable democracy is to result. But where the law lacks the sup-
port of old traditions, the institutionalization of a respect for the rule of
law is difficult. The Founding Fathers consciously sought to inhibit such
excesses by creating a system of constitutional checks and balances. Amer-
ica is particularly fortunate in that its long history of effective govern-
ment and national growth has had the effect of legitimating constitutional
government and, consequently, of making appeals to the people over the
law increasingly less effective. In France today the rule of law has not
been institutionalized to nearly the same degree, and populism remains
as the principal source of, and threat to, the legitimacy that is granted
agents of authority.
Only if we recognize that in the United States the difficulties encoun-
tered in making a distinction between the authority to establish govern-
ment and the authority to govern almost resulted in a failure to create a
nation, can we appreciate the tremendous problems faced by con-
temporary post-revolutionary societies with much more complicated
and less advantageous conditions than ours. Clearly, the odds are against
democracy in the new states of Africa and Asia. Many experts on these
countries suggest that democracy may be a Utopian short-term objective
for such nations. Instead of speaking generally about democracy, it may
be advisable to focus on the conditions which protect personal liberty,
that is, on due process and the rule of law. Perhaps we should ask, as we
look at new countries: under what circumstances is a post-revolutionary
regime, or the government of a new state, compatible with the rule
of law?
AMERICA
AS A NEW
NATION
1
PART I ***************************************
Establishing
National
Authority
i
*********************************************
The United States may properly claim the tide of the first new nation.
It was the first major colony successfully to break away from colonial
rule through revolution. It was, of course, followed within a few decades
by most of the Spanish colonies in Central and South America. But while
the United States exemplifies a new nation which successfully developed
an industrial economy, a relatively integrated social structure (the race
issue apart) and a stable democratic polity, most of the nations of Latin
America do not. They remain underdeveloped economically, divided in-
ternally along racial, class, and (in some cases) linguistic lines, and have
unstable polities, whether democratic or dictatorial. So perhaps the first
new nation can contribute more than money to the latter-day ones; per-
haps its development can give us some clues as to how revolutionary
equalitarian and populist values may eventually become incorporated into
a stable nonauthoritarian polity.
In this section I will examine the early period of America's history as
a new nation, in an effort to elucidate through comparative analysis some
of the problems and some of the developmental processes that are com-
mon to all new nations. And in so doing, I will also highlight some of the
circumstances that were unique to American development, some of the
conditions that made young America a particularly auspicious place to
develop democratic institutions.
There is a tendency for older nations to view with impatience the
internal turmoil of new ones, and to become especially alarmed at the
16 America as a New Nation
way oligarchical-dictatorial and revolutionary forces shake their tenu-
ous foundations. Coupled with this is a tendency to expect them to
accomplish in a decade what other nations have taken a century or more
to do. A backward glance into our own past should destroy the notion
that the United States proceeded easily toward the establishment of demo-
cratic political institutions. In the period which saw the establishment of
political legitimacy and party government, it was touch and go whether
the complex balance of forces would swing in the direction of a one- or
two-party system, or even whether the nation would survive as an
entity. It took time to institutionalize values, beliefs, and practices, and
there were many incidents that revealed how fragile the commitments
to democracy and nationhood really were.
But it was from this crucible of confusion and conflict that values and
goals became defined, issues carved out, positions taken, in short an
identity established. For countries, like people, are not handed identities
at birth, but acquire them through the arduous process of "growing up,"
a process which is a notoriously painful affair.
Let us now turn to a more detailed examination of some of the
specific problems common to new nations.
The Crisis of Legitimacy and the Role of the Charismatic
Leader
A basic problem faced by all new nations and post-revolutionary
societies is the crisis of legitimacy. The old order has been abolished and
with it the set of beliefs that justified its system of authority. The
imperialist ogre upon whom all ills were blamed has now disappeared, and
there has been a slackening of the great unifying force, nationalism, under
whose banner private, ethnic, sectional, and other differences were
submerged. The new system is in the process of being formed and so the
questions arise: To whom is loyalty owed? And why?
Legitimacy of any kind is derived from shared beliefs, that is, from
a consensus as to what constitutes proper allegiance. Such a consensus
develops slowly. In the words of Ernest Renan in a lecture in 1882:
"To have done great things together in the past, to wish to do more
of them, these are the essential conditions for being a people. . . . The
existence of a nation is a daily plebiscite." 1 In the early period of a
1 Quoted in Frank H. Underbill, "A United Nation Is Not Enough," The
Globe Magazine, March 24, 1962, p. 5. For a more detailed discussion of the
relationship of legitimacy to democracy see S. M. Lipset, Political Man: The
Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 77-90.
Establishing National Authority 17
nation's history, the results of this plebiscite are never a foregone
conclusion.
According to Max Weber, there are basically three ways in which an
authority may gain legitimacy, that is, an accepted "tide to rule":
(1) It may gain legitimacy through tradition^ through "always"
having possessed it the title held by monarchical societies is essentially
of this type.
(2) Rational-legal authority exists when those in power are obeyed
because of a popular acceptance of the appropriateness of the system of
rules under which they have won and hold office.
(3) Charismatic authority rests upon faith in a leader who is believed
to be endowed with great personal worth: this may come from God, as
in the case of a religious prophet, or may simply arise from the display
of extraordinary talents.
Old states possess traditional legitimacy, and this need not concern
us further, beyond suggesting that new nations may sometimes be in a
position to enhance their own legitimacy by incorporating the already
existing legitimacy of subordinate centers or persons of authority. Thus,
new nations which retain local rulers for example dukes, counts, chiefs,
clan heads, etc. and create a larger national system of authority based
on them, may be more stable than those which seek to destroy such local
centers of authority. It can be argued that the case of Europe's most
stable republican government, Switzerland, is to be explained as a
consequence of the preservation of cantonal government and power, i.e.,
as an extension of cantonal legitimacy. Contemporary Malaya is a recent
example of an effort to foster national legitimacy by retaining traditional
symbols of local rule. 2
But where traditional legitimacy is absent, as it was in post-revolution-
ary America or France and in much of contemporary Asia and Africa, it
can be developed only through reliance on legal and/or charismatic
authority.
Legal domination, resting on the assumption that the created legal
structure is an effective means of attaining group ends, is necessarily a
weak source of authority in societies in which the law has been
identified with the interests of an imperial exploiter. Charismatic au-
2 A crisis of legitimacy may occur even when the traditional forms of rule
are maintained, if the authority figures are subordinated to alien rulers.
Beaumont noted this problem among Indian tribes during his visit to America
with Tocqueville in the early 1830's. Gustave de Beaumont, Marie, or
Slavery in the United States (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
1958), especially p. 241.
18 America as a New Nation
thority, on the other hand, is well suited to the needs of newly developing
nations. It requires neither time nor a rational set of rules, and is highly-
flexible. A charismatic leader plays several roles. He is first of all the
symbol of the new nation, its hero who embodies in his person its values
and aspirations. But more than merely symbolizing the new nation, he
legitimizes the state, the new secular government, by endowing it with
his "gift of grace." David Apter has shown how the government of
Ghana gained diffuse legitimacy from the charisma of Nkrumah. 3
Charismatic authority can be seen as a mechanism of transition, an
interim measure, which gets people to observe the requirements of the
nation out of affection for the leader until they eventually learn to do
it out of loyalty to the collectivity. 4
Charismatic leadership, however, because it is so personalized, is
extremely unstable. The source of authority is not something distinct
from the various actions and agencies of authority, so that particular
dissatisfaction can easily become generalized disaffection. The charis-
matic leader must therefore either make open criticism impermissible or
he must transcend partisan conflict by playing the role of a constitutional
monarch. Even where opposition to specific policies on an individual or
informal factional basis may be tolerated, there cannot be an Op-
position to him that is organized into a formal party with its own
leader. But the difference between these options can have fateful con-
sequences for the entire nation.
The early American Republic, like many of the new nations, was
legitimized by charisma. We tend to forget today that, in his time,
George Washington was idolized as much as many of the contemporary
leaders of new states. As Marcus Cunliffe, the English author of a bril-
liant biography of the first President, points out:
In the well-worn phrase of Henry Lee, he was first in war, first in
peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen. ... He was the
prime native hero, a necessary creation for a new country. . . .
Hence . . . the comment . . . made by the European traveler Paul
Svinin, as early as 1815: "Every American considers it his sacred
duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home, just as we have
the images of God's saints." For America, he was originator and
vindicator, both patron saint and defender of the faith, in a
8 David Apter, The Gold Coast in Transition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1955), p. 303.
4 See Edward Shils, "The Concentration and Dispersion of Charisma," World
Politics, 11 (1958), pp. 2-3; and Immanuel Wallerstein, Africa, Politics of
Independence (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), pp. 85-102.
Establishing National Authority 19
curiously timeless fashion, as if he were Charlemagne, Saint Joan and
Napoleon Bonaparte telescoped into one person. . . , 5
And:
[T]he dying Roman emperor Vespasian is supposed to have mur-
mured: "Alas, I think I am about to become a god." . . . George
Washington . . . might with justice have thought the same thing
as he lay on his deathbed at Mount Vernon in 1799. Babies were
being christened after him as early as 1775, and while he was still
President, his countrymen paid to see him in waxwork effigy. To
his admirers he was "godlike Washington," and his detractors
complained to one another that he was looked upon as a "demi-
god" whom it was treasonable to criticize. "O Washington!"
declared Ezra Stiles of Yale (in a sermon of 1783). "How I do love
thy name! How have I often adored and blessed thy God, for
creating and forming thee the great ornament of human kind!" . . .
His contemporaries vied in their tributes all intended to express
the idea that there was something superhuman about George
Washington. . . .
Some of his countrymen notably John Adams were a little
irked by the Washington cult. They felt that adulation had gone too
far as in the suggestion that God had denied Washington children
of his own so that he might assume paternity for the whole nation.
But even Adams was prepared to defend Washington as a native
product against all challengers from other lands, with the proviso
that Washington's virtues were America's virtues, rather than vice
versa. 6
5 Marcus Cunliffe, George Washington, Man and Monument (New York:
Mentor Books, 1960), pp. 20-21. "A legendary figure from the Revolution
on, Washington reached the final stages of his apotheosis with the adoption
of the Constitution and the establishment of die new government. . . .
Sedgwick wrote . . . 'Today I dined with the President and as usual the
company was as grave as at a funeral. All the time at table the silence more
nearly resembled the gravity of ... worship than the cheerfulness of convivial
meeting' ... [I]f the operations of the government had reflected the atmos-
phere which surrounded Washington, monarchy would have been only a litde
way ahead." Joseph Charles, The Origiw of the American Party System (New
York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), pp. 38-39.
8 CunlifFe, George Washington, pp. 15-16, 22. "In America ... do not look
... for monuments raised to the memory of illustrious men. I know that
this people has its heroes: but no where have I seen their statues. To Wash-
ington done are there busts, inscriptions, column; this is because Washington,
in America, is not a man but a God' 9 Beaumont, Marie, p. 106.
20 America as a New Nation
Washington's role as the charismatic leader under whose guidance
democratic political institutions could grow was not an unwitting one:
America's primary requirement, as he saw it, was confidence.
Crescit eundo She grows as she goes could well have been the
Union's official motto. In the words of his Farewell Address, "time
and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of govern-
ment as of other human institutions. . . .
"With me ... a predominant motive has been, to endeavor to
gain time for our country to settle and mature its yet recent institu-
tions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of
strength and consistency, which is necessary to give it, humanly
speaking, the command of its own fortunes." 7
Like latter-day leaders of new states, Washington was under pressure
from those close to him actually to become an autocrat. However, he
recognized that his most important contribution to the new state was
to give it time to establish what we now call a rational-legal system of
authority, a government of men under law. He permitted the members
of his cabinet to form hostile factions under the leadership of Hamilton
and Jefferson, even though he personally disliked the views of Jef-
fersonians. 8 Before leaving office in 1797, he brought together Hamilton
and Madison (leader of the Jeffersonians) to prepare drafts for his
Farewell Address, And in the final sentence of the address he expressed
the hope that his words "may be productive of some partial benefit,
some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the
fury of party spirit." 9
Washington wished to retire after one term in office, but the conflict
between his two principal collaborators would not permit it. And on the
urging of many, including Hamilton and Jefferson, he agreed to serve
another term thereby unwittingly permitting the further peaceful
extension of party conflict while he was still President, though, of
7 Cunliffe, George Washington, pp. 136, 149-150.
8 By commanding the respect of both factional leaders he was able to act as a
unifying symbol. "Both Hamilton and Jefferson respected the President and
believed they were loyal to him and to their different ideas of the Union. In
his presence they did not squabble. Their grievances were at one another,
not at Washington. ... If Washington was a somewhat remote figure ... he
was not a fool or a weakling." Ibid., p. 141.
9 Ibid., p. 147.
Establishing National Authority 2 1
course, he bitterly regretted the emergence of such parties. This turned
out to be a crucial decision, since during his second administration, the
country was torn apart by opposing opinions of the French Revolution,
and between pro-British and pro-French sentiments, 10
There seems little question that Washington was.tc.eatfidJike.a charis-
matic leader. But his refusal to take full advantage of his potential
charisma he withdrew from the presidency while seemingly in good
health doubtless pushed the society faster toward a legal-rational system
of authority than would have been the case had he taken over the charis-
matic role in toto and identified himself with the laws and the spirit of
the nation. This particular halfway type of charismatic leadership had a
critical stabilizing effect on the society's evolution. Of particular impor-
tance in this regard is the fact that the first succession conflict between
John Adams and Jefferson took place while Washington still held office,
enabling him to set a precedent as the first head of a modern state to
turn over office to a duly elected successor. If he had continued in office
until his death, it is quite possible that subsequent presidential succes-
sions would not have occurred so easily.
The charismatic aspects of Washington's appeal were consciously used
by political leaders as a means of assuring the identity of the young
nation. In 1800, shortly after Washington's death, the then British
Ambassador to the United States analyzed the functions of tributes to
Washington in a report to the Foreign Office:
The leading men in the United States appear to be of the opinion
that these ceremonies tend to elevate the spirit of the people, and
contribute to the formation of a national character, which they
consider as much wanting in this country. And assuredly, if self-
opinion is (as perhaps it is) an essential ingredient in that character
which promotes the prosperity and dignity of a nation, the Ameri-
cans will be the gainers by the periodical recital of the feats of their
Revolutionary War, and the repetition of the praises of Washington.
The hyperbolical amplifications, the Panegyricks in question have
an evident effect especially among the younger part of the com-
10 The Hamiltonian Federalists, on the whole, viewed the terror of the
French Revolution with horror and were pro-British; the Jeffersonian Re-
publicans, as they were to be called, were pro-Revolutionary and pro-
French. During this second term, also, Washington became increasingly a
partisan of Federalist politics, and was attacked by various Republican papers
and speakers, although usually in mild terms.
22 America as a New Nation
munity, in fomenting the growth of that vanity, which to the
feelings of a stranger had already arrived at a sufficient height. 11
The "near-apotheosis" of Washington characterized almost all that was
written and said about him for the first few generations of the new
nation. As Cunliffe points out:
Washington, up to about the Civil War, was so venerated that no
biographer would dream of criticizing him. On the contrary,
biographers vied in finding new ways of praising him. "He was as
fortunate as great and good," said Aaron Bancroft. For Peleg
Sprague, Washington was "The Patriot Hero of our Revolution,
the Christian Statesman of our Republic, great in goodness, and good
in greatness." Edward Everett did not hesitate to pronounce Wash-
ington, "of all men that ever lived, THE GREATEST OF GOOD
MEN AND THE BEST OF GREAT MEN" The American
public demanded to be told of a Washington who was a "human
angil" spotless, pious, dauntless. 12
The importance of Washington's role for the institutionalization of
legal-rational authority in the early United States can be summarized as
follows:
1. His prestige was so great that he commanded the loyalty of the
leaders of the different factions as well as the general populace. Thus,
in a political entity marked by much cleavage he, in his own person,
provided a basis for unity.
2. He was strongly committed to the principles of constitutional
government and exercised a paternal guidance upon those involved in
developing the machinery of government.
11 Quoted in Charles, The Origins of the American Party System, p. 52.
(Emphasis in original.) Writing in the 1830 y s, the English liberal Harriet
Martineau described Washington's halo in terms similar to those of Beau-
mont, cited earlier: "Washington's influence is a topic which no one is ever
hardy enough to approach, in way of measurement or specification. Within
the compass of his name lies more than other words can tell of his power
over men. It is Washington, the man, not the President, whose name is
lovingly spoken, whose picture smiles benignly in every inhabited nook of
his congregation of republics. It is even Washington, the man, not the Presi-
dent, whose name is sacred above all others, to men of all political parties."
Harriet Martineau, Society in America (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1962), p. 82.
12 Marcus Cunliffe, Introduction to Mason L. Weems, The Life of Wash-
ington (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
1962), pp. xliv-xlv.
Establishing National Authority 23
3. He stayed in power long enough to permit the crystallization of
factions into embryonic parties.
4. He set a precedent as to how the- problem of succession should be
managed, by voluntarily retiring from office.
In most new nations the charismatic leader has tended to fulfill only
the first of these tasks, acting as a symbol which represents and prolongs
the feeling of unity developed prior to the achievement of independence. 13
The neglect of the other three important aspects of Washington's role
results in "charismatic personalities . . . [who do] not ordinarily build . . .
the institutions which are indispensable for carrying on the life of a
political society" 14 personalities whose disappearance raises again, as
did the achievement of independence, the difficult problem of maintaining
national unity among a conglomeration of groups and interests.
The Problem of National Unity
One of the problems shared by all new nations is that of creating a
feeling of national unity among diverse elements. "The parochialism of the
constituent segments of the societies of the new states has been com-
monly observed. The sense of membership in the nation, which is more
or less coterminous with the population residing within the boundaries
of the new states, is still very rudimentary and very frail." 15 This tendency
toward parochialism is common because the boundaries of new national
communities are artificial, in the sense that they follow those "estab-
lished by the imperial power rather than those coincident with pre-
colonial socio-political groups." 16 Myron Weiner suggests the urgency
13 "Whereas a seemingly cohesive national force pressed the imperial power
for concessions, a grant of independence or self-government will bring
separatist forces into the open. The integrative energies generated by the
struggle for independence cannot be depended upon to survive after in-
dependence is won." Donald S. Rothchild, Toward Unity in Africa (Wash-
ington: Public Affairs Press, 1960), p. 2.
14 Edward Shils, "Political Development in the New States," Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 2 (1960), p. 288.
1B /i, p. 283.
16 James S. Coleman, "Nationalism in Tropical Africa," in John H. Kautsky,
ed., Political Change in Underdeveloped Countries (New York: John Wiley,
1962), p. 189. "Little attention was paid in the original partition of Africa or
in its re-partition after the First World War to effective social groupings; so
that people who had traditionally enjoyed a certain coherence found diem-
selves divided between the territories of different colonial powers. The
Somalis, divided between British, French and Italian Somaliland, as well as
Ethiopia are a classic example; but the Ewes, distributed over the Gold Coast
24 America as a New Nation
of this issue when he reports with specific reference to South Ask that
"the maintenance of national unity in the countries of South Asia is
perhaps their most severe political problem." 17 In Africa too the "issues
and problems of national unification are at the center of politics in the
new and emergent societies." 18 A recent study by a group of scholars
at MIT suggests that in order to create genuine stable new nations, "the
firstjgrerequisite is a sense of national unity, a political consensus. . . ."
They go on to urge that "the issues of national unity represent basic
constitutional problems. Only as they are resolved can a society develop
its policy and create the means for grappling with social and economic
problems of modernization." 19
The problems of national unity and consensus alluded to by the various
writers cited above are clearly more complex than those faced by the
United States when it broke with Britain. Many African and Asian
states are the home of numerous linguistic groups and tribal units, several
of which have histories of bitter antagonism to each other. 20 India has
been unable to resist demands that its internal state boundaries be drawn
along linguistic lines, a development which can place severe strains on
and British and French Togoland and the Bacongo, split by the frontiers of
French Moyen-Congo, the Belgian Congo and Portuguese Angola, are in a
comparable situation. In these and other cases, nationalisms aiming at reuniting
peoples whom European colonization divided have begun to assert themselves,
making die pattern of African nationalism more complicated. . . . For the
moment, the difficulties in the way of preserving unity in multi-national,
multi-religious Nigeria seem considerable." Thomas Hodgkin, Nationalism in
Colonial Africa (New York: New York University Press, 1957), pp. 22-23.
17 Myron Weiner, "The Politics of South Asia," in Gabriel Almond and
James S. Coleman, eds., The Politics of Developing Areas (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 239.
18 Coleman, "Nationalism in Tropical Africa," op. cit., p. 367.
19 Max F. Millikan and Donald L. M. Backmer, eds., The Emerging Nations
(Boston: Litde, Brown, 1961), pp. 76-78.
20 [T]here is no such thing as a single Indian or Indonesian language. Some
ten or twelve major languages and hundreds of minor tongues and local
dialects are spoken in India. Some thirty languages are spoken in the Republic
of Indonesia. . . . [I]n Nigeria a population of approximately 34,000,000 speaks
roughly 250 different languages, a situation that is not unusual in much of
Africa and among the tribes in the interior of Southeast Asia and Latin
America. In Australian-ruled Papua and New Guinea , . . 1,750,000 natives
speak 500 different languages and dialects, no one language being used by
more than 50,000 and some by only 300." John H. Kautsky (ed.), Introduction
to Political Change in Underdeveloped Countries (New York: John Wiley,
1962), p. 34.
Establishing National Authority 25
its ultimate national unity. 21 Pakistan is divided into two sections, which
differ in language and in level of economic development. Indonesia has
faced the difficulty of resolving differences between the Javanese and
those living in the outer islands, as well as ethnic and religious cleavages.
Burma has had at least five different separatist movements struggling for
autonomy or independence. The West Indian Federation, in spite of a
common language, has broken up. The various efforts to create a
federated structure out of the successor states of the French African
Empire have failed. This has been true also with respect to attempts to
unite any two or more of the Arab nations. And the tragic story of the
Congo presents the most extreme example of the difficulties inherent in
winning the loyalty of areas and groups with diverse cultures and
histories to a new political authority. 22
Early American history presented similar problems and reactions. True,
its Western European heritage "established certain common traditions in
advance, facilitating the task of harmonizing differences of language,
culture, religion, and politics." 28 Nevertheless, "throughout the colonial
period, Americans had tended to assume that these differences of lan-
guage, culture, and religion would prevent the growth of a common
loyalty." 24 " --
Karl Deutsch and his associates point out that one of the essential
21 For an analysis of the relationship between variations in knowledge of
different languages and the statistical chances for the triumph of any single
language as the national one, see Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social
Communication (New York: John Wiley, 1953), especially pp. 97-126,
170-213.
22 ". . . [Nationalism becomes an infection radiating from the larger group
to ethnic, religious, or racial subgroups, each in turn claiming for itself the
prerogatives of national self-determination which the larger entity achieved.
The division of British India along religious lines into die Indian Republic
and Pakistan is one such example; and tie 'chain reaction* of local national-
isms, largely based on linguistic identities, has continued to plague the Indian
Republic to a marked degree ever since independence was attained in 1947.
Similar developments can be found in other parts of newly independent
Asian and African states. But it is still too early to know whether national
integration will ultimately prevail over local or racial separation as has
been the case in this country, England, and France or whether large parts
of the non-Western world will suffer the fate of internal 'Balkanization' in
the years to come." Harry J. Benda, "Revolution and Nationalism in the
Non-Western World," in Warren S. Hunsberger, ed., New Era in the Non-
Western World (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1957), pp. 42-43.
23 Rothchild, Toward Unity in Africa, p. 6.
24 Maldwyn Allen Jones, American Immigration (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1960), p. 40.
26 America as a New Nation
conditions for the amalgamation of small political units into a larger
one is the growth of "compatibility of the main values held by the
politically relevant strata of all participating units." They observe that
similarities in the values current in the colonies underwent "accelerated
change and development in the course of the American Revolution and
its aftermath." 26 Aiid Maldwyn Jones points out:
During the Revolutionary era the need to stress national unity some-
times induced Americans to become forgetful of their diverse ethnic
origins and to overlook the persistence of cultural differences. Par-
ticularly was this so among men who were anxious that the young
republic should not be fatally weakened by a denial of adequate
powers to the federal government. Thus it was, that, in the Fed-
eralist Papers, John Jay was moved to congratulate his countrymen
on the fact that "Providence [had] been pleased to give this one
connected country to one united people a people descended from
the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the
same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very
similar in their manners and customs. . . ." 26
One of the processes by which the integration of political units often
proceeds is by the decline of "party divisions which reinforce the
boundaries between political units eligible for amalgamation, and the rise
in their stead of party divisions cutting across them." 27 Early America
possessed social bases for political cleavage which cut across the estab-
lished political units, the states. After the revolution, equalitarian pres-
sures albeit in different forms grew up in most states. In many of
them, demands emerged for broader voting rights and for greater
representation in the legislatures of rural and western counties. These
cleavages provided the basis for trans-state parties.
However, before parties based upon these cleavages could play a
role in unifying portions of the polity across state lines, interest groups
in the different states had to learn to see beyond the particular issues
with which they were concerned. They had to recognize that they had
something in common with other groups advocating different forms of
equality.
25 Karl W. Deutsch, S. A. Burrell, R A. Kann, M. Lee, Jr., M. Lichterman,
R. E. Lindgren, F. A. L. Loewenheim, R. W. Van Wagenen, Political Com-
rnunhy and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1957), p. 4&
26 Jones, American iTjrnrigration, p. 39.
27 Deutsch et aL, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, p. 76.
Establishing National Authority 2 7
Many individuals resisted being herded; states and state leaders
stressed their special identities and interests; and heterogeneities
from regionalism to economic variety to religion, tossed up a multi-
plicity of opinions and interests. Although this very individualism
and pluralism were eventually to stimulate the resort to party co-
ordination, it was no easy matter to harness them at the onset. 28
Above all, a political arena in which the individual rather than the state
was the political unit had to be created. Nevertheless, in spite of working
and fighting together in a seven-year struggle for independence, the best
governmental structure which the Americans could devise was a loose
federal union under the Articles of Confederation. This union lacked
any national executive and, in effect, preserved most of the sovereignty
and autonomy of each state. 29
The pressure to establish a unified central authority in contemporary
new states comes mainly from the nationalist intellectual elite who are
concerned with creating an important arena of effective operation
through which the new nation, and they, can demonstrate competence.
The main instrument for such action has been the revolutionary party.
After 1783, a national party that unified interests across state lines was
approximated by
the advocates of central authority, who set up the plans for a
convention on federal authority, to be held in Philadelphia. ... A
small group of political leaders with a Continental vision and
essentially a consciousness of the United States' international im-
potence, provided the matrix of the movement. . . . Indeed, an
argument with great force particularly since Washington was its
incarnation urged that our very survival in the Hobbesian jungle
of world politics depended upon a reordering and strengthening of
our national sovereignty. 30
28 William N. Chambers, Parties in a New Nation (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1963), pp. 24-25.
29 "The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing Con-
federation/ warned Alexander Hamilton, 4 is in the principle of LEGISLA-
TION for STATES or GOVERNMENTS, in their CORPORATE or
COLLECTIVE CAPACITIES, and as contradistinguished from the IN-
DIVIDUALS of which they consist.' He maintained that such a relationship
divested the central government of sufficient energies with which to carry
out its obligations under the Articles of Confederation. The result was a
central government subordinate to and dependent upon regional compliance."
Rothchild, Toward Unity in Africa, p. 5.
30 John P. Roche, "The Founding Fathers: A Reform Caucus in Actiony"
The American Political Science Review, 60 (1961), p. 801. (Emphasis in the
original.)
28 America as a New Nation
Many of those who served as delegates in what became the Con-
stitutional Convention had served in the Revolutionary Continental
Congress. This experience "left a deep imprint on those connected with
it ... [since it had been] a continental war effort. If there is any one
feature that most unites the future leading supporters of the Constitution,
it was their close engagement with this continental aspect of the Revo-
lution. . . ." 31
All of them had been united in an experience, and had formed
commitments, which dissolved provincial boundaries; they had
come to full public maturity in a setting which enabled ambition,
public service, leadership, and self-fulfillment to be conceived for
each in his way, with a grandeur of scope unknown to any previous
generation. 82
The future of this generation's careers was
staked upon the national quality of the experience which had
formed them. In a number of outstanding cases energy, initiative,
talent, and ambition had combined with a conception of affairs
which had grown immense in scope and promise by the close of the
Revolution. There is every reason to think that a contraction of this
scope, in the years that immediately followed, operated as a power-
ful challenge. 83
John P. Roche has argued that there was no ideological rift within
the Constitutional Convention because almost all the delegates belonged
to the central government party. He suggests that the differences of
opinion which did emerge )ere-$pscific or tactical rather than ideologi-
.cal That is, there was no conflict between "nationalists" versus "states-
rightists" but rather an argument over representation, the small states
versus the big states. "The Virginia Plan [which] envisioned a unitary
national government effectively freed from and dominant over the
states . . . may ... be considered, in ideological terms, as the delegates'
31 "A remarkably large number of these someday [advocates of a strong central
government] . . . were in the Continental Army, served as diplomats or
key administrative officers of the Confederation government, or, as members
of Congress, played leading roles on those committees primarily responsible
for the conduct of the war." Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, "The Found-
ing Fathers: Young Men of the Revolution/' Political Science Quarterly, 76
(1961), p. 202.
32 Ibid., p. 203.
33 Ibid., pp. 205-206.
Establishing National Authority 29
Utopia . . ," 34 However, "the delegates from the small states . . .
[a]pparendy realizing that under the Virginia Plan, Massachusetts, Vir-
ginia and Pennsylvania could virtually dominate the national government
and probably appreciating that to sell this program to the 'folks back
home' would be impossible . . . dug in their heels and demanded time
for a consideration of alternatives. 35 Out of this consideration came
the New Jersey^ Plan, which according to standard analyses was an
expression of the stated-rightists' "reversion to the status-quo under the
Articles of Confederation. . . ," 36 However, Roche suggests this was a
political maneuver designed to gain support from those not represented
at the Convention, rather than a defense of states' rights among the
delegates.
It is true that the New Jersey Plan put the states back into the
institutional picture, but ... to do so was a recognition of political
reality rather than an affirmation of states' rights. A serious case can
be made that the advocates of the New Jersey Plan, far from being
ideological addicts of states' rights, intended to substitute for the
Virginia Plan a system which would both retain strong national
power and have a chance of adoption in the states. ... In fact, [New
Jersey delegate] Patterson's notes of his speech can easily be con-
strued as an argument for attaining the substantive objectives of
the Virginia Plan by a sound political route, i.e., pouring the new
wine in the old bottles. ... In other words, the advocates of the
New Jersey Plan concentrated their fire on what they held to be the
political liabilities of the Virginia Plan which were matters of
institutional structure rather than on the proposed scope of national
authority. 37
34 "The lower house of the national legislature was to be elected directly
by the people of the states with membership proportional to the population.
The upper house was to be selected by the lower, and the two chambers
would elect the executive and choose die judges. The national government
would be thus cut completely loose from the states." Roche, "The Founding
Fathers," op. ch., pp. 804-805.
35 Loc. cit.
Ibid., p. 806.
37 "The critical fight was over representation of the states and once the
Connecticut Compromise was adopted . . . the convention was over the hump.
Madison, James Wilson, and Gouverneur Morris of New York . . . fought
the compromise all the way in a last ditch effort to get a unitary state with
parliamentary supremacy. But their allies deserted them and they demon-
strated after their defeat the essentially opportunist character of their ob-
jections. ... It nourishes an increased respect for Madison's devotion to the
art of politics, to realize that this dogged fighter could sit down six months
30 America as a New Nation
This "group of extremely talented democratic politicians" were not
"rhapsodic" about the final form of the Constitution, but they had
refused to attempt the establishment of a strong, centralized sover-
eignty on the principle of legislative supremacy for the excellent
reason that the people would not accept it f^Ktical realities forced
them to water down their objectives and they settled, like the good
politicians they were, for half a loaf. . . . The result was a Constitu-
tion which the people, in fact, by democratic processes, did accept,
and a new and far better national government was established. 38
The energy behind the "nationalistic" aims of the Constitutional Con-
vention came from leaders of a young generation whose careers, having
been launched in the continental war effort of the Revolution, depended
upon the survival of a nationalistic outlook. In age and aspiration, they
resembled the leadership of many contemporary new states. On the
other hand, those opposed to a strong central American government, who
had little if any representation at the Constitutional Convention, came
from an older generation whose careers were not only state-centered but
had been formed prior to the Revolution. 39
Following the war "the spirit of unity generated by the struggle for
independence . . . lapsed" and the older generation reverted to its old
provincial ways, the particularism and inertia of local authority. 40 With
the exception of Pennsylvania, this meant primarily that men far more
than measures, personal connections rather than party machines, played
the most significant role in the conduct of politics. 41
In this respect, the difference between die anti-Federalists and the
later and prepare essays for The Federalist in contradiction to his basic
convictions about the true course the Convention should have taken." Ibid.,
pp. 806, 810.
88 Ibid., pp. 813, 815, 816. (Emphasis in the original.)
89 Elkins and McKitrick, "The Founding Fathers," op. cit., pp. 203-204. "Mer-
rill Jensen has compiled two lists, with nine names in each, of the men he
considers to have been the leading spirits of the Federalists and Anti-
Federalists. . . . The age difference between these two groups is especially
striking. The Federalists were on the average ten to twelve years younger
than the Anti-Federalists. . . . This age differential takes on a special signifi-
cance when it is related to the career profiles of the men concerned." Ibid.,
pp. 202-203.
*>Ibid., p. 206.
41 Chambers, Parties in a New Nation, pp. 19-20.
Establishing National Authority 3 1
"Continental" Federalists is suggestive of Hodgkins's classification of the
structure of African parties into primitive and modern:
Parties of the former type [primitive] are dominated by "personal-
ities," who enjoy a superior social status, either as traditional rulers
or members of ruling families, or as belonging to the higher ranks
of the urban, professional elite (lawyers, doctors, etc.). . - . Their
political machinery, central and local, is of a rudimentary land. . , .
They have little, if anything, in the way of a secretariat or full-time
officials. . . . They depend for popular support less upon organization
and propaganda than on habits of respect for traditional authority,
or wealth and reputation. . . .
Parties of the second type [modern] aim at ... a much more
elaborate structure. Since their chief claim and function is to
represent the mass, they are committed to a form of organization
that is (certainly on paper and to some extent in practice) highly
democratic. . . . Parties of this type are able to achieve a much
higher level of efficiency than the "parties of personalities"; . . .
because they possess a continuously functioning central office. . . .
Indeed, dependence upon professional politicians permanents
"who naturally tend to form a class and assume a certain authority"
for the running of the machine is one of the most distinctive features
of the "mass" party. ... It depends for its strength not on the
backing of traditional authority but upon propaganda, designed
to appeal particularly to the imagination of the young, to women,
to the semi-urbanized and discontented; to those who are outside
the local hierarchies, and interested in reform and change. 42
42 Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Africa, pp. 156-159. If one accepts or
overlooks the extreme nature of Merrill Jensen's view, an even closer parallel
can be seen. In speaking of the "Federalists" he states: "They too could call
conventions. They too could paint dark pictures of the times and blame the
supposed woes of the country on the Articles of Confederation, as the
radicals had blamed the British government before 1776. They too could, and
did, adopt the radical theory of the sovereignty of the people; in the name of
the people they engineered a conservative counter-revolution and erected
a nationalistic government whose purpose in part was to thwart the will of
'the people' in whose name they acted. They too could use one name while
pursuing a goal that was the opposite in fact. Thus, although [they were]
'nationalistic' they adopted the name 'Federalist' for it served to disguise the
extent of the changes diey desired. True, the government they created had a
good many 'federal' features, but this was so because . . . [they] were political
realists and had to compromise with the political reality of actual state
sovereignty." Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation (Madison: Uni-
versity of Wisconsin Press, 1940), p. 245.
Hodgkin in further describing the modern "mass" parties of Africa writes,
32 America as a New Nation
Early America differed from the nations in Africa in that there did not
anywhere exist "modern" parties which a political leader could take as a
model. These emerged as a result of needs in the American situation-
some of which, however, parallel those which stimulate "modern" party
organization in Africa and Asia today.
The continental "caucus" at the Constitutional Convention did not
represent a full transition to a modern political party. Such a transition
implies the growth of an organization that is rationally oriented toward
vote-getting. It also implies that this organization is connected to a
social base with common ideological interests. In contrast, the struggle
for ratification was particular to each state. In some the upper classes
were for it while in others they were against it, according to the pecu-
liarities of politics in each. The "Constitutionalists" relied on old political
techniques, including the manipulation of notables, cliques, and coteries
to get ratification through.
However, insofar as the transition to modern parties implies the rational
calculation of what policies are necessary to get votes, the Constitutional
Convention did mark a step in this direction. First, it created an organ
in which policies touching on the interests of persons in all of the
states were to be debated. Secondly, it marked a movement away from
the politics of notables and coteries who were deeply tied to the old
political structure of state supremacy. By establishing the principle of
rationally calculating how to marshal public support for national policy,
it opened the door for policies that addressed themselves directly to
specific interest groups in all states. It was only a step further for
Hamilton to create a coherent fiscal program designed to mobilize
interests on behalf of national power and economic development. His
attempts to manage politics in the capital to get his plans through Con-
gress, then, "brought strong responses across the country. In the process,
what began as a capital faction soon assumed status as a national faction
and then, finally, as the new Federalist party." 43
The Federalist party organization could be described as parallel to
those patron parties in Africa that are national but which represent a
"One common characteristic is the radical character of their professed aims,
set out in elaborate written constitutions, in which western democratic and
socialist ideas are blended with African nationalist doctrine. . . . Any African
'mass' party, if it wishes to gain popular support, must speak the language of
modern radicalism." Hodgfcin, op. cit., pp. 161-162.
43 Chambers, Parties in a New Nation, pp. 39-40. (Emphasis mine.)
Establishing National Authority 3 3
linking of local notables rather than an organization designed to mobilize
the common people. 44 The first "modern" party, in the sense that there
was a "coordination in activity between leaders at the capital, and leaders,
actives and popular followings in the states, counties, and towns," 45 was
to come with the crystallization of the Jeff ersonian Democratic-Republi-
can party. It is interesting to note that while the leaders of both parties
were quite young in the first decade of the Republic, j
fersoniajos were considerably ounger than the more conservative Feder-
alists. Chambers estimates that the average age of the Federalists at the
time of the 1792 election was forty-four, while that of the embryonic
Democratic-Republicans, including the "comparative oldsters," Jefferson
(forty-nine), Clinton (fifty-three), and Burr (forty-six), was thirty-six. 46
The Democratic-Republicans developed party organizations for some
of the same reasons that leaders develop such organizations in Africa
today. They were opposed to the established authorities whose policies
largely dominated public affairs through the Federalist organization. 47
When the Jay treaty caused popular indignation, and provoked concern
on the part of some merchants that the British would not pay their war
debts, the Republicans took advantage of this disaffection to organize an
opposition based on popular support. They appealed to social categories
that cut across existing political boundaries, just as the African mass-
based parties do. 48 In so doing, the Democratic-Republican party served
44 Ruth Schacter, "Single-party Systems in West Africa," American Political
Science Review, 55 (1961), p. 297.
45 Chambers, Parties in a New Nation, p. 80.
46 Ibid., pp. 68-69.
47 Schacter, "Single Party Systems . . . ," op. cit., p. 295.
48 Ruth Schacter describes the unifying functions of the African mass parties
in this way: "While patron parties' leaders, once through this first simple
phase of 'ethnic arithmetic,' generally stopped their calculations there [uniting
local notables] the leaders of mass parties had taken that as a point of depar-
ture. They tried to use their party organizations in order to awaken a wider
national sense of community. They appealed to particular categories existing
within or cutting across ethnic groups a technique suitable to recruiting in a
mobile, changing society. Youth and women were of course two such cate-
gories which mass parties emphasized heavily. . . . They often appealed to
rural underprivileged groups. . . . Finally, they appealed to those who earned
money income for growing coffee, cocoa, peanuts or bananas, and had be-
come restless with tradition. . . ." "Single Party Systems . . . ," op. cit., p. 301.
As this description of the nature of support for African mass parties empha-
sizes, while the power techniques used to unite the people of the different
34 America as a New Nation
as a means of uniting the citizens of the several states in national citizen-
ship by mobilizing their common interests in the national arena.
However, as is well known, the evolution of national political parties
could not erase differences in regional interests. Nor did the ratification
of the Constitution serve to legitimate the new governmental structure,
even though it provided a basis for national unity. Only with time, and
after many attempts to thwart its powers, was the federal government
finally able to achieve a high degree of political legitimacy. A number of
Southern apologists after the Civil War, and more recently Arthur
Schlesinger, Sr. (who definitely doesn't fall into that category), have
documented the proposition that almost every state and every major
political faction and interest group attempted, at one time or other
between 1790 and 1860, to weaken the power of the national govern-
ment or to break up the Union directly. 49
There were many threats to secede in the first decade of national
existence, and the threats came from both northern and southern states. 50
In 1798 two future presidents, Jefferson and Madison, sought the passage
by a state legislature of nullification ordinances which proclaimed the
right of each state to decide the extent of national authority to be
tolerated within its boundaries. After leaving national office in 1801,
various Federalist leaders sought in 1804, 1808, and 1812 to take the
New England or northern states out of the Union.
Later, when the slavery issue became important, both abolitionists
and defenders of slavery talked of destroying the Constitution and the
Union. The activities of the Southerners are, of course, well known, but
it is often forgotten that in the early period of the controversy, when
the abolitionists despaired of eliminating slavery because of constitutional
guarantees, the Constitution was described by some as a "slave-holders"
document and Garrison called it "a covenant with death and an agree-
ment with hell." 51
sections in contemporary new nations and of the states in early America may
be similar, the nature of the tradition that divides them is very different.
49 See Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., New Viewpoints in American History (New
York: Macmfflan, 1922), pp. 220-240; Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government (New York: Collier Books, 1961), pp. 56-60.
60 See Marshall Smelser, "The Federalist Period as an Age of Passion," The
American Quarterly, 10 (1958), p. 393.
51 W. L. Garrison, The Words of Garrison (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin,
1905), p. 25.
Establishing National Authority 3 5
Because of their opposition to slavery, some northern states urged non-
cooperation with the government during the Mexican War, perceived by
them as a struggle to extend slave territory. There were, in fact, many
deserters from the American Army during this war. It is "apparently
the only case known in which a body of United States soldiers after
deserting subsequently formed a distinct corps in the enemy's army " 52
Various northern states during the 1850's passed laws the so-called
Personal Liberty Laws which were designed to prevent the enforcement
of federal legislation (the Fugitive Slave Law). New Jersey's legislature
justified this position in 1852 by describing the Union as "a compact
between the several States," while as late as 1859, Wisconsin, the state
in which the Republican Party had been founded five years earlier,
declared that the several states "which had formed the federal compact,
being 'sovereign and independent,' had 'the unquestionable right to judge
of its infractions' and to resort to 'positive defiance' of all unauthorized
acts of the general government." 53
/ Thus, in the early United States, as in contemporary new states, the
Achievement of national unity, and of respect for a national authority,
was no easy task.
The possibility of secession remains one of the basic problems facing
many new states in our century. Their unity immediately after gaining
independence "is largely explained by the negative, anti-Western, anti-
colonial content of non-Western nationalism. One need not be a prophet
of doom to anticipate that this negative unity may in time, and perhaps
before long, weaken, and that the newly independent non-Western
nation-states may then find themselves confronted by some of the dis-
sensions and antagonisms which nationalist aspirations have so often
brought in their wake elsewhere." 54
52 Edward S. Wallace, "Notes and Comment Deserters in the Mexican War,"
The Hispanic American Historical Review, 15 (1935), p. 374.
53 Schlesinger, Sr., New Viewpoints in American History, p. 231.
54 Benda, "Revolution and Nationalism . . . ," op. cit., pp. 40-41. See also
Coleman, "Nationalism in Tropical Africa," op. cit., pp. 167-194. Coleman
states that "until the recent decision to give the Southern Cameroons greater
autonomy within the emergent Federation of Nigeria, Cameroonian national-
ists were wavering between remaining an integral part of the Eastern Region
of Nigeria, or seceding and joining with the nationalists in the French Camer-
oons in an endeavor to create a Kamerun nation based upon the artificial
boundaries of the short-lived German Kamerun." (P. 189.)
36 America as a New Nation
Opposition Rights and the Establishment of New Polities
The issues involved in the emergence of legitimate national authority
and a sense of national unity, and those which pertain to the establishment
of democratic procedures, are clearly separate problems although they
are sometimes confused in discussing the politics of new nations. Democ-
racy may be conceived of as a system of institutionalized opposition in
which the people choose among alternative contenders for public office. 55
To create a stable, representative, decision-making process that provides
a legitimate place for opposition, that recognizes the rights of those with-
out power to advocate "error" and the overthrow of those in office, is
extremely difficult in any polity. It is particularly problematic in new
states which must be concerned also with the sheer problem of the
survival of national authority itself.
In a recent Ghanese White Paper seeking to justify legislation and
police actions which involved restrictions upon (and actual imprisonment
of) opposition politicians, the Ghana government suggested that these
actions were necessary because of plots, saboteurs, subversion, and threats
of foreign intervention. The White Paper argues that "the strains
experienced by an emergent country immediately after independence are
certainly as great as, if not greater than, the strains experienced by a
developed country in wartime." 56 According to Nkrumah, a new state
"is still weakly expressed as a national unity," and its frail structure must
be protected by "identifying the emergent nation with the party," that is,
by denying the possibility of a legitimate opposition, since the latter
would endanger die stability of the nation. 57
55 1 have elaborated the concept of democracy in other writings. See my
Political Man, pp. 45-47; Introduction to Robert Michels, Political Parties
(New York: Collier Books, 1962), pp. 33-35; and S. M. Lipset, M. Trow and
J. S. Coleman, Union Democracy (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1956), pp.
405-412.
56 Discussed and cited in Dennis Austin, "Strong Rule in Ghana," The Listener,
67 (1962) p. 156.
57 Quoted in Austin, loc. cit. David Apter describes these problems as follows:
"New nations are plagued with almost the entire range of political problems
known to man. They are beset by an accumulation of immediate and often
mundane tasks such as building up adequate medical, health, education, trans-
port, and other services, as well as improvement of housing, food supplies and
other basic necessities beyond the subsistence level." In trying to deal with
these problems, and harassed by a populace hungry for some of the promised
benefits, it is easy to see how debate, criticism, and opposition come to be
Establishing National Authority 37
Restrictions on democratic rights and opposition parties are, of course,
not unique to Ghana among the contemporary new states. In Africa, the
only new state with more than one significant party is Nigeria, "and this
is true only because it is a federal . . . [system] reflecting one-party
domination in the regions." 58
The early history of the United States reveals many of the same
problems and the resulting pressures to eliminate democratic rights
as do those of contemporary new states. During Washington's first ad-
ministration, all important differences of opinion could be expressed
within the government, since both Jefferson and Hamilton, the leaders
of what were to become the two major parties, were the most influential
members of the Cabinet. After Jefferson's withdrawal, at the end of
Washington's first term, and the subsequent formation of an opposition
party around 1797 the restraints on the tactics of both sides weakened
greatly:
Each was then exposed to a temptation which it had not had to
face before. Secret societies, subversion, and defiance seemed the
only course possible to many who disapproved of government
policies. . . . From the point of view of the historian it does not
matter whether force provoked subversion or subversion, force;
the important thing for the development of parties is the way in
regarded by those trying to push through this revolution as stultifying anti-
progressive influences that deter the attainment of goals and wreak havoc
with the tenuous basis of consensus and authority. Because of these very
factors, political opposition, according to Apter, needs a more limited and
specialized role than is accorded it in stable, industrialized countries. See David
Apter, "Some Reflections on the Role of a Political Opposition in New Na-
tions," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 4 (1962), p. 154; see also
Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1960), pp. 272-292.
58 W. G. Runciman, "Charismatic Legitimacy and One-Party Rule in Ghana,"
European Journal of Sociology, forthcoming. David Apter has suggested that
factors which determine the behavior of both governmental and opposition
groups have worked against the development of legitimate oppositions in new
states. The leaders of such states have monopolized national loyalties during
the long struggle with the colonial power, and hence find it difficult to accept
opposition from within the nation as anything but treason. Conversely, op-
position groups and leaders have usually entered politics while taking part in
the struggle against the colonial oppressor, and have developed a conception
of opposition activity which identifies efforts to change a government with the
need for an upset in the fundamental character of the polity. Apter, loc. ch.
38 America as a New Nation
which the attitudes of supporters and opponents of the Administra-
tion aggravated each other. 59
Hamilton, the political genius behind the first incumbents, organized
the first party to insure popular support for governmental policies. It was
a "government party" on a national scale, as opposed to the previous
state politicking. It was "a party of stability, dedicated to the idea that
the first imperative for government in a new nation was that it must govern
and sustain itself." 60 As such, the legitimate existence of organized opposi-
tion to it was contrary to its conception.
Opposition to its policies did not arise initially as a party matter but
as individual protests both on the popular level and within the political
elite. Opposition gradually crystallized, however, into a political move-
ment around the leadership of Madison and Jefferson. Its adherents were
maintaining "in effect, that the new polity should also [in addition to
maintaining its stability] provide room for counteraction, for effective
representation of interests and opinions that were slighted or discounte-
nanced in the government party." 61
[T]he emerging Republicans were "going to the people" in a virtu-
ally unprecedented attempt not only to represent popular interests
and concerns, but to monopolize popular opposition to those who
held power. If they had their way, if their appeal to planters,
farmers, and "mechanics" was broadened sufficiently to succeed, it
would end by displacing the Federalists in power and substituting
a new set of governors. 62
The Federalists viewed such organized opposition in much the same
light as many leader of the contemporary new states view their rivals:
[T]he Federalists took an intolerant position regarding the oppo-
sition party, which seemed to be a race of marplots characterized by
excessive ambition, unwholesome partisanship and a dangerous re-
liance upon the judgment of the voters. At best the Republicans of-
ten seemed governed by obstinacy, envy, malice or ambition. At
worst they were seditious and treasonable. Federalist private corre-
spondence was peppered with references to Republican disloyalty,
69 Charles, The Origins of the American Party System, p. 42.
60 Chambers, Parties in a New Nation, p. 65.
61 Loc. cit.
Establishing National Authority 39
insincerity, intrigue and demagoguery. . . . The conclusion almost
forced upon the reader of these and hundreds more of Federalist
condemnations is that the two-party system is immoral. . . . It became
almost normal to consider opposition as seditious and, in extraor-
dinary cases, as treasonable**
The strains endemic in the establishment of a new structure of authority
were increased by the fact that the nation and the embryonic parties were
dJJ4gd in their sympathies for the two major contestants in the European
war, RevolurionaryFrance and Great Britain. Each side was convinced that
the other had secret intentions to take the country into war in support of its
favorite. The French terror was a particular evil to the Federalists, and
they, like conservatives in other countries, were persuaded that French
agents were conspiring with sympathetic Americans to overthrow the
government here. 64 The Federalists were therefore opposed to any form
of organized opposition. They were much more violent in their denuncia-
tions of the treasonable activities of the Republicans than were the Jeffer-
sonians in return. 65 And given the tremendous moral indignation which
characterized Federalist private opinions, it is not surprising that they at-
tempted to repress their opponents. 66 The Alien and Sedition Acts passed
in 1798 gave the President "the power to order out of the country any
alien whom he thought dangerous to the public peace or whom he had
reasonable grounds to suspect of plotting against the government" and
left such aliens without recourse to the courts.* 7 The Sedition Act "was
intended to deal with citizens or aliens who too severely criticized the
government. ... In its final form it was made a high misdemeanor 'unlaw-
fully to combine and conspire' in order to oppose the legal measures of
the government . . . , [t]o publish a false or malicious writing against the
63 Smelser, "The Federalist Period . . . ," op. cit., pp. 394-395. (Emphasis mine.)
64 John C. Miller, Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (Boston:
Little, Brown, 1951), p. 14.
65 Smelser, "The Federalist Period . . . ," op, cit., pp. 397-398.
66 In 1797, an unsuccessful attempt was made to convict a Republican Con-
gressman of "seditious libel" for "unfounded calumnies against the unhappy
government of the United States," an attempt which had the support of die
Attorney-General. Leonard W. Levy, Legacy of Suppression, Freedom of
Speech and Press in Early American History (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap
Press of Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 241.
67 See Miller, Crisis in Freedom, and James M. Smith, Freedom's* Fetters,
The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N. Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1956).
40 America as a New Nation
government of the United States, the President, or Congress with the
purpose of stirring up hatred or resistance against them. . . ," 68
That the law was designed for partisan purposes was obvious. All those
arrested and convicted under it were Republicans. Basically, Federalist
officials and Federalist juries enforced the law against their political oppo-
nents. 69 These efforts to undermine democratic rights gave Jefferson and
Madison a major issue, which historians believe played an important role
in defeating the Federalists in 1800. 70
Once defeated for the Presidency in 1800, the Federalists never were
able to regain office on a national scale and virtually disappeared after
1814. The causes for the downfall of the Federalists are complex, and
cannot be detailed here. However, one reason was undoubtedly their
unwillingness or inability to learn how to perform as an opposition
party in an egalitarian democracy. Some historians suggest that they
failed basically because, as men convinced of their "natural" right to
rule, they did not believe in parties which appealed to the people. 71
68 John Spencer Bassett, The Federalist System (New York: Harper & Bros.,
I960), pp. 258-259.
69 Ibid., pp. 263-264. "All told, Federalist judges jailed and fined 70 men under
the Sedition Act. . . . With few exceptions the trials were travesties of justice
dominated by judges who saw treason behind every expression of Republican
sentiments. Grand juries for bringing in the indictments and trial juries for
rendering the monotonous verdict of guilty were handpicked by Federalist
United States marshals in defiance of statutes prescribing orderly procedure.
The presiding judges often ridiculed the defendants' lawyers and interrupted
their presentations so outrageously that many threw up their hands and their
cases, leaving the accused to the mercy of the court." Richard Hofstadter,
William Miller, and Daniel Aaron, The American Republic (Englewood Cliffs,
N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1959), I, pp. 331-332. The Federalists not only persecuted
Republican editors, but on a number of occasions Federalist mobs wrecked
Jeffersonian papers and printing offices and beat up their editors. "[M]ost of
the mobs of this period were composed of Federalists wearing the insignia of
the black cockade." Miller, Crisis in Freedom, pp. 195-196.
70 The Federalists "declared in effect that there were only two parties in the
United States, Federalists and Jacobins: the one, the party of Americanism
and constitutionalism, the other pledged to make the Republic a French prov-
ince and to destroy the Constitution. Edmund Burke said that one could not
indict a whole people; the Federalists implicitly indicted half a people and
thereby brought about their own downfall," Miller, Crisis in Freedom, p. 77.
71 William O. Lynch, Fifty Years of Party Warfare 1189-1831 (Indianapolis:
Bobbs Merrill, 1931), pp. 122-123. While still in office, "the Federalist view
[was] that their opponents were not the other party, but simply 'party' or
'faction'; not the 'opposition' who might one day justly inherit the reins of
government." Cunliffe, George Washington, p. 151. "The party of Jefferson
Establishing National Authority 41
The civil liberties record of the Jeffersonians, in office, is a better one
than that of the Federalists. How much of this may be explained on the
assumption that they believed more firmly in the virtues of democracy
than their opponents, it is difficult to say. Certainly their years of opposi-
tion had led them to make many statements in favor of democratic rights,
but oppositionists in other lands have forgotten such programs once in
power and faced with "unscrupulous criticism." Perhaps more important
is the fact that the Democratic-Republicans did believe in states' rights
and did oppose using federal courts to try common-law crimes. Also, the
federal judiciary remained for some time in the hands of Federalist judges,
who presumably were loath to permit convictions of their political sym-
pathizers for expression of belief. Finally, there was a difference in the na-
ture of the opposition. The Federalists were fighting a growing party that
could realistically hope for eventual victory; the Democratic-Republicans,
when in office, were opposed by a rapidly declining party, whose very
lack of faith in extending the scope of the democratic process was to un-
dermine any chance it had of returning to office. Since the Federalists
were committing political suicide, there was no need for the administra-
tion to find means to repress them. The existence of a real but declining
opposition may, therefore, be regarded as being, under certain circum-
stances, a contribution to the institutionalization of democratic rights.
Yet it should be noted that on the level of state government, Demo-
and Madison was never recognized as a lawfully begotten party: even after
Jefferson became President, to the Federalists he was still the leader of a
'faction* whose objective was the subversion of the Constitution," Miller, Crisis
in Freedom, p. 11. One of the grievances which various Federalists expressed
against the Jeffersonian Republicans "was that they went to some trouble to
gain popularity, and disgraced themselves by seeking votes." Smelser, "The
Federalist Period . . .," op. cit., p. 395. "The first party the Hamiltonian
Federalists was a party on the English model: a group of leaders associated
loosely in a common policy expecting to command votes partly by their pol-
icy and partly by their influence. It failed to develop any rank and file organ-
ization and for this very reason its career as a national party was short-lived.
Their Republican opponents, without control of the government and at most
times before 1800 without a majority in Congress, were forced to make use
of popular organization. Building upon Democratic Societies . . . , the Repub-
licans developed a party in which die life came from local units. . . ." W. R.
Brock, The Character of American History (New York: St. Martin's, 1960),
p. 92.
For an analysis of the final decline of Federalism, see Shaw Livermore, Jr.,
The Twilight of Federalism: The Disintegration of the Federalist Party 1815-
1830 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962).
42 America as a New Nation
cratic-Republicans did use their power to crack down on Federalist opin-
ion. "Jefferson was no advocate of a 'licentious' press; like Hamilton and
Adams, he believed that the press ought to be restrained Svithin the legal
and wholesome limits of truth.' He differed from the Federalists chiefly
in insisting that this restraint be imposed by the states rather than by the
Federal government " 72 In 1803, Jefferson wrote to Governor McKean
of Pennsylvania along the following lines:
Jefferson cautioned the Democratic governor to keep confidential
his remarks on the subject of libel prosecutions.The Federalists, he
noted, having failed to destroy the freedom of the press "by their
gag law, seem to have attacked it in an opposite form, that is by
pushing its licentiousness and its lying to such a degree of prosti-
tution as to deprive it of all credit." Jefferson was not without a sug-
gestion for the melioration of the condition of the press: "I have
long thought that a few prosecutions of the most eminent offenders
would have a wholesome effect in restoring the intregrity of the
presses." 78
Where the Federalists controlled a state government, as in the case of
Connecticut, and hence prevented the application of the Democratic doc-
trine that seditious libel was a state offense, Jefferson was not averse to
inaugurating prosecutions in the federal courts. In 1806, six indictments
were drawn against four Connecticut Federalist editors and two minis-
72 Miller, Crisis in Freedom, p. 231. In December 1800, a Federalist editor "was
fined two thousand, five hundred dollars in a Pennsylvania court for libeling
a Republican. The amount of this fine was compared by distraught Federalists
with the two-hundred-dollar fine imposed upon Abijah Adams for publishing
a libel on the Massachusetts legislature and with the fines assessed by Federalist
judges under the Sedition Act. 'What a difference there is between the chance
of a Federalist among Jacobins, and of a Jacobin among Federalists!' they ex-
claimed. The boasted friends of liberty of the press inflict a tenfold more
severe punishment, when their characters are canvassed.' " Ibid., p. 229. In New
York in 1803 Governor George Clinton, a friend of Jefferson, obtained an in-
dictment for seditious libel against the editor of a Federalist journal, and the
editor was convicted at a trial presided over by a Democratic Chief Justice,
who was to become the next governor of New York. The judge charged the
jury "that truth was not a defense against a charge of seditious libel, that its
only duty was to find whether the defendant had in fact published the state-
ment [that Jefferson had bribed an editor to denounce Washington] charged."
Levy, Legacy of Suppression, pp. 297-298.
78 Ibid., p. 300. The state did indict a Federalist editor shortly thereafter.
Establishing National Authority 43
ters on the charge of seditious libel on the President. The ministers were
charged with committing the libel in sermons?*
Leonard Levy concludes his survey of freedom of speech and press in
early American history by arguing that the Democrats, like the Federal-
ists, did not believe in these freedoms when confronted with serious oppo-
sition. Each was prepared to use principled libertarian arguments when
his "ox was being gored." 75 Perhaps the most ironic piece of evidence in
this regard, indicating how fragile is a belief in "the rules of the game" in
a new democracy, is an article by Tom Paine written for a New York
newspaper in 1806, in which the great libertarian and convicted sedition-
ist argued that "there is a difference between error and licentiousness,"
that "the term liberty of the press arose from a FACT, the abolition of the
office of Imprimateur [sic], and that opinion has nothing to do with the
case." Paine urged that the public authorities judge and punish "atrocious"
statements. 76
The various efforts by both Federalists and Democratic-Republicans to
repress the rights of their opponents clearly indicate that in many ways
our early political officials resembled those heads of new states in the
twentieth century who view criticism of themselves as tantamount to an
attack on the nation itself. Such behavior characterizes leaders of polities
in which the concept of democratic succession to office has not been in-
stitutionalized. Thus, in many American trade unions today, national offi-
cers who hold effective power for life often interpret criticism as libelous
and treasonable. To accept criticism as proper requires the prior accept-
74 Jefferson claimed in 1809 that the prosecutions had been instituted without
his knowledge, but Leonard Levy concludes that the historical record indicates
that while they may have begun without his knowledge "he learned of
them . . . nearly four months before they were scheduled for trial, and he
approved of them until expediency dictated his disapproval some months
later." Ibid., pp. 302-305. Levy says that one of the "libels," the charge that
Jefferson when young had tried to seduce a friend's wife, was demonstrably
true and that when he learned that this was part of the case he saw to it
that the charges were dropped.
75 An earlier survey of Jefferson's relations with the press concludes: "[He]
had lashed himself in a fine frenzy over the temporary sedition laws as a gag
upon free speech and an attack upon a free press, yet would have the states
permanently apply the same remedy; he had wished to reform journalism,
but his idea of reformation was that of the character in Beaconsfield's novel
of the agreeable man 'one that agrees with me.' " See W. C. Ford, "Jeffer-
son and the Newspaper," Records of the Columbia Historical Society,
(Washington: 1905), Vol. VIII, p. 110.
76 Levy, Legacy of Suppression, pp. 307-308.
44 America as a New Nation
ance of the view that opposition and succession are normal, and that men
may be loyal to the polity and yet disapprove of the particular set of in-
cumbents. This view does not come easily to men who have themselves
created a polity, and cannot, therefore, conceive of it functioning prop-
erly without them or in ways other than they think best.
Yet, though the behavior of members of both early American parties
indicate that they, too, reacted to criticism as being damaging to the na-
tion, it must also be recognized that both parties permitted a great deal of
opposition, much more than is tolerated in most of the new states of Asia
and Africa. In some part, this may reflect the fact that much as they dis-
agreed, the heads of both groups had worked together to make the Rev-
olution and establish the Constitution. They had known and trusted each
other for some decades. In a real sense, the United States began with a
small, highly educated political elite, the members of which recognized
each other as belonging to the ruling club. Both Adams and Hamilton
demonstrated this when, on different occasions, each put adherence to
the rules of the game ahead of party advantage or personal feelings. The
defeat of the Federalists in the elections of 1800 represented the first oc-
casion in modern -politics in 'which an incumbent political party suffered
an electoral defeat and simply turned over power to its opponents. This
acceptance of the rules of the electoral game has not occurred in many
new states.
The decline of the Federalists after 1800 meant that the United States
did not experience a real succession problem again until 1829, with the
inauguration of Andrew Jackson. The Virginia Dynasty of Jefferson,
Madison, and Monroe governed the country for twenty-four years, each
President succeeding the other without real difficulty. From 1809, when
Madison took over from Jefferson, to 1829, when John Quincy Adams
was succeeded by Jackson, each President was followed in office by his
chief cabinet officer, the Secretary of State. And a national two-party
system did not emerge anew until the 1830's, when Jackson's opponents
united in the Whig party.
In effect, the country was dominated on the national level for close to
three decades by a loosely structured one-party system. Although the anal-
ogy may appear far-fetched, in a certain sense the political system resembled
that which has grown up in recent decades in Mexico, and perhaps in
some other underdeveloped countries. Interest groups and sectional con-
cerns led to serious divisions within the country over the purchase of
Louisiana, relations with the warring powers of Europe, the War of 1812,
and the Missouri compromise of 1819 over slavery. Any of these issues
could have resulted in the dissolution of effective national authority.
Establishing National Authority 45
However, all of them were resolved, not so much at the ballot box as by
negotiations conducted under the authority of the three great Virginians
men who carried with them the prestige stemming from their role in
founding the nation, and from their leadership of the all-powerful Demo-
cratic-Republican party. On the national level, conservatives and radicals
all came to belong to the same party, formally at least, and gave formal
allegiance to the same liberal doctrines and leaders. 77
Thomas Jefferson had anticipated the complete triumph of his party
following the electoral defeat of Federalism, and looked forward to po-
litical divisions among those who believed in the "correct," that is, Repub-
lican, principles. And presumably so long as all effective participants in
politics were on the "good" side, the temptation to repress criticism
within the party would be less:
I had always expected that when the Republicans should have put
all things under their feet, they would schismatize among themselves.
I always expected, too, that whatever names the parties might bear,
the real division would be into moderate and ardent republicanism.
In this division there is no great danger. ... It is to be considered as
apostasy only when they purchase the vote of federalists, with a
participation in honor and power. 78
The almost unchallenged rule of the Virginia Dynasty and the Demo-
cratic-Republican Party served to legitimate national authority and dem-
ocratic rights. By the time the nation divided again into two broad war-
ring factions which appealed for mass support, the country had existed for
forty years, the Constitution had been glorified, and the authority of the
courts had been accepted as definitive.
The Need for "Payoff"
All claims to a legitimate tide to rule in new states must ultimately win
acceptance through demonstrating effectiveness. The loyalty of the dif-
ferent groups to the system must be won through developing in them the
77 "Almost every man called himself a Jeffersonkn Republican in those days
and political conflicts on a national scale were apt to be conflicts between
personalities and not between principles or programs." George Dangerfield,
The Era of Good Feeling (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1952), p. xiii. See
also Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1961), pp. 33-45.
78 Cited in Perkins, op. cit., pp. 99-100. Jefferson made this statement in 1807
while still President. (Emphasis mine.)
46 America as a New Nation
conviction that this system is the best or at least an excellent -way to
accomplish their objectives. And even claims to legitimacy of a super-
natural sort, such as "the gift of grace," are subjected on the part of the
populace to a highly pragmatic test that is, what is the payoff? For new
states today, demonstrating effectiveness means one thing: economic de-
velopment. Given the "revolution of rising expectations" that has swept
the emerging nations, need for payoff in terms of economic goods and
living standards is more important than ever. 79
As most new states lack the traditional means for rapid economic
growth, they have been led in recent years to introduce large-scale gov-
ernment planning and direct state intervention. Although such efforts
concur with the socialist ideology, the desire to use the state to direct and
speed up the processes of economic growth has deeper roots than ideo-
logical conviction. It rests upon the dual necessity to demonstrate effec-
tiveness to the various groups within the polity, and to display national
competence to the outside world. To a considerable degree the leaders
seek development as part of their more general effort to overcome feel-
ings of national inferiority, particularly vis-a-vis the former metropolitan
ruler.
Similar processes were at work in the United States, even though after
the Revolution many leaders, particularly Jefferson, opposed any aid to
manufacturing or commerce. As one economic historian has put it:
American industrial consciousness . . . received much of its early
stimulus from the political storm and stress which preceded and led
to the winning of independence. . . . American industrial conscious-
ness grew out of the broad wave of political and economic resent-
ment against England, but was mainly directed almost from the
start toward the transfer of English skill and technique to this
country. By 1830, it had succeeded, and American technology and
industrial organization were by then comparable to those of Eng-
land. 80
79 "A 'down payment' of tangible gains for a substantial part of the sup-
porters of amalgamation [into a new state] soon after the event, if not earlier,
seems almost necessary. This was accomplished by the land policies of
Jefferson, and the fiscal policies of Hamilton. . . ." Deutsch, et aL, Political
Community and the North Atlantic Area, p, 49.
80 Samuel Rezneck, 'The Rise and Early Development of Industrial Conscious-
< ness in the United States, 1760-1830," Journal of Economic and Business
^History, 4 (1932), pp. 784-785.
Establishing National Authority 47
Pressure to develop domestic manufacturing followed shortly on the
first effort at a national government, since the depression "which inter-
vened between 1783 and 1787 produced a reawakening of manufacturing
zeal. Patriotism . . . provided the impetus to it, while there was also
a better appreciation of the fact that English superiority in technique
could be overcome only by borrowing it. The new wave of industrial
agitation rose to a rapid climax in the first years of the federal govern-
ment. Manufactures, like the Constitution, were expected to strengthen
the country and help it achieve true independence." 81
Even Jefferson, the enthusiastic supporter of the physiocratic doctrine
that agriculture was the only source of true wealth, felt compelled,
when President, to modify his former objections to manufacturing. "As
early as 1805 ... [he] complained that his former views had been
misunderstood. They were intended to apply only to the great cities of
Europe and not to this country at the present time." 82
In fact, in this period prior to the War of 1812, the Federalists and
Republicans appear to have supported government aid to industrialization
when in office, and to have pointed up some of its adverse effects when
in opposition. The Republicans defended Jefferson's Embargo on the
grounds that:
It must be truly gratifying to every true American to witness the
rapid introduction and progress of manufacturing establishments in
the various parts of the United States. The Federalists . . . attacked
the Embargo . . . from every angle. It was ruining the state's wealth,
destroying agriculture and commerce to the advantage of manu-
&1 lbid., p. 788. As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton, although he owned
no stock in the company, was practically the chief sponsor and manager
of the New Jersey Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures, which
from the beginning was dubbed the National Manufactory. "For several years
after 1787 every industrial undertaking, whether public or private, was
identified with die national interest and helped to stimulate and arouse in-
dustrial consciousness in the country." Tench Coxe, Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury and Hamilton's chief aid, originated an ingenious scheme for
raising capital which was adopted by Hamilton in his Report on Manufactures.
"It became part of the program of The New Jersey Society ... for which it
was proposed to mobilize the newly funded national debt. The capital stock
of the company was to be paid for in public debt certificates, on which it
was believed, a loan could be raised at Amsterdam at less than 6 per cent."
Ibid., pp. 793-794.
82 Ibid., p. 799; see also V. L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930), Vol. I, pp. 347-348.
48 America as a New Nation
factures, building up an aristocracy [and] corrupting the moral
life. . . .
In evaluating early American economic development, it should be
recognized that there was a great deal of government intervention and
even public investment in the economy so as to develop industry and
commerce. As Carter Goodrich has pointed out in discussing such
activities: "The closest modern analogy, indeed, is to be found in the
current projects of so-called underdeveloped countries. ... So much,
indeed, was done by public initiative that the distinguished economic
historian, G. S. Callender, declared that this country was at the time
an early and leading example of the 'modern tendency to extend the
activity of the state into industry/ " 8 * On a national level, efforts were
made stimulated by Albert Gallatin, Jefferson's Secretary of the Treas-
ury to foster direct federal support for companies building new trans-
portation facilities; but with some minor exceptions, these proposals,
though advocated by Jefferson and Monroe, failed. The most important
federal measures directly supporting economic growth took the form
of investment in the Bank of the United States and, more important,
protective tariffs to encourage domestic industry against products manu-
factured in England. 85
The failure of the effort to involve the federal government directly
in economic activities did not reflect the strength of business opposition
or of laissez-faire beliefs. "States' rights, state and sectional interests, and
a belief in the capacities of the several states seem to have played the
decisive role in the downfall of national planning. By contrast business
enterprise offered far less formidable competition." 86 As a consequence,
most governmental efforts occurred at the state level, and many states
felt it proper and necessary to use public funds to develop transportation
facilities, banking, manufactures, and the like.
State intervention on behalf of economic growth took various forms,
sometimes regulative, as in the setting up of inspection standards, and
sometimes directly encouraging, as in financial assistance from lotteries
88 From "The Democrat," quoted in "Mercury," October 24, 1811, as cited in
Richard Purcell, Connecticut in Transition, 1115-1881 (Washington: Ameri-
can Historical Association, 1918), p. 132.
84 Carter Goodrich, "National Planning of Internal Improvements," Political
Science Quarterly, 63 (1948), p. 18.
85 See Fred A. Shannon, America's Economic Growth (New York: Mac-
millan, 1940), pp. 187-201, for an exposition of United States protective
tariff policy.
86 Goodrich, "National Planning of Internal Improvements," op. cit., p. 39.
Establishing National Authority 49
or in the form of bounties. A third method was the franchise, which
amounted to a monopoly that protected a company from competition
during its early growth. And not unimportant in many states was direct
government investment in, or outright ownership of, various companies
whose development was deemed necessary for economic growth or the
public welfare.
The system of public inspection "set up categories of goods which
could not be sold and thus placed in a privileged position those the state
judged fit." 87 The government relaxed its laws against gambling to
sanction lotteries, the proceeds of which were used to finance various
state projects such as the building of bridges and roads, paper mills and
glasshouses. 88 The bounty was used to some extent by the states to
encourage individual enterprises, 89 though this technique fell into disuse
in the early part of the nineteenth century.
The granting of franchises was particularly important in the construc-
87 Oscar Handlin and M. F. Handlin, Commonwealth: A Study of the Role
of Government in the American Economy: Massachusetts, 1114-1861 (New
York: New York University Press, 1947), p. 72. Merchants to far-off ports,
responsible for wares they purchased from others, approved of these acts,
which guaranteed quality and added the presage of state approval to their
goods. Ibid., p. 67.
88 "In 1780, a $200,000 lottery financed roads in Berkshire and Hampshire
counties." Similar schemes were used to raise funds to build or repair bridges
and "in 1782, ... to build a paper mill in Milton, and in 1783, for a founder-
ing glasshouse in Boston." Ibid., p. 73.
89 In Connecticut, Governor John Cotton Smith "inclined toward a policy of
bounties and exemptions by the state, especially in the case of household
manufactures, or those allied with agriculture. The Assembly of May, 1817
. . . exempted cotton and woolen factories from taxation for four years, and
their employees from a poll tax or militia service." Purcell, Connecticut in
Transition, p. 136.
In Massachusetts "[a]griculture secured the assistance of ^4 for the head
of each crop-destroying wolf. In 1786, 1788, and 1791 laws granted a bounty
for the production of hemp [which benefited shipping] farmers who raised
it, the rope-makers, and the merchants. A similar subsidy went to the manu-
facture of sailcloth, duck, and twine in Boston in 1788 and 1791 . . ."
Variations on the bounty were the state's "occasional loans to enterprises,
such as that of ^300 to Benjamin Shepard for the manufacture of cotton
goods in Wrentham. It freed from taxation the Boston glasshouses and cotton
factories in Worcester and Rehobeth and elsewhere for periods of from
five to ten years. Breweries which turned out one hundred barrels annually
received the identical concession to encourage the production of the healthful
beverage, create a product for export, and supply a market for farmers. Salt
and sugar works had the same advantage held out to them for a time."
Handlin and Handlin, Commonwealth, p. 84.
50 America as a New Nation
tion of bridges, aqueducts, and mills, all of which interfered in some
way with public waterways and fishing rights. The building of dams
flooded adjacent lands and diverted water from natural channels.
Without the state's tolerance, builders faced unlimited responsibility
for damages. To encourage industry, the government generously
dealt out such franchises. ... All franchises included an element
of privilege, permitting to a few, as special assistance in a worth-
while enterprise, what was forbidden to all. 90
While applying the techniques of inspection, lotteries, bounties, and
franchises, the states soon found the granting of charters to new corpo-
rations the most successful means of promoting economic development,
for the "coercive power of assessment . . . gave the corporation a more
efficient fund-raising mechanism." 91 Consequently, the states' most im-
portant promotional policy became that of chartering business corpora-
tions. "After . . . [the Revolution] charter policy gradually established
itself as one of the primary concerns of American state governments and
expanded steadily through the pre-Civil War epoch." 92
The granting of bank charters was closely linked with developments in
transportation. "This was due to an established legislative practice which
frequently incorporated into bank charters requirements for assisting
Ibid., pp. 76-78.
**Ibid., p. 105. Between 1792 and 1800 there were twenty-three incorporations
granted for bridge construction. "Charters for bridges ... all contained the
essential power to levy assessments and the lucrative franchise to take toll. In
return the legislature imposed well-defined conditions: completion in a limited
period, and construction in accordance with specified plans, the slightest
change in which needed the consent of the General Court. . . . The patron
state, having set up these rules, was, however, indulgent in administration.
When the original tolls seemed insufficient to sustain dividends it often made
gifts of land, raised the rates, extended the building time and the duration
of the franchise.
"The urge for improvement also led to considerable canal building. The
inland communities valued better water communications to bring farmers
nearer markets and to facilitate transportation of lumber. Merchants [also]
sought easier navigation on the great interstate rivers." Ibid., pp. 113-115.
92 Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Penwylvania,
1116-1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948), p. 38. "Be-
tween 1790 and 1860, apart from incorporations under general laws, the
Pennsylvania legislature granted 2,333 charters for business purposes. . . .
Well over half of the business charters granted by special act of the legis-
lature from 1790 to 1860 were concerned with transportation." Loc. cit.
Establishing National Authority 5 1
specified transportation companies. Such assistance usually took the form
of stock subscriptions, loans, or outright grants of money." 93
Most of the early corporations were for religious or charitable
organizations or for road, bridge, canal, bank and insurance com-
panies. ... In all some 557 manufacturing companies were in-
corporated in eight states between 1800 and 1823, Massachusetts and
New York being far in the lead. . . . Before 1860 nearly all the
states had general incorporation statutes. 94
Direct government financing of economic activities which required
large sums of capital occurred in many states. During the first thirty or
forty years of the nineteenth century, the states created a funded debt
of more than two hundred million dollars, "a larger debt than that cre-
ated by any government for purely industrial purposes." 95 Internal
improvements, particularly turnpikes and canals, constituted the most
general area of direct state intervention. Virginia, Maryland, New York,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Ten-
nessee, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan were among the states which used
their financial resources for such purposes. 96 Railroads also were built
with government support in many states. And many banks were formed
with governmental help. "Almost from the first introduction of banks
into this country, it became a common practice for the State govern-
ments to invest revenue in bank stock." 97
93 It reached its apogee in the charter granted to the Second Bank in 1835
which called for stock subscriptions ". . . amounting to $675,000 for 10
transportation companies and provided for grants of financial assistance to
12 others, totaling $139,000." Ibid., pp. 46-47. "Banks were [also] compelled to
lend sums to the state, usually in amounts up to 5% of capital stock at 5% if
requests for such loans were made. The charter granted to the Bank of
Pennsylvania, the first state bank to be incorporated, required it to lend to
the state $500,000 at interest not to exceed 6% for the purpose of establish-
ing a loan office for the assistance of farmers. The revenue to be derived
from both the bonus and the loan policies became especially attractive during
the thirties when monetary needs for construction of public works rocketed,
and there is little doubt that the banking overexpansion of that period is in
some measure traceable to them." Ibid., p. 55.
94 Shannon, America's Economic Growth, p. 210.
95 G. S. Callender, "The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of
the States in Relation to the Growth of Corporations," Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 17 (1902), p. 114.
96 Ibid., pp. 112-113.
97 Ibid., pp. 113-114.
52 America as a New Nation
In Pennsylvania, a state under one-party Democratic control for the
first thirty-five years of the nineteenth century, there was considerable
direct government intervention in the form of public ownership of
transportation facilities and banks. The state encouraged the growth of
credit facilities by investing heavily in bank stocks between 1800 and
1815. Similarly, a number of turnpike, canal, and navigation companies
were owned jointly by the state and private investors. With the coming
of railroads, Pennsylvania added railway stock to the list of companies
in which it had investments. Local governments, counties, and cities
invested even more heavily than did the state in such businesses. "Total
municipal and county investments between 1840 and 1853 were estimated
at fourteen million dollars over twice the state investment at its 1843
peak." 98 Direct public ownership occurred as well in many of these
areas. Thus Pennsylvania built and owned the first railways along the
main line."
For the first forty years of Pennsylvania's existence as a state within
the Union, there was little argument over the propriety or even necessity
of direct state participation in ownership as a means of facilitating
economic development. In effect, as in many contemporary new nations,
Pennsylvania and other American states followed a policy of government
investment in areas basic to economic growth where private efforts
seemed inadequate. The doctrine of "laissez-faire" became dominant only
after the growth of large corporations and private investment funds
reduced the pressures for public funds.
The record of Virginia was similar to that of Pennsylvania. In 1816 it
established a Fund for Internal Improvements and a Board of Public
Works which played an important role in creating various enterprises
up to the Civil War. The Board shared ownership with private investors
of various canals, turnpikes, railroads, and banks. Some railroads such as
the Blue Ridge and the Covington and Ohio were built totally with
state funds. By 1860, the Fund held assets of forty million dollars. 100
In Georgia, the state invested in a number of banks; for example, it
owned two-fifths of the stock of the Bank of the State (1815), half the
capital of the Bank of Darien (1818), and many others. It also held stock
in many turnpike companies, and in the few canal ventures. Perhaps the
largest form of state investment in Georgia was in railroads. The Western
98 Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought, p. 88.
*Ibid., p. 145.
1W> Carter Goodrich, "The Virginia System of Mixed Enterprise," Political
Science Quarterly, 64 (1949), pp. 355-387.
Establishing National Authority 53
and Atlantic was built entirely with state funds, while the Atlantic and
Gulf was primarily owned by the state and two cities. All told, between
1835 and 1860 public investment in railroads amounted to almost thirteen
million dollars, more than the total of private investment 101
A similar situation existed in New York where the outstanding example
of direct intervention was the construction and operation of the Erie
and Champlain canals. The story of how this project was originally
financed through the state's sale of canal stock to small investors, and
the working people's Bank for Savings, is a fascinating one. 102 Of even
greater interest is the indirect facilitation of economic development
which grew out of investment made by local banks in which the toll
revenues of the Canal Fund were deposited. 103 "The Canal Fund became
a development bank less by design than by dint of circumstances." 10 *
Only after several attempts to remove their deposits from banks without
sufficient notice created difficulties did the Commissioner of the Canal
Fund realize the heavy reliance of local economies on these publicly
controlled deposits. Agricultural and salt manufacturing interests as well
as the completion of the Tonawanda Railroad depended upon them. 105
During the railroad building era, many lines were built in New York
with large state and city investments. 106
Local governments, especially cities, also played a major role in foster-
101 On these activities see Milton S. Heath, Constructive Liberalism: The
Role of the State in Economic Development in Georgia to 1860 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954). For a similar story in Missouri, see
James N. Primm, Economic Policy in the Development of a Western State:
Missouri 1820-1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954).
102 Only in the later stages, when the project was obviously headed for suc-
cessful completion, was the stock absorbed by wealthy New Yorkers and
English capitalists. See Nathan Miller, The Enterprise of a Free People:
Aspects of Economic Development in New York State during the Canal
Period 1792-1838 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1962).
103 "Little did the comptroller realize when he negotiated with the banks in
1826 that he was taking the first step in the creation of a mechanism which
would introduce the revenues of the Canal Fund into the channels of business,
so that eventually their influence in the economy would be felt from one
end of the state to the other." Ibid., p. 116.
10 *7*a., p. 263.
105 Ibid., pp. 146-151. Of interest also are the Canal Commissioners' deliberate
programs for alleviating the economic panics of 1834 and 1837 and the crisis
after the great fire of 1835.
106 Henry Pierce, Railroads of New York: A Study of Government Aid,
1826-187? (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953).
54 America as a New Nation
ing economic development. To elaborate further on their activities is
not necessary here. It may be noted, however, that Cincinnati owned a
major railroad, while Baltimore was an extremely important investor in
the Baltimore and Ohio and other lines. 107 In New York state 315
municipalities were involved in the construction of railroad lines. 108 In
Pennsylvania, cities and counties contributed far more to railway con-
struction than did the state. 109 "The major portion of the stock issued
by Missouri's state aided railroads in the 1850's was sold to counties and
municipalities." 110
The story of state and local investment in early economic development
in the United States clearly justifies the conclusion that government in
this period played a role corresponding to that envisaged in most new
nations today. The need for large sums of investment capital in a new
and as yet undeveloped economy could only be met domestically from
government sources. And given the commitment and need of new states
to develop economically, the American political leaders found the argu-
ments to justify state intervention, even if they were different from those
popular today. A reviewer of various recent works by economic historians
dealing with economic development on the state and local level sum-
marizes the conclusions to be drawn from these studies:
[These studies suggest] a new view of American capitalism in its
formative years. . . . [T]he elected official replaced the individual
enterpriser as the key figure in the release of capitalist energy; the
public treasury, rather than private saving, became the major source
of venture capital; and community purpose outweighed personal
ambition in the selection of large goals for local economies. "Mixed"
enterprise was the customary organization for important innovations,
and government everywhere undertook the role put on it by the
people, that of planner, promoter, investor, and regulator. 111
107 See Carter Goodrich, "Local Government Planning of Internal Improve-
ments," Political Science Quarterly, 56 (1951), pp. 411^45; and Carter Good-
rich and Harvey Segal, "Baltimore's Aid to Railroads: A Study in the
Municipal Planning of Internal Improvements," Journal of Economic History,
13 (1953), pp. 2-35.
108 Pierce, Railroads of New York.
109 Hartz, Economic "Policy and Democratic Thought, p. 86.
110 Primm, Econoimc Policy in the Development of a Western State, p. 106.
For Iowa see Earl S. Beard, "Local Aid to Railroads in Iowa," Iowa Journal
of History, 50 (1952), pp. 1-34.
111 Robert A. Lively, "The American System: A Review Article," The
Business History Review, 29 (1955), p. 81.
Establishing National Authority 55
Rapid economic growth during this formative period in our economy-
benefited not only from assistance by the states themselves, but perhaps
even more from the massive foreign capital furnished the new nation
by outside investors, particularly British. There is a definite parallel
between the dependence of contemporary new nations on external funds
and the conditions which facilitated development here: 112
England was the principal source of loans to American enterprise,
both direcdy . . . through the purchase by Englishmen of stock in
American banks or railways, as well as indirectly through the pur-
chase by English investors of American State bonds, the proceeds
of which in large measure were employed in the furtherance of
"internal improvements." 113
The dependence of American expansion on foreign capital was to be
seen in all areas of economic development: trade, internal improvements,
banking, agriculture, and industry. Jenks has summarized the story:
[The wholesale merchants of the Yankee drygoods houses, who
handled the import trade at the Atlantic ports in the antebellum
period] could not trade adequately with their own capital. The[se]
Yankee firms depended to a large extent in their buying upon credits
which came, directly or indirectly, from such firms as Barings
themselves.
112 ]jy igo5 the coupons paid through Barings [Bros., London] represented
a nominal capital of 5,747,283. This sum included, besides the unpaid debt of
the United States abroad, at least seven million dollars in the stock of the
First Bank of the United States. As the debt, foreign and domestic, was
paid off British holdings diminished. The extinction of the Bank in 1811 and
the War of 1812 reduced to 1,500,000 the amount upon which Barings
paid dividends. . . .
"A more progressive movement set in after the war. In 1817 and 1818
temporary loans of bullion were made to the Second Bank of the United
States. They became the basis of a permanent investment in the stock of that
institution which in 1820 amounted to nearly three million dollars. Another
million was added to this amount by 1828, and the total was doubled during
the next three years. Out of 300,000 shares in private hands in July, 1831,
79,159 were held abroad by 466 shareholders. . . . Meanwhile part of the
American public debt had returned abroad. Fourteen million dollars of it
were owned by British investors in 1828, five millions by other European
creditors." Leland Hamilton Jenks, The Migration of British Capital to 1815
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927), p. 66.
113 W. B. Smith and A. H. Cole, Fluctuations in American Business, 1790-
1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935), p. 42.
56 America as a New Nation
. . . promoter-politicians, who perceived the advantages, whether
public or private, which could accrue from the building of high-
ways, canals and railroads, turned to foreign capital, filtered thru
the public treasuries for support. . . . State-owned and state-con-
structed the Erie Canal was financed by the issue of New York
state bonds. Something over seven million dollars' worth were sold
between 1817 and 1825, and they passed almost at once into the
hands of Englishmen.
Before 1836 over ninety million dollars had been invested in
canals and railways in the North, of which more than half was a
charge upon public credit. The bulk of this capital had been
procured from England.
. . . British capital which promoted transportation and westward
expansion indirectly financed industry as well. American merchants
and banks could draw credits for objects unspecified, and these
were available in the United States for the expansion of industry. . . .
It mil not be far 'wrong to estimate the total quantity of British
capital invested in the United States during the thirties as ap-
proxifnately equal to the indebtedness incurred by the several
It should be noted that the willingness of English holders of capital
to invest heavily in American economic development was not unrelated
to the governmental policies which fostered the growth of industry.
Government sponsorship was fostered by the need for large sums of
capital, since both domestic and foreign investors were often not willing
to expend the large sums necessary for speculative and unknown ventures
in distant lands.
The only securities that could do this were public securities, or the
securities of corporations which were guaranteed or assisted by the
government. . . . Accordingly, we find that English foreign invest-
ments in the early part of the nineteenth century were made chiefly
in public securities. The stock and bonds of private corporations
formed in foreign countries, unless endorsed by the government,
played but a very small part on the London stock market until
after the middle of the century. 115
The Migration of British Capital to 1815, pp. 68, 73, 75, 77, 85.
(Emphasis mine.) See also Frank Thisdethwaite, The Great Experiment
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1955), pp. 71-78.
115 Callender, "The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises . . . ,"
op. cit. y pp, 152-153.
Establishing National Authority 57
And the legislation which gave corporations various governmental pro-
tections, referred to earlier, fostered the trans-Atlantic migration of
capital.
[T]he fact that the privileges of incorporation were much more
easily acquired in America than in England in the first half of the
[nineteenth] century gave certain types of American industry
readier access to nonindustrial savings and indeed, it was sometimes
said, gave them readier access even to English "blind capital" than
English industrialists themselves enjoyed. 116
But if the activities of state governments and foreign investors con-
tributed to economic growth, the rapidity of that development must
also be credited to a particularly productive, symbiotic relationship
between economic growth and the American value system. The existence
of a set of values that enshrined "the good life" as one of hard, continuous
work, frugality, self-disciplined living, and individual initiative provided
the necessary ideological framework for making use of foreign capital
for long-range industrial development. 117 Also, the weakness of aristo-
cratic traditions meant that the United States was free to develop a
dominant economic class of merchants and manufacturers whose passion
for the accumulation of wealth was unfettered by values that deprecated
hard work and the concentration of capital. The rationale for concen-
trating national resources and energies on such pursuits violated the
anti-urban, agrarian Utopia of the Jeffersonians, but it was defended on
nationalistic grounds. The prospect of spiritual and economic domination
at the hands of European manufacturers was viewed as especially degrad-
ing since this group was presided over by a "devilish class of aristocrats"
to whom were attributed all kinds of corruptions, from immoral leisure
to extravagance and intellectual cunning:
Convinced, on the whole, of an identity between moral and material
progress, these industrialists, while not averse to profits, were
116 H. J. Habakkuk, American and British Technology in the Nineteenth
Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1962), p. 71.
117 These two factors, the Protestant Ethic and foreign investment, can be
viewed as functional substitutes for present day socialist ideology and
foreign aid. Incidentally, it is becoming increasingly common to see Marxism,
Communism, or Socialism fulfilling in the twentieth century what the
Protestant Ethic did for Western Europe and North America in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that is, fostering motivation for work
and economic development.
58 America as a New Nation
conscious of making a patriotic contribution and of trying to estab-
lish a pattern in manuf actoring for the nation. . . .
The rising tide of nationalism stimulated by the American Revo-
lution and the War of 1812 made it popular to justify American
manufacturing on the ground of economic independence. Such
pleas for a national economic independence, however, usually
pointed to the horrifying alternative of a moral and spiritual as well
as economic prostration at the feet of the manufacturers of Europe.
Though these public pronouncements may have functioned con-
sciously as convenient rationalizations of economic interest . . . the
same ideas appeared again and again in their private letters and
journals, when they had no need for propaganda. To them European
manufacturing, on the whole, not only seemed degrading to char-
acter; it was presided over by a devilish class of aristocrats. . . .
Belief in the existence of a conspiratorial European devil led also
to the patriotic contrast of honestly made American manufactures
with reputedly fraudulent European goods. 118
Foreign visitors to the United States were struck, from its earliest days,
with the greater emphasis on materialism here, on economic gain, as
contrasted to that present in Europe, including even Britain. A detailed
analysis of the writings of English travelers in America from the end of
the Revolution to the age of Jackson sums up the evidence:
At this period, the Americans already had the reputation for
being a money-loving and money-getting people. So universal was
this belief that it is with surprise that we see any denial of it. ...
[T]he enterprise of the Americans could not be charitably at-
tributed to a dread of future want, nor did it seem to most English-
men that they were consciously actuated by a "desire to obtain
distinction by means of wealth". . . . Flint said that it was security
of property and the high profits on capital that tended to promote
this disposition. Fowler attributed the eagerness to accumulate to the
fact that in the absence of titles and all acknowledged distinctions
in rank, wealth constituted the primary basis of contrast between
individuals. At any rate, this trait became to foreigners an integral
part of the American nature. 119
Given the absence of a traditional aristocratic class, and the with-
drawal into Canada of many of those who most sympathized with such
118 Charles L. Sanford, The Quest for Paradise: Europe and the American
Moral Ima&mmon (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961), pp. 158-163.
119 Jane L. Mesick, The English Traveller in America, 1185-1835 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1922), pp. 309-310.
Establishing National Authority 59
a societal model, the entrepreneur became a cultural hero and rapid
growth followed. Canada, on the other hand, though possessing many
of the same material conditions as the United States, did not develop
as rapidly or as strongly. The combination of foreign rule and a different
class model apparently had negative effects on its potentialities for
development. And the new states of nineteenth century Latin America,
led by traditional Catholic oligarchies drawn mainly from the landed
aristocracy, were even more backward economically. They retained
many of the pre-industrial values of the Iberian Peninsula. Latin America
lacked a dynamic business class, a Protestant work ethos, and an ideologi-
cal commitment to economic modernization.
The emergence of a functioning polity in the first half-century of
American independence was accompanied by rapid economic growth
and territorial expansion. 120
The United States gradually acquired legitimacy as a result of being
effective. There was no question that the new nation worked, that its
economy had "taken off," to use Walt Rostow's image. 121 Henry Adams,
in his great history of the early years of the republic, saw these
economic developments as crucial in guaranteeing the survival of the
country as a viable unit:
12 "Beginning with the Louisiana Purchase, the United States entered upon
an era of growth which, within less than two generations, pushed her borders
to the Pacific Ocean. This startling expansion came by stages, to be sure,
but it was always championed by the popular party of the day; first by the
Republicans, then by Democrats. The conservative party, Federalist or Whig,
consistently opposed the acquisition of new territory. . . . From the begin-
ning, however, the opponents of American expansion were running counter
to popular feeling. The sentiment of the country was 'expansionist.' . . .
[T]he real cause of the War of 1812 lay not in anything the British had or
had not done, but rather in the aggressive temper of the War Hawks, who,
backed by their frontier constituents, coveted new lands from Canada to
Florida." John R. Bodo, The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues 1812-1848
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954), p. 193. (See also p. 205
for documentation of the conservative opposition to the expansionist wars.)
121 "In 1784, a traveller tells us the exports from the United States amounted
to $4,000,000, the imports to $18,000,000; by 1790, the former had increased
to $6,000,000 while the imports were now valued at $17,260,000. An exami-
nation of Bristad's statistics reveals the fact that, beginning with 1791, the
export trade increased steadily. By 1816 it had reached $81,920,452, in spite
of two setbacks during the Long Embargo and the second war with Great
Britain. In 1825, according to Harriet Martineau, the exports represented a
value of $3,000,000 more than the imports, which were estimated at $96,-
000,000; while by 1835, the imports were $126,000,000 as against $104,-
000,000 in exports." Mesick, The English Traveller in America, p. 183.
60 America as a New Nation
The results of the sixteen years [1800-1816], considered only in the
economical development of the Union, were decisive. Although
population increased more rapidly than was usual in human experi-
ence, wealth accumulated faster. . . .
These sixteen years set at rest the natural doubts that had at-
tended the nation's birth. . . . Every serious difficulty which seemed
alarming to the people of the Union in 1800 had been removed or
sunk from notice in 1816. ... This result was not the only or even
the chief proof that economical progress was to be at least as rapid
in the future. . . . The continent lay before them, like an un-
covered ore-bed. They could see, and they even could calculate
with reasonable accuracy the wealth it could be made to yield. 122
It is important to recognize that a basic condition for acquiring
legitimacy in a new state is effectiveness, particularly in the economic
sphere. In return for support, the populace demands from its leaders
rewards, some symbolic in content, such as national heroes and prestige,
and others, perhaps more important, of a tangible nature. This is true
today; it was true in America a hundred and fifty years ago. As Denis
Brogan has well said:
The first and almost the last rule is that the rulers must deliver the
goods, that they must share some of the winnings of the game with
their clients, with the great mass of the American people, and that
these winnings must be absolutely more than any rival system can
plausibly promise. I have used the word "clients" advisedly, for the
rulers of America have not the advantage of some of their European
brethren, the advantage of a patina of age. 123
m Henry Adams, History of the United States During the Administration
of Jctmes Madison (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1930), Book IX,
pp. 172-173. An analysis of the writings of foreign travelers before the Civil
War reveals that most of them then described "the essential pattern of
modern mass production." Summary of unpublished paper by Marvin Fisher,
"The Uniqueness of American Industrialization, as Reported by European
Observers, 1830-1860"; discussed by Eric Larrabee, "The Doctrine of Mass
Production," in Robert Spiller and Eric Larrabee, eds., American Perspectives
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 207.
123 D. W. Brogan, American Themes (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1948), p.
37.
Formulating
a National
Identity
2
In addition to laying the institutional framework for a stable polity,
there was the task of proving to the populace that the system could
establish America as a nation. But by what standards was its growth
toward nationhood to be judged? We have seen that gaining economic
independence was one of them. But even here there was little agree-
ment as to what economic course the nation should follow. As Chambers
points out:
There was, indeed, irony in the economic position of both parties.
The general ideological theme of the Federalists was conservative
and traditionalist, whereas new parties in later emerging nations have
been radically innovative and anti-traditionalist. On the other hand,
Federalist economic policy was highly innovative and modernist,
emphasizing government action toward an advanced, industrial capi-
talist society again, however, contrary to the often anti-capitalist
attitudes of new nations in the twentieth century. The Republicans
were post-Enlightenment and anti-traditionalist in political ideology,
but still largely wedded to agrarian economic conceptions in a pre-
industrial economy conceptions that the American nation with
its already comparatively prosperous agricultural economy could
afford, but which stood in sharp contrast to the intense drives for
industrialization in new nations today. 1
1 William N. Chambers, Parties in a New Nation (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1963), p. 102.
<52 America as a New Nation
The Federalist and the Democratic-Republican economic policies only
appear contradictory to their political ideologies in the light of com-
parisons with new nations today. When viewed within their own context,
each of their political and economic ideologies forms a coherent but
different kind of nationalism. On the one hand, the Federalists were
saying that America as a nation should be just as powerful as England.
In so doing they accepted her economic as well as some of her political
standards of nationhood. On the other hand, the Democratic-Republicans
were saying that America as a nation was already, in its own way, just as
good as England. They therefore lauded and sought to maximize what
was unique both in American political ideals and in the American
economy.
The Federalists' and the Democratic-Republicans' views represented
two poles of an ambivalence toward the Mother Country that is char-
acteristic of all new nations. The need to dissociate themselves from
any deep identification with their former imperialist ruler, or with any
major foreign power, is characteristic of all new states. All new nations
must establish their own identities. But along with a self-conscious effort
to establish a separate identity, which usually leads to a rejection of all
things associated with the Mother Country, there continues to exist a
deep-rooted admiration for its culture and values. So that on the one
hand, the former colonial power is hated as an evil imperialist exploiter
or "monarchical" conspirator, and on the other hand, it is emulated and
admired as the representative of a superior civilization.
The Need for Autonomy and Neutrality
Perhaps a consideration of this ambivalence will lead to a better under-
standing of the positions taken by "new" nations relative to those
international crises in which the "old" nations are involved. In the
contemporary world, we have witnessed the rise of "neutralism" as the
dominant tendency among the new nations of Asia and Africa. This
concept of non-alignment has proved frustrating to the contenders in the
Cold War who see the struggle as one between freedom and tyranny.
They cannot understand why nations which have just won their own
independence can be so blind to an international struggle involving the
issue of freedom. And the new nations' tactics of selling their support
to the highest bidder by playing the non-Communist bloc off against the
Communists is regarded as a highhanded display of blatant self-interest.
Formulating a National Identity 63
Placing the issue in these terms ignores the fact that nations are
inherently egotistical, and that they act in terms of what they believe
will enhance national growth and survival.
The United States, in the early years of its independence, exhibited
a similar equivocalness. It began life as a unified nation about the same
time that Britain and France started their almost twenty-five-year-long
conflict stemming from the French Revolution. The behavior of the
United States toward these nations was often inconsistent. The leaders
of both American factions, the Republicans and the Federalists, desired
above all else to keep the young nation out of the war. 2 But each faction
had a specific bias to its "neutrality."
In 1793, when France declared war against England, the latter strongly
urged the United States to declare its neutrality. At this point, Jefferson
firmly opposed any declaration of neutrality, arguing that the President
did not have the power to do so. 3 Hamilton, on the other hand, "was
2 "[H]owever much the members of Washington's cabinet may have dis-
agreed on most questions, they were all thoroughly convinced that the United
States must avoid war as long as possible, whatever the cost. They differed
widely in their views on the best way of doing this; so widely, in fact, that
each member at times thought his opponents insincere in their protestations
of neutrality. If even an impartial observer chanced to read only certain
portions of the works of either man he might get the impression that
Jefferson would have welcomed war with England or that Hamilton was
ready for a rupture with France. . . . Washington was the only member of the
Executive Department in 1793 who approached . . . [the] point of true
neutrality. If he had a preference there is no record of his having expressed
it. With Jefferson and Hamilton it was a question of honestly trying to
maintain an actual neutrality in spite of those predilections that were often
expressed by each, within the inner circle of his friends. Jefferson was
convinced that the fate of the American experiment was bound up with the
success of the French. . . . Hamilton . . . wished to preserve the neutrality
of his country although he was as partial to England as Jefferson was to
France." Charles M. Thomas, American Neutrality in 1193 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1933), pp. 14-18.
*Ibid., pp. 35-37. The argument revolved around an existent treaty with
France, that of 1778. Hamilton argued that the treaty "should be suspended or
nullified. He based his contention on the principle that the treaty which had
been negotiated with the French monarchy was no longer binding, since the
French had altered their form of government by the establishment of a
republic. Jefferson replied . . . that the treaty was 'not between the United
States and Louis Capet, but between the two nations of America and France;
and the nations remaining in existence, though both of them have since
changed their forms of government,' the treaty was not annulled by such
changes." Here Jefferson applied "his theory of the sanctity of international
64 America as a New Nation
strongly in favor of the issuance of such a proclamation." 4 Five years
later, in 1798, when the French ordered the confiscation of all American
ships bound for England and closed French ports to any American
ships that had visited an English port, the Federalists assumed a bel-
ligerent stance, passed legislation creating a standing army, increased
armaments, and enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts designed to repress
criticism of the government in time of crisis, while the Jeff ersonians
discovered the virtues of neutrality.
Despite these ideological differences, however, the leaders of both
factions throughout this period were determined to keep out of the war.
Hamilton, though bitterly anti-French, worked to restrain his Federalist
friends from going to war with France. During the subsequent Demo-
cratic-Republican administration, Jefferson stubbornly ignored British
provocations; and the United States, by declaring an embargo and
ordering its ships not to go into war ports, did everything possible to
keep clear of the conflict.
War did, of course, finally come in 1812. The pressure for American
entry into war did not come so much from the specific annoyances
imposed by Britain, but rather reflected the growth of nationalist
sentiment, particularly among the new western states. 5 Indeed, the
weakness of the United States in this war was due to the lack of
agreements under all circumstances save 'impossibility' or 'self-destruction/
and asserted that in this case the obligations could be claimed, at worst,
merely to be 'dangerous'. . . . They were not dangerous [however], since
France had made no demand that the United States join in the war. . . .
"Monroe . . . writing to Jefferson, announced himself an advocate of peace
'against every invitation to war.' He would ignore . . . the insults and irrita-
tions of Britain and Spain. He would wish to help France in any way short
of war. But 'to expose ourselves to their fury (i. e., the provocations of Euro-
pean nations) would be as imprudent' as for a man in health to expose himself
to a lunatic. 'To preserve peace will no doubt be difficult, but by accomplish-
ing it, we show our wisdom and magnanimity. . . .' On the other hand, he
could not conceive upon what principle the right to issue the neutrality
proclamation was claimed." Stuart Gerry Brown, The First Republicans
(Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1954), pp. 96-98.
4 Thomas, American Neutrality in 1193, p. 38.
5 The westerners wanted to press the Indian farther west, and ultimately to
secure Canada, both as a means of reducing Indian strength and of enlarging
American territory. To many, the continued presence of British rule on
North American soil meant that the Revolution was not complete. See D. R.
Anderson, "The Insurgents of 1811," Annual Report of the American His-
torical Association, 1911 (Washington: 1913), Vol I, pp. 173-174; and Julius W.
Platt, The Expansionists of 1812 (New York; Macmillan, 1925), pp. 133-153.
Formulating a National Identity 65
unanimity behind the war effort, 6 and it showed the danger of talcing
a new nation into war before effective national unity had occurred.
All in all, it can be said that American foreign policy during these
first couple of decades was essentially expediential. It threatened war at
one time or the other with both sides, and it sought to capitalize on the
weaknesses of both sides by taking their territories in America (Louisiana,
Florida, and Canada). Ideological alignment with the French Republic,
ancestral solidarity with Britain, opposition to the conquest of all Europe
by Napoleon these played little role in determining our ultimate policy.
It can even be said that in order to "liberate" Canada, we finally ended
the period in alliance with the tyrant who had destroyed the French
Republic and sought to subordinate all of Europe and Britain to his will!
Basically, our early foreign policy followed the principles laid down in
the Federalist, in a section written by Alexander Hamilton. He insisted
that permanent peace between the nations was a Utopian goal, that all
nations are and must be self-interested in their foreign policy, and that
America should remain out of overseas conflicts that do not touch on its
direct interests and should "aim at an ascendant in the system of American
affairs." These principles were to appear anew in Washington's Farewell
Address of 1796, 7 written in large part by Hamilton, and finally in the
Monroe Doctrine of 1823, in which John Quincy Adams ". . . was
personally a power ... in laying down uncompromisingly" its three dicta
which included the principle of Abstention. This policy of ". * .
Abstention from the 'ordinary* vicissitudes and 'ordinary' combinations
and collisions of European politics and wars" made possible the justifica-
tion of a policy concerned with establishing the United States' manifest
political destiny in its own hemisphere.
Sensing America's advantage from Europe's distress [John Quincy
Adams] peaceably broke through the paper trammels of Old World
imperialism in the empty western stretches of North America.
Diplomatically he carried the ball of American Empire . . . across
6 In their remaining New England strongholds, the Federalist merchants ' Vere
able to convince themselves that Jefferson, and Madison were sold to
France. . . . The Federalist members of Congress issued an Address to their
constituents . . . which declared the war to be unnecessary and inexpedient."
Henry Adams, History of the United States During the Administration of
James Madison (New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1930), Book V, pp.
399-401.
7 For an elaboration of the forces affecting early American policy see Felix
Gilbert, To the Farewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), especially pp. 111-136.
66 America as a New Nation
the boreal plains over the Rocky Mountains down through the
continuous woods that veiled the Oregon, to establish republican
sovereignty impregnably on the Pacific Coast beyond the reach of
further European colonization. 8
The "neutralism" of early American foreign policy, like that of many
contemporary new states, was of extreme importance in reducing some
of the internal tensions which might serve to break down a weak
authority structure. Many Republicans would have refused to support
a war against the French Republic in 1798. Although the Federalist
party was near death in 1812, some of the states which it controlled in
New England openly sabotaged the war effort. And the subsequent
heavy immigration from all parts of Europe in the latter part of the
nineteenth century reinforced these neutralist tendencies, since it gave
rise to ethnic pressure groups that reacted sharply to American policies
which affected their homelands. It is interesting to note that the one
stable multi-national European state, Switzerland, has defended its historic
neutralism on the grounds that any other policy would have made it
impossible for the Swiss nation to survive, as a nation. The Swiss
Minister of Foreign Affairs has argued that: "As a community
composed of various ethnic, linguistic and denominational groups, the
Confederation could not participate in European national and religious
quarrels without running the risk of disintegration. Without neutrality,
. . . Switzerland would hardly exist today." 9
Though few of the new states are divided internally among ethnic
groups which have national or cultural ties to external power blocs, they,
like the young United States, have been divided as to whom they should
be "neutral against." And many leaders of such states take the same
position that Jefferson and Hamilton did in the 1790's. They may hope
for the victory of one or the other side, or for a stalemate, but they
feel that as a new nation, with the need to secure a legitimate structure
of authority and rapid economic development, they must abstain from
involvement in "foreign entanglements."
The Role of the Intellectuals
In the new states of the twentieth century, the intellectuals have been
the innovators, the agents of social change. It is they who introduced the
8 Samuel F. Bemis, John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American
Foreign Policy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), pp. 567-568.
8 Cited in F. E. Aschinger, "The United States and European Neutrals,"
Swiss Review of World Affairs, 12 (1962), p. 15.
Formulating a National Identity 67
ideas of nationhood, democracy, and equality to the populace. Not only
do they bring new values into tradition-bound systems, but they head
nationalist movements and are the leaders in the tactics of revolution.
Thus they impose the ideas within which the nation may find its identity.
As Edward Shils has put it:
It was the intellectuals on whom, in the first instance, devolved
the task of contending for their nations' right to exist, even to the
extent of promulgating the very idea of the nation. The erosion
of the conscience and self-confidence of the colonial powers was in
considerable measure the product of agitational movements under
intellectual leadership. The impregnation of their fellow-country-
men with some incipient sense of nationality and of national self-
esteem was to a large extent the achievement of intellectuals, both
secular and religious. . . . 10
Shils suggests that because of the relatively small number of intellectuals
in new states, "all persons with an advanced modern education" must be
considered as falling within the intellectual class. And given the limited
social need for creative artists and writers, university teachers, high
ranking civil servants, and others, he argues that the legal profession has
been the most important occupation open to those with higher education.
The effort to apply "old country" law to colonies has led to a great deal
of litigation. "The leisure time of the young lawyer was a fertile field
in which much political activity grew. . . . [Tjhe legal profession sup-
plied . . . many of the outstanding leaders of the nationalist movements
during colonial times, and . . . the lawyer-intellectuals form ... a vital
part of the political elites of the new states." 11
The nationalistic, revolutionary intellectuals are usually young men.
They are often antagonistic toward the older generation, who are more
closely identified with the status quo and who often do not share the
young intellectuals' nationalistic vision because they are better estab-
lished in local political and social hierarchies. The young intellectuals'
more nationalistic philosophy may come from a more cosmopolitan
perspective. Thus, in discussing the extremist national movements in
Asia and Africa, Shils points out that they "drew inspiration and comfort
from abroad [and] felt that their actions were one with a mighty surge
all over the world. . . . This sense of being a part of the larger world
infused into the politics of the second [younger] generation the perma-
10 Edward Shils, "The Intellectuals in the Political Development of the New
States" (mimeographed, 1962), pp. 3-4.
11 Ibid., pp. 14-15.
68 America as a New Nation
nently bedeviling tension between province and metropolis, and added, as
it always does, the heat which arises pom conflicting loyalties." 12
Their political antagonism to the powers that be may also come from a
sense of frustration because they have no place in the old society. Their
new values do not coincide with those that would place them in honored
positions in the old local hierarchies. These values are encapsulated in an
ideology, and the ideology the intellectuals espouse is that of populism.
"The people" are possessed of some kind of sacred mystique, and
proximity to them endows the politician with esteem and with legiti-
macy. "The people are a model and a standard; contact with them is
good. Esteem and disesteem are meted out on the basis of 'closeness to
the people* or distance from them. . . ." 13
The nationalist intellectuals in new states are inclined to espouse
populism because, either lacking connection with or being disaffected
from the existing power hierarchies, their only source of power lies in
the people. However, their populism is derived also from their ambiva-
lence toward more developed nations. In attempting to establish a national
identity, they feel they need to play up those elements that make their
nation unique. They may try to overcome their own feeling of cultural
inferiority by rejecting the premises of "culture" in the more developed
countries and lauding the values in their own culture on some other
grounds. These values are often seen to reside in the common people
rather than in the upper classes who have been more frequently exposed
to foreign cultures. Thus the cult of populism arises, the "belief in the
creativity and in the superior moral worth of the ordinary people, of the
uneducated and the unintellectual." 14
Their populist ideology, however, does not lead the intellectuals to
any real understanding or appreciation of, or even to an egalitarian
attitude toward, the people. By definition, the intellectuals' backgrounds
are very different from those of the people with whom they are con-
cerned. Their life has been very different from that of the common
man, so that their understanding of his ways can only be an idealized
one. As a result,
. . . despite this preoccupation with the "people" the populism of
the intellectuals of underdeveloped countries does not necessarily
bring with it either intimacy with the ordinary people, a concrete
12 Ibid ., p. 27. (Emphasis mine.)
u Ibid., p. 39.
14 Edward Shils, "The Intellectuals and the Powers: Some Perspectives for
Comparative Analysis," Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1 (1958),
p. 20.
Formulating a National Identity 69
attachment to them or even a democratic attitude. It is compatible
with them but it does not require them.
Populism can be the legitimating principle of oligarchic regimes,
as well as of democratic regimes and of all the intermediate types.
The people constitute the prospective good to be served by govern-
ment policy. 15
The intellectuals of the new states are not destined to become
philosopher-kings. After independence, the emergence of mass politics
sees the rise to prominence of politicians and administrators who tend
to be more professional than intellectual. Having undergone the exhilarat-
ing experience of playing a major role in the creation of their nation,
many intellectuals withdraw in disillusion from active politics. 16 The
resulting tensions between them and the governing elite lead them to
feel "spurned and disesteemed in the new state, for the coming of which
they had worked and dreamed." 17
If we turn from these generalizations about the new nations of our
own century to the young United States, it is interesting to note the
parallels. In both eras, the chief nationalist leaders were men who
combined scholarship with action. They introduced the ideology of
independence and equality and then campaigned on its behalf. In the
early United States, the intellectuals played a major role in applying the
doctrine of natural rights to the Americans' claims for independence. And
not content to merely supply ideas, many took an important part in
establishing the new nation itself. 18
15 Shils, "The Intellectuals in the Political Development . . . " op. cit., p. 41.
16 Edward Shils, "Influence and Withdrawal: The Intellectuals in Indian
Political Development," in Dwaine Marvick, ed., Political Decision-makers
(New York: The Free Press, 1961), p. 30.
17 Edward Shils, "Political Developments in the New States," Comparative
Studies in Society and History, 2 (1960), p. 276. A similar process in the
development of western revolutionary movements is described in Harry J.
Benda, "Non- Western Intelligentsias as Political Elites," in John H. Kautsky,
ed., Political Change in Underdeveloped Countries (New York: John Wiley,
1962), pp. 250-251; see also Harry J. Benda, "Intellectuals and Politics in
Western History," Bucknell Review, 10 (1961), pp. 1-10.
is "The Constitutional Convention of 1787 has been called the first American
brain trust. At least thirty-one of the fifty-five members had been educated at
colonial colleges or at similar institutions abroad. Many, including Franklin,
had become first-rate scholars and scientists by their own efforts. Two uni-
versity presidents and three college professors sat in Independence Hall. . . .
Many others had been 'schoolmasters.'" Merle Curti, American Paradox:
The Conflict of Thought and Action (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Uni-
versity Press, 1956), pp. 15-16. (Emphasis mine.)
70 America as a New Nation
Richard Hofstadter has described the intellectuals' role as follows:
When the United States began its national existence, the relation-
ship between intellect and power was not a problem. The leaders
'were the intellectuals. . . . The Founding Fathers were sages,
scientists, men of broad cultivation, many of them apt in classical
learning, who used their wide reading in history, politics, and law
to solve the exigent problems of their time. 19
And as in the contemporary new states, many of these political intel-
lectuals were also trained as lawyers. "Of the fifty-six signers of the
Declaration of Independence, twenty-five were 'lawyers'; of the fifty-
five members of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, thirty-one
were lawyers'; in the first Congress, ten of the twenty-nine Senators
and seventeen of the sixty-five Representatives were lawyers.' " 20 Daniel
Boorstin, in citing these figures, makes a point similar to that of Shils
when he says that "this does not show the importance of a specialized
legal profession in the making of our nation," but rather "the vagueness
of the boundary between legal and all other knowledge in a fluid
America." 21
America was more fortunate than contemporary new states in that the
European cultural values with which its intellectuals identified were not
very different from those held by the majority of the population. In
contemporary new nations, the young intellectuals are likely to be
alienated from their own society because they feel drawn to cultures
which speak a language foreign to most of the citizens of these societies.
The writer or scholar in a former part of the British or French empire
still seeks recognition from London or Paris. 22 But young America's intel-
19 Richard Hofstadter, Anti-IntettectuaKsm in American Life (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), p. 145.
20 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Colonial Experience (New York:
Random House, 1958), p. 205.
21 Loc. cit.
22 See Immanuel Wallerstein, Africa, Politics of Independence (New York:
Vintage Books, 1961), p. 65, and Edward Shils, "Metropolis and Province in
the Intellectual Community," in V. M. Dandakar and N. V. Sovani, eds.,
Chcm&ng India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1961), pp. 283-284. Shils
has described the situation generally: "[The Western intellectual outlook]
exercised an irresistible fascination on certain strata of the societies outside
the European centre, and the situation was not made any easier to bear by
the often explicit derogation of their own culture and society which its ad-
mirers encountered ... in the works and attitudes of intellectuals of the foreign
culture to which they were attracted.
"This feeling of intellectual inferiority vis-a-vis the West still exists in the
'Formulating a National Identity 71
lectuals, too, had a sense of cultural inferiority vis-H-vis the European
metropolitan cultures. For eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American
intellectuals, London and other European capitals were the centers
which had to be impressed. 23 Only Europe's learning, literature, art, and
higher education were viewed as good while America's the product of
"colonials and provincials" were viewed as inferior. 24
As has been already pointed out, such attitudes may foster anti-intel-
lectualism and populism among nationalists in new nations. Some of the
intellectuals in America have shown a soaring "belief in the creativity and
in the superior moral worth of the ordinary people," just as do intellec-
underdeveloped countries, and indeed in almost all areas of the world outside
the European centre. It survives in the Soviet Union, it was common in the
United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and is not en-
tirely dead there. Among the more backward totalitarian countries and among
the intellectuals of the pluralistic underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa,
it is very strong. The fascination by the Western intellectual outlook has, in
the main, been strongest in those sections of the population which also have
become fervently nationalistic. (These two conflicting attachments are very
closely connected with each other.)" Edward Shils, "The Prospects for In-
tellectuals," Soviet Survey, No. 29 (1959), p. 86.
23 A study of the reactions of American travelers in England in the first
half century of American independence reports that "the leaders of American
thought looked to the mellow and long-established cultural institutions of
England with longing, and struggled to learn and to imitate. ... [I]n educa-
tion, art, and literature American eyes were thus turned to the older orders.
This was more true in literature than in almost any other aspect of cultural
life." Robert E. Spiller, The American in England During the First Half
Century of Independence (New York: Henry Holt, 1926), pp. 387-388.
A study of American artists during this period makes the same point. Re-
turning painters "brought home with them the belief that they were minor
workmen who would never create great art. No deep intellectual conviction
lay behind the American vernacular tradition." James T. Flexner, The Light
of Distant Skies, 1760-1835 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1954), pp. 64-65.
See also Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1961), p. 97.
24 "Even now, when American intellectual life is at the height of its powers,
large numbers of American intellectuals in all fields feel towards Britain
and especially towards Oxford, Cambridge and London what Roman
intellectuals in antiquity often felt toward Athens. Some sort of feeling of
inferiority to a culture of greater refinement, greater subtlety, greater pro-
fundity, still persists even among those who almost deliberately cultivate
a populistic 'grass-roots' attitude. In the United States, too, provinciality is
despite the tremendous changes of fortune still a wound. The intellectuals
still struggle to escape its pain." Shils, "Metropolis and Province . . . ," op.
cit., p. 289.
72 America as a New Nation
tuals in latter-day new states. 25 Even Thomas Jefferson could write:
"State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will de-
cide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been
led astray by artificial rules." 26 And the great historian George Bancroft
"rhapsodized over Jackson's unschooled mind" as an asset which would
enable him to bring greater wisdom to the presidency than those who
were "versed in books/' 27
But as is well known, the leadership of the intellectuals in new states
25 ShiIs, "The Intellectuals and the Powers . . . ," op. cit., p. 20. The great
abolitionist political leader Charles Sumner revealed all the seeming incon-
sistencies of a politically involved intellectual from a "provincial" country.
"He spent a good deal of his time abroad being embarrassed for his country
and for his countrymen. . . . When compared with Great Britain, Sumner
concluded, the United States was lamentably lacking in culture. . . . American
colleges were shockingly deficient when compared to European universities.
. . . By European standards, the professions in the United States were ill-
trained. . . . Even the use of language in the United States was slovenly,
Sumner complained, when a great writer like Longfellow could in the middle
of a beautiful poem 'commit that Americanism Side-Walk? " Yet at the
same time, on his trip abroad "he had, apart from enjoying British society,
only one purpose, to promote 'the diffusion of the writings of any American
calculated to inspire respect . . . [for] liberal institutions.' [H]e secured the
publication of the first serious article devoted to Emerson in a British periodi-
cal. . . ." And less than a decade after his youthful visit to England and
Europe, Sumner was justifying his abolitionist politics and hopes with extreme
populist statements. David Donald, Charles Sumner, and the Coming of the
Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), pp. 59-60, 60-61, 180-182.
(Emphasis in original.)
26 Cited in Hofstadter, Anti-lntellectualism in American Life, p. 155.
27 Ibid., p. 159. "In all these [contemporary new] countries the intellectuals
have developed anxiety about whether they have not allowed themselves to be
corrupted by excessive permeation with the admired foreign culture. To
identify themselves with the people, to praise the culture of the ordinary
people as richer, truer, wiser, and more relevant than the foreign culture in
which they had themselves been educated, has been a way out of this distress."
Shils, "The Intellectuals and the Powers . . . ," op. cit., pp. 20-21. The negative
image of America fostered in the writings of many educated European con-
servatives is documented by Merle Curti, "The Reputation of America Over-
seas, 1776-1860," in his Probing Our Past (New York: Harper & Bros., 1955),
pp. 191-218. American writers were extremely sensitive to such criticisms,
especially to negative reviews in British journals. And some replied with
populist answers: "In the bitter literary war, champions of America declared
that if English letters could boast greater triumphs than the United States,
at least there was no snobbish literary aristocracy in the new country. . . .
Meantime a stout patriot insisted that if Americans were not yet capable of
Formulating a National Identity 73
does not survive the first revolutionary generation. 28 The change in Amer-
ican political life was associated with the rise of party politics. 29 The
passions which emerged with the beginnings of partisan conflict in the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were accompanied by
the use of anti-intellectual imagery by both major factions. Jefferson, in
particular, was attacked by Federalists as an ideologue whose dangerous
politics reflected his preoccupations with ideas and abstract principles.
And various liberals criticized the "learned and property-holding classes,"
suggesting that their learning might be used against the common people. 30
Finally the explicit anti-elitism of the Jacksonian movement, followed by
the adoption of populist tactics by both major parties, meant that the in-
tellectual could participate in politics only at his peril. 31
The depreciation of abstract intellectual activities, of art for art's sake,
of the contribution which intellectuals can make to political life, has also
been stimulated in new states, both recent and past, by the commitment to
practical economic and social development. The desire to catch up and
surpass the former imperialist power has meant that "impractical pursuits"
must be given low priority in the values both of politicians and of intel-
lectuals themselves. 32
writing books of theory, they contrived to anticipate in practice the contents
of those produced abroad several years before their appearance!" Curti,
op. cit., p. 200. See also Flexner, The Light of Distant Skies, pp. 231-234, 236.
28 This stands in need of some qualifications. In new states there are obviously
still many intellectuals working as technicians and civil servants in the govern-
ment bureaucracy. The intellectuals have been rejected, however, as a major
political stratum who wield influence as a "class."
29 Dixon Ryan Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy in the Politics of New York
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1919).
30 Hofstadter, Anti-lntellectualism in American Life, p. 152.
31 "The first truly powerful and widespread impulse to anti-intellectualism in
American politics was, in fact, given by the Jacksonian movement. Its dis-
trust for expertise, its dislike for centralization, its desire to uproot the en-
trenched classes, and its doctrine that important functions were simple enough
to be performed by anyone, amounted to a repudiation not only of govern-
ment by gentlemen which the nation had inherited from the eighteenth cen-
tury, but also of the special value of the educated classes to civic life." Ibid.,
pp. 155-156.
32 Beaumont caught the spirit of this aspect of early American life: "Hardly
was the American nation born when public and industrial life absorbed all its
moral energy. . . . The Americans have too many political interests to trouble
themselves with literary ones. . . .
"In America, the sciences are valued only for their applied uses. They
study the useful arts but not the fine arts. . . .
"American literature is entirely lacking in good taste that refined, subtle
74 America as a New Nation
As we have noted, intellectuals play an important role in most new na-
tions in formulating the objectives and rationale of the struggle for inde-
pendence. But after independence, leftist and populist ideologies, and
an emphasis on practical pursuits as most useful in an "underdeveloped"
society, press the intellectuals to withdraw from effective group par-
ticipation in politics. And their concern with the "good opinion" of the
elite of the former metropolitan power may even lead them to depreciate
the achievements of the nation which they helped bring into being. For
new nations are not only populist and pragmatic; they are also provincial.
The resulting tension between the intellectuals and the dominant forces
in the new nation may constitute a handicap in formulating an effective
national self-image. Thus, all new nations face the problem of in-
corporating their intellectuals into their polities.
Revolution as the Source of National Identity
In most post-colonial nations, it is revolutionary ideas, not conservative
ones, that are associated with the national image. 33 And ever since the
restraint, that delicate sentiment which results from the mixture of passion
and cool judgment, enthusiasm and reason, spontaneity and design, which
prevails in literary composition in Europe. To have elegance in taste, one
must first have elegant customs. . . .
"Thus literature and the arts, instead of being invoked by the passions, come
only to the aid of necessity. . . .
"And do not try to please . . . [Americans] by saying that the identity of
language unites all the fine minds of England with those of America; they
will reply that English literature has nothing whatever in common with
American literature. . . .
"No one in America understands that completely intellectual life which
sets itself up beyond the realm of the practical world and feeds on dreams,
speculations, and abstractions; that nonobjective existence which shuns busi-
ness affairs, for which meditation is a necessity, science a duty, literary
creation a delightful pastime, and which, seizing upon the riches of antiquity
and the treasures of today, taking a leaf from the laurels of Milton as from
those of Virgil, makes the genius and glory of all the ages enhance its own
richness." Gustave de Beaumont, Marie, or Slavery in the United States
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958), pp. 107-115.
^Amitai Etzioni has argued that in Israel and most contemporary new
states "left-of-center ideologies and groups have stronger political, economic
and prestige positions than the right and liberal forces. ... To be a Social
Democrat in Israel and the same holds for many of the newly developed
countriesmeans to be in conformity with the majority of the politically
Formulating a National Identity 75
beginning of the modern era, revolutionary nationalism has tended to in-
corporate within itself supra-national ideas. As Karl Deutsch has put it:
Behind the spreading of national consciousness there was at work
perhaps a deeper change a new value assigned to people as they are,
or as they can become, with as much diversity of interlocking roles
as will not destroy or stifle any of their personalities. After 1750 we
find new and higher values assigned in certain advanced countries
to children and women; to the poor and the sick; to slaves and peas-
ants; to colored races and submerged nationalities
National consciousness thus arises in an age that asserts birth-
rights for everybody, inborn, unalienable rights, first in the lan-
guage of religion, then in the language of politics, and finally in
terms involving economics and all society. . . .
Once men formed a people, once they acquired many objective
characteristics of nationality, they would become aware of what had
happened. If this new awareness should come to them in the midst
of a cultural and spiritual change, a change in the fundamental strat-
egy of values, teaching them a new pride and a new confidence in
what they were and in their own kind or teaching them a hunger
for this kind of pride and confidence not yet attained then this new
consciousness of nationality would become a potential center for
patterns of individual and social behavior, and of political action. 34
When Americans celebrate their national heritage on Independence
Day, Memorial Day, or other holidays of this sort they dedicate them-
selves anew to a nation conceived as the living fulfillment of a political
doctrine that enshrines a Utopian conception of men's egalitarian and fra-
ternal relations with one another. In linking national celebrations with
political events and a political creed, the United States resembles such
other post-revolutionary societies as France, the Soviet Union, or many of
the new states. Nations whose authority steins from traditional legitimacy,
on the other hand, tend to celebrate holidays linked with a religious tra-
dition or a national military tradition, not with a political doctrine as such.
These differences in the sources of the national self-image should affect
the character of political life, particularly in the early stages of the evolu-
conscious members of society." "Alternative Ways to Democracy: The
Example of Israel," Political Science Quarterly, 74 (1959), pp. 213-214.
34 Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Covtmunication (New York: John
Wiley, 1953), pp. 153-155. (Emphasis in original.)
76 America as a New Nation
tion of systems of democratic authority* 35 In societies based on traditional
legitimacy, there has been a congruence among a conservative respect for
the existing pattern of social and political organization, national symbols,
and the stratification system. Value consensus sustained these elements as
an interrelated whole. When such societies developed economically, new
classes were created, the bourgeoisie and the workers, who had no initial
political rights and were subordinate to the old aristocracy and the mon-
archy. As these new classes became politically conscious, developing val-
ues based on their needs as socially inferior groups, they faced the prob-
lem of reconciling these new values with the dominant cultural norms
that supported the political and social position of the old elites. In large
measure, the general cultural norms strengthened conservative beliefs
among all strata and reduced the strength of those factors making for
left-wing predispositions. One finds generally that parties upholding tra-
ditional values not only retain the support of a large majority of the
privileged strata, but that a considerable section of the depressed classes
also retain their loyalty to the existing order. As Bagehot suggested in
discussing England, where traditional class values have not been destroyed
by revolution, habits of deference will help to maintain the polity. 36
In newly independent societies there has often been a transition from a
system dominated by traditionalist, usually aristocratic values, to one char-
acterized by egalitarian populist concepts. These new value systems are
variously referred to as "liberal," "democratic," or "leftist" in contrast to
"elitist," "conservative," or "aristocratic." The elitist ideology takes for
granted the desirability of the hierarchical ordering of society in which
those who belong to the "naturally superior" strata exercise due authority
and are given generalized respect. Social recognition rests on the sum of
all the qualities of a person's status rather than on a given role he may be
playing. In colonial situations, the native elites derive their status, or are
protected in it, by virtue of their connection with the status and power of
the foreign ruler. And with independence, the values of hierarchy, aris-
35 A study of the American Tories in the Revolution concludes: "If there
were any serious consequences to America from the silencing and expulsion
of the Loyalists, they were certainly not social or, in the narrow sense,
political consequences. Rather they were philosophical consequences: the
Tories' organic conservatism represented a current of thought that failed to
reappear in America after the Revolution. A substantial part of the whole
spectrum of European social and political philosophy seemed to slip outside
the American perspective." William H. Nelson, The American Tory (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 189-190.
3e Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London: Oxford University
Press, 1928), p. 141.
Formulating a National Identity 77
tocracy, privilege, primogeniture, and (more recently) capitalism, all asso-
ciated with the foreign imperialist power, are easily rejected*
Consequently, most struggles for independence have employed leftist
ideologies, that of equality in revolutionary America, that of socialism in
the contemporary new states. Man's status is to depend not upon inherited
but upon achieved qualities; hence the system must be geared to abolish
all forms of privilege and to reward achievement. The franchise is to be
extended to everyone, the people being regarded as the source of power
and authority; and various social reforms, such as economic development,
the elimination of illiteracy, and the spread of education, are to reduce
inequalities in status. We have seen how the need to legitimate the demo-
cratic goals of the American Revolution made mandatory a commitment
sharply to improve the economic circumstances of the mass of the popula-
tion, even though the struggle for independence was conceived by many
of its leaders as primarily concerned with the issue of political independ-
ence. And in general, although many of those involved in a nationalist
movement may have been conservatives on most matters other than that
of foreign domination, the need to mobilize support against the ruling
oligarchy forces evensjthe conservative nationalists to use the leftist vo-
cabulary of the tim^JVery revolutionary group proclaims "all men to be
equal," to have "inalienable rights," or advocates a "classless society" and
the elimination of minority rule in politics.
However, beneath this consistency of radical temper, there are pro-
found differences in the ways in which various parties or strata interpret
their revolutionary commitments. In the United States after the adoption
of the Constitution, the conservative and socially privileged groups who
had taken part in the anti-imperialist revolution continued to play a major,
even dominant, role. This resembles the immediate post-independence
political situation in Pakistan, Ceylon, Morocco, and others of the Arab
states, where conservative elites have held the reins of government. Al-
though formally committed to carrying out the social and humanitarian
objectives of the nationalist revolution, the conservatives have attempted
to resist the institutional elaboration of these goals. The American Fed-
eralists, though convinced advocates of views which were radical and
republican by the standards of European states, sought to limit the appli-
cation of egalitarian principles in such fields as property relations, religion,
and the suffrage. 87 But as in most of the contemporary new states in which
37 "The Federalists recoiled at the prejudice and violence of the masses,
declaring that incompetence could not be trusted . . . [T]hey expressed open
contempt. . . ." John Bassett, The Federalist System (New York: Harper &
Bros., 1906), p. 295. The Federalists of New Jersey appealed in 1800 as the
78 America as a New Nation
conservatives have tried to defend traditionalist values after independence,
the right-wing party soon lost office.
The defeat of the conservatives in the early political conflicts in new
states usually results in a situation comparable to that in which "leftists"
have established the nation. National identity and left-wing values are
intertwined. The purpose of independence is perceived to be the creation
of a new and more radical society than that which has existed. In the
United States, the end of Federalism meant that henceforth all American
political parties were to be egalitarian in overt ideology and populist in
tone. The extension of adult suffrage solidified such sentiments. The dom-
inant "one party," the Democratic-Republicans, ruled, as has been noted,
without effective national opposition until the 1830*s. 38 A historian of
Pennsylvanian affairs explains this phenomenon in terms which apply, in
large measure, to most other states:
[TJhe most acute students of Pennsylvania history agree that Demo-
cratic supremacy is to be explained largely in ideological terms. It
was supported by the evocative power of certain dogmas which re-
versed die party allegiance ... a power deriving in large measure
from the early inception of virtual manhood suffrage. The mass base
of political life in Pennsylvania meant that equalitarian slogans al-
ways had a profound, even mystical appeal there. The vaguest at-
mosphere of aristocracy was a decisive political handicap. . . , 89
Although conservative groups in most new nations are deprived of the
link with historic national values which they have in old states, there is at
party of " 'wealth and talent' . . * [asking] 'whether to continue our govern-
ment in the hands of men opposed to untried theories and dangerous inno-
vations and attached to the existing order of things or whether we will
abandon it to the direction of those whose conduct, whose writings, whose
views are revolutionary.' It was the question whether the abler few should
direct the many who were unstable, irrational and likely to be disorderly and
destructive." Walter Fee, The Transition -from Aristocracy to Democracy in
New Jersey, 1789-1827 (Somerville, N.J.: Somerset Press, 1933), p. 107. A
Federalist broadside described their opponents as "*the discontented the
ambitious the unprincipled and the disappointed of our countrymen,' " to-
gether with various kinds of foreigners. Ibid., p. 111.
S8 In the elections of 1824 and 1828, all candidates for President were
nominally members of the same party.
39 Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania,
1776-1860 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp. 23-24;
see also Philip S. Klein, Pennsylvania Politics, 1817-1832 (Philadelphia: His-
torical Society of Pennsylvania, 1940).
Formulating a National Identity 79
least one traditional institution with which they may identify and whose
popular strength they may seek to employ: religion. The leftist nation-
alist revolutionaries, in their desire to remake their society, often perceive
traditional religion as one of the great obstacles; attitudes and values
which are dysfunctional to efforts to modernize various institutions are
usually associated with ancient religious beliefs and habits. And the efforts
by the leaders of new states to challenge these beliefs and habits serve
to bring them into conflict with the religious authorities. 40
A look at the politics of contemporary new nations indicates that in
many of them religion has formed the basis for conservative parties. Thus
in Indonesia, two Moslem parties, Masjumi (Indonesian Moslem) and
Nahdlatul-Ulama (Moslem Teachers) secured almost half (40 per cent)
of the votes in the one election in that country. 41 These parties were sub-
sequently dissolved by the Nationalist governing party. In India today, a
conservative party, the Jana Sangh, has arisen to defend Hindu values. In
Pakistan, the Moslem League, organized to foster Islamic principles and
also the party which established the nation, lost power after Independ-
ence; but it remained as the major conservative group until parties were
dissolved. Similarly in most of the Arab states, conservative politics and
the Islamic religion have been closely intertwined. The situation is more
complicated in most of the Negro African states, since there is no
dominant national religion in many of them. In fact, where Christianity
is strong, it faces the problem of being identified with the former colonial
rulers. Islam has, however, formed die basis for conservative groupings
in parts of Nigeria.
In the United States, the various efforts to sustain or create conservative
parties in the early decades of the republic were closely tied to religion.
The picture here, however, was clearly not one of religion versus irreli-
gion, since the "dissenting sects," such as the Methodists, the Baptists, and
the Catholics, all opposed the privileges of the established churches the
40 "The only reference to religion [in the Constitution] is contained ia the
provision that 'no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to
any Office or public Trust under the United States.' This omission, represent-
ing . . . the rationalistic tendency somewhat popular among the rather
youthful public men who dominated the convention, roused a good deal
of protest and the absence of any reference to divine authority was one of
the points made against accepting the document." Roy F. Nichols, Religion
and American Democracy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1959), pp. 36-37.
41 A Review of Elections 1954-1958 (London: The Institute of Electoral
Research, 1960), p. 67.
80 America as a New Nation
Congregationalists in New England, the Episcopalians in the South. The
Democrats received considerable support from the former in their ef-
forts to eliminate the tie between Church and State. Faced with the diffi-
culty of combatting the political left on most social and political issues,
the conservatives, whether religious or not, quickly saw the political po-
tential of an identification with religious institutions and morality. Arthur
Schlesinger, Jr., has well described their reactions:
Federalism . . . mobilized religion to support its views of society. At
the very start, many conservatives, with the discreet skepticism of
eighteenth century gentlemen, considered religion indispensable to
restrain the brute appetites of the lower orders but hardly necessary
for the upper classes. As * . . the clergy loudly declared Jeffersonian
deism to be a threat, not only to themselves, but to the foundations
of social order, conservatism grew more ardent in its faith. In 1802
Hamilton, seeking desperately to rejuvenate the Federalist party,
suggested the formation of a Christian Constitutional Society with
the twofold purpose of promoting Christianity and the Constitution. 42
With the growing strength of the Jeffersonians, dubbed irreligious
Deists by their opponents, the religious conservatives, largely of Calvinist
persuasions, banded together to form a number of moralistic organizations
"to save men from folly, vice, and sin." 43 By winning men to the path of
^Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown,
1946), p. 16. Tocqueville has pointed out how, in France, first the upper
class and later the middle class returned to religion when they recognized
that they needed it to stabilize a post-revolutionary society in which deference
values no longer operated to sustain lower class loyalty. "The Revolution
of 1792, when striking the upper classes, had cured them of their irreligious-
ness; it had taught them, if not the truth, at least the social usefulness of
belief. This lesson was lost upon the middle class, which remained their
political heir and their jealous rival; and the latter had even become more
sceptical in proportion as the former seemed to become more religious. The
Revolution of 1848 had just done on a small scale for our tradesmen what
that of 1792 had done for the nobility: the same reverses, the same terrors,
the same conversion, . . . The clergy had facilitated this conversion by ...
[professing] republican opinions, while at the same time it gave to long
established interests the guarantee of its traditions, its customs, and its
hierarchy." Alexis de Tocqueville, The Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville
(London: The Harvill Press, 1948), p. 120.
43 Clifford S. Griffin, Their Brothers' Keepers (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1960), p. 43.
Formulating a National Identity 81
righteousness, they would also guarantee their vote for Federalist prin-
ciples.
Perhaps the first major example of this reaction was the temperance
movement which developed in the early years of the nineteenth century.
To a considerable extent this movement was dominated by members of
the Federalist upper class and Congregationalist ministers. The downfall
of the party and the disestablishment of the Church faced them with
the need to explain their defeats. And they found their explanation in the
low cultural level of the common man, his drunkenness and lack of
education. The drive against alcohol became part of the "Puritan Counter-
Reformation." 44 "The early temperance advocates of New England, for
example, were so strongly Federalist in their political affiliations that
Federalism and temperance became entangled in public thinking." 45
Early temperance efforts were combined with labors for morality in
general. They arose not only to check drunkenness and other evils;
but also to rescue the Federalist party from threatened destruction.
. . . The Federalists reasoned that if they could wean men from
profanity, vice, and inebriation, the former sinners would be amena-
ble to changing their political allegiance. 46
The left and the right in early America disagreed on the extent to
which the United States was even to be viewed as a Christian nation.
Thus, not only did the Jeff ersonians seek to eliminate all forms of state
support for the established churches; they went so far on the national
level as to insist that the State was obligated to provide services for its
citizens seven days a week that, for instance, it could not deprive non-
Christians of their right to receive mail on Sundays. In 1810, Congress
passed a law providing for the Sunday delivery of the mails. The religious
and political conservatives replied by agitation to support the Lord's Day.
This issue was to remain alive for many decades. In 1825, Congress
extended the provisions for Sunday mails. And in 1829, the Democratic
44 John A. Krout, The Origins of Prohibition (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1925), pp. 83-100; David M. Ludlum, Social Ferment in Vermont, 1191-1850
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1939), p. 65; Joseph Gusfield, "Status
Conflicts and the Changing Ideologies of the American Temperance Move-
ment," in David Pittman and Charles R. Snyder, eds., Society, Culture, and
Drinking Practices (New York: John Wiley, 1962), pp. 105-106.
45 Alice Tyler, Freedoitfs Ferment (Minneapolis: The University of Minne-
sota Press, 1944), p. 317.
46 Griffin, Their Brothers? Keepers, pp. 36-37.
82 America as a New Nation
majority replied to the agitation against this kw by endorsing the report
of a Senate Committee which stated as a matter of national policy that
religion and irreligion had equal rights, that laws setting aside Sunday
as a special day of rest worked an injustice on non-Christians. 47
Issues concerning the place of religion in society played a major role in
structuring the revived two-party system which formed around sup-
porters and opponents of Andrew Jackson. One of the first efforts to
organize an anti- Jackson party, the Anti-Masonic party, which was to
become one of the major constituent elements in the Whig party, sought
to bring together those who favored an alliance between Church and
State. And the Whig party took over this task:
Battlegrounds shifted over time, but the lines drawn in the 1830's
between the "Church and State party" and the "Jackson party" held
fast. Struggles over Sunday laws, the sustained effort to open
public assemblies with prayer, Jackson's refusal to act against
Georgia for imprisoning missionaries to the Cherokees on these
and Eke issues, party differences were distinct, passionate, and
enduring. 48
The northern Whig spokesmen, like the Federalists before them, gave
voice to the values of the dethroned Puritan Establishment. They argued
that the State was a proper instrument to eradicate moral evils such as
gambling and "grogselling." The religious sentiments that underlay the
Federalist and Whig moralistic concerns may be seen in the activities
. of Lyman Beecher, who as a key figure in the Congregationalist Church
also was involved successively in Federalist, Whig, and later Republican
politics. He, like many others of the New England theocrats:
sought to reestablish a clerically dominated social order by means of
voluntary social and moral reform societies that would give the
dergy an influential role in forming public opinion and molding
public legislation. The many "benevolent societies" of the [Jack-
sonian] period, which sought to evangelize the unchurched, to save
the heathen, to sober the drunkard, to rescue the wayward female,
to purify the Sabbath, to end dueling, to inaugurate Sunday Schools,
47 See John R. Bodo, The Protestant Clergy and Public Issues 1812-1848
(Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1954), pp. 39-43; Anson Phelps
Stokes, Church and State in the United States (New York: Harper & Bros.,
1950), Vol. II, pp. 12-20.
4S Lee Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy (Princeton, NJ.:
Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 196.
Formulating a National Identity 83
and to send freed slaves back to Africa . . . [were composed largely
of] the ministers and leading laymen and women of the Con-
gregational churches. 49
The party struggle was clearly not between religion and irreligion,
although apparently most free-thinkers and their organizations backed
the Democrats while the very devout, particularly among the older once-
established groups, backed the Whigs. 50 There was, however, consider-
able congruence between the Jacksonian concern for secular egalitarian-
ism and the struggle against the domination of a theocracy in religion.
As McLoughlin puts it: "Here was the essence of the quarrel between the
Whigs and the Jacksonians: the fight against aristocracy and privilege in
politics had a clear parallel in religion." 51
While religious and moralistic issues do provide conservative parties
in new nations with a popular appeal, they have not usually proven
sufficiently strong to permit such parties to hold or win power demo-
cratically. Hence many of these parties also adhere to some variant of a
socialist program. And the situation in the early United States was
somewhat analogous. The Federalists had failed in their efforts to sustain
a party which defended aspects of inequality, and their successors sought
to learn from their errors. 52 When conservatism revived as a political
force in the form of Whig opposition to Andrew Jackson, it had a
distinctly "new look." In attacking Jackson, the tribune of the plebs, the
new conservatives tried to fix the label of royalist and Tory on him;
while it was the term Whig, the title of the opposition to Toryism and
royal absolutism in Britain, that was taken by the American conservatives
fighting "King Andrew." 68
49 William G. McLoughlin, Introduction to Charles G. Finney, Lectures on
the Revivals of Religion (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1960), p. xviii.
50 Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy, pp. 198-207.
51 McLoughlin, Introduction to Finney, p. xix.
62 Clinton Rossiter, Conservatism m America (New York: Vintage Books,
1962), pp. 117-119.
53 "The historian of the Whig party in Pennsylvania recognizes that the weak-
ness of the party was traceable mainly to a vague aristocratic reputation which
it had, not to the specific points in its program. The Whigs themselves knew
this. They tried to steal their opponents* equalitarian thunder by branding the
Jacksonian administration itself as Tederalisf an epithet which, as Joseph
Hopkinson bitterly said, was sufficient by itself to ruin political careers and
by claiming to be the true party of Jefferson.'* Hartz, Economic Policy and
Democratic Thought, pp. 24-25.
Whig editor Horace Greeley "began publication of a paper called the
84 America as a New Nation
One of the major elements which went into forming the new Whig
party was the Anti-Masonic party, an anti-elitist group which had emerged
in the kte 20's to fight the presumed influence of a Masonic cabal, of
which Andrew Jackson was thought to be a member. The complete su-
premacy of egalitarian values in politics may be seen by the Whig
behavior in the Presidential elections of 1840, incidentally the first such
contest they were able to win:
Harrison and Tyler were selected as the party candidates. . . .
Webster was rejected on ... [the] ground he was "aristocratic."
This consideration showed how completely the old order had
changed. The men of wealth well realized, now that liberty and
equality had shown their power, that in enthusiastic profession of
fraternity lay their only course of safety. Property rights were
secure only when it was realized that in America property was
honestly accessible to talent, however humble in its early circum-
stances. The Whigs found it useful to disavow as vehemently as they
could any and all pretensions to a caste superiority in political
life
A fierce rivalry in simplicity sprang up between the parties.
Charles Ogle, of Pennsylvania, made a speech in Congress arraigning
President Van Buren as a sybarite, who drank Madeira wine, and
had made a palace of the people's White House by his enormous
expenditures for decoration. This speech, spread throughout the
country, was the Whigs' most effective tract. . . . They circulated
drawings of the President, pictured as the model of sartorial per-
fection, seated at his table heaped with massive gold and silver
service. . . .
When a Democratic paper in an ill-starred moment made a jest
about the obscure Harrison, who, if left alone, would be content
with his log cabin and hard cider, the Whigs realized that their
opportunity had come. It mattered not that the general really was
in fairly comfortable circumstances and had recently been drawing
an annual stipend of six thousand dollars; he was to be the log-
cabin candidate. It was observed that the Democrats should be
discreet in choosing a vice-presidential candidate, for "Mr. Van
Buren in consequence of his course of luxurious living to which
he is addicted, may pass off any day without a moment's warning."
Compare all this, exclaimed the outraged Whigs, with the severe
simplicity of Harrison, the farmer of North Bend, whom visitors
Jeffersonian, a name considerably more representative of its humble readers
than of its Hamiltonian benefactors." Robert G. Gunderson, The Log-Cabin
Campaign (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1957), p. 31.
Formulating a National Identity 85
had recently discovered flail in hand, threshing out his grain upon
his barn floor. 54
And in presenting their candidate for Governor in that year, the New
York Whig Convention described him as "a true and worthy rep-
resentative of Democrat-Republican principles, born in the forest of the
noble Western region of our own State, trained among an industrious
kindred to hardy toil and manual labor on the farm and in the manu-
factory democratic in all his associations and sympathies. . . ," 55 Actually,
many of the candidates in the Whig party were "gentlemen," men from
some of the country's first families. 56 But in keeping with the democratic
spirit of the times, they campaigned on a ticket of fraternity and equality,
even appealing to class hatred against the elite.
It is important to place these events and doctrines in their historical
context. American conservatives during the first half of the nineteenth
century had come to recognize that, like it or not, they must operate
within the context of a society in which egalitarian values were dominant,
and in which both the rights of the people to govern, and of the able to
succeed, must be accepted as inviolable. Many Whigs, to be sure, con-
centrated their egalitarian enthusiasm on the need to make opportunity
possible, as distinct from an emphasis on actual equality in social relations.
(Thus, Whig leaders such as William Seward in New York, Charles
Sumner in Massachusetts, and Thaddeus Stevens in Pennsylvania gave
vigorous support to the demand for a state-supported common school
education, a demand which earlier had been espoused primarily by the
radical Workingmen's parties.) But the important fact is that, for both
the Democrats and Whigs, the aristocratic, monarchical, and oligarchic
societies of Europe were anathema. Both looked upon the United States
as a new social order which should be an example to the downtrodden of
the rest of the world. Just as today competing parties in new states are
almost automatically "socialist," so American political leaders in the first
half-century of our existence were instinctively "democrats," 57 believing
54 Fox, The Decline of Aristocracy . . . , pp. 411-413. For a detailed descrip-
tion of the 1840 campaign, see Gunderson, The Log-Cabin Campaign.
55 Benson, The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy, p. 251.
56 Carl R. Fish, The Rise of the Common Mm 1830-1850 (New York: Mac-
millan,1950),p. 165.
57 For discussion of the predominant liberal ideology in America see Louis
Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America: An Interpretation of American
Political Thought Since the Revolution (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955);
and Rossiter, Conservatism in America.
86 America as a New Nation
that the United States had a special mission to perform in introducing a
new form of political order to the world; some even felt that it had an
obligation to give moral, financial, and other forms of support to European
radicals fighting for republicanism and freedom. 58
The significance of "leftism" as characterizing the core values in the
American political tradition may be best perceived from the vantage point
of comparative North American history, that is, from the contrast be-
tween Canada and the United States. For though American historians and
political philosophers may debate how radical, liberal, leftist, or even con-
servative American politics has been, there is no doubt in the mind of
Canadian historians. Looking at the divergent political history north and
south of the border, Canadian historians see their nation as a descendant
of the counterrevolution, and the United States as a product of the suc-
cessful revolution. Once the die was cast, consisting of a triumphant rev-
olution in the thirteen colonies and a failure to the north, an institutional
framework was set. Consequent events tended to enforce "leftist" strength
in the south and a "rightist" bias in the north. 59 The success of the rev-
olutionary ideology, the defeat of the Tories, and the emigration of many
of them north to Canada or across the ocean to Britain, all served to en-
58 For an examination of one effort to press America to further democratic
institutions in Europe see the discussion by Curti of "Young America/' in
Probing Our Past, pp. 219-245. This movement, started among Democratic
Party intellectuals in the early 1850's, sought to get the United States to
strongly support Kossuth and the Hungarian Revolution, as well as other sim-
ilar European movements. Those involved in it saw the expansion of the
American idea in Europe as an extension of the geographical expansion of
America that had emerged from the Mexican War.
59 Tocqueville provides a nice illustration of "casting the die" in the instance
of extending electoral rights. "When a nation begins to modify the elective
qualification, it may easily be foreseen sooner or later, that qualification
will be entirely abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the history of
society: the further electoral rights are extended, the greater is the need for
extending them; for after each concession the strength of democracy increases,
and its demands increase with its strength." He illustrates this process by
pointing to Maryland: "The most democratic laws were consequently voted
by the very men whose interests they impaired: . . . they [the men with
vested interests] themselves accelerated the triumph of the new state of things;
so that, by a singular change, the democratic impulse was found to be most
irresistible in the very states where the aristocracy had the firmest hold. The
state of Maryland, which had been founded by men of rank, was the first to
proclaim universal suffrage and to introduce die most democratic forms into
the whole of its government." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
(New York: Vintage Books, 1954), Vol. I, pp. 54, 58.
Formulating a National Identity 87
hance the strength of the forces favoring egalitarian democratic principles
in the new nation, and to weaken conservative tendencies. On the other
hand, the failure of Canada to have a revolution of its own, the immigra-
tion of conservative elements and the emigration of radical elements, and
the success of colonial Toryism in erecting a conservative class structure
all contributed to making Canada a more conservative and rigidly strati-
fied society. Frank Underbill has pointed to some effects of the failure
of the doctrines of the French and American revolutions to dominate in
Canada:
For this weakness of the Left in Canada, the ultimate explanation
would seem to be that we never had an eighteenth century of our
own. The intellectual life of our politics has not been periodically
revived by fresh drafts from the invigorating fountain of eighteenth
century Enlightenment. In Catholic French Canada the doctrines
of the rights of man and of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity were re-
jected from the start, and to this day they have never penetrated,
save surreptitiously or spasmodically. All effective liberal and radical
[North American] democratic movements in the nineteenth cen-
tury have had their roots in this fertile eighteenth-century soil. But
our ancestors made the great refusal in the eighteenth century. In
Canada we have no revolutionary tradition. . . . 60
Another Canadian historian, A. R. M. Lower, has also emphasized the
way in which the different results of the American Revolution affected
the two nations which emerged from the British North American colo-
nies:
[C]olonial Toryism made its second attempt to erect on American
soil a copy of the English social edifice. From one point of view
this is the most significant thing about the loyalist movement; it
withdrew a class concept of life from the south, moved it up north
and gave it a second chance. . . . Canada in time came to be almost
as wide a popular democracy as the United States itself: though a
much more conservative one, for a country founded to preserve the
old order against the new must necessarily be conservative. 61
60 Frank H. Underbill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto: Macmillan,
1960), p. 12.
61 A. IL M. Lower, Colony to Nation: A History of Canada (Toronto: Long-
mans, Green, 1946), pp. 114, 120.
88 America as a New Nation
The Canadian sociologist S. D. dark has pointed to various other
developments in the two nations which served to emphasize the variations
in political and class values between them. He documents, for example, the
change in religious behavior among the New England colonies. In Nova
Scotia, part of New England before the Revolution, the victory of the
English as a result of their control of the sea sharply affected the
churches: "The institution which dominated in the life of the vast
majority of Nova Scotians before 1775 was the Congregational Church
and it came out almost solidly on the side of the Revolution." But with
the failure of the revolutionists, many Congregationalist pastors fled
south to American territory, and the Church of England ultimately
became dominant in the province. 62
In any evaluation of the consequences of establishing the new Ameri-
can nation through a revolution, it is important to remember that this
revolution had its social and economic aspects as well as political. The
English historian Frank Thistiethwaite has pointed up many of the
changes that revolution wrought:
... In the &lan of their success the insurgents consolidated their
control and in each of the new States proceeded to transform in-
stitutional life to fit their beliefs and interests.
. . . The old colonial assemblies were transformed into virtually
sovereign State legislatures more directly representing the interests
of the mass of small farmers. Constituencies were reorganized to
give a greater measure of equality to the back country. . . .
They confiscated the Crown lands and most of the Tory estates,
large and small, redistributing some of the land to small farmers and
old soldiers. They abolished quit-rents, entails, primogeniture and
titles of nobility. . . . Henceforward the aggregation of great
estates, which remained a typical feature of American growth, had
no longer as its sanction customary privilege with attendant duties,
but property right. The change loosened the social bond between
landlord and tenant; it increased the mobility of real estate and
shifted the basis of proprietorship from social position to mere
wealth. , . .
The radicals also disestablished the Church of England where
established. The new Episcopalian body, bereft of its ancient author-
ity as the corporate, and indeed catholic, Church of a total society,
was reduced to the somewhat anomalous position of being merely
another independent sect, cherished among the conservative and
62 S. D. Clark, Movements of Political Protect in Canada 1640-1840 (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1959), pp. 111-112.
Formulating a National Identity 89
well-to-do, but insignificant in the religions life of America as a
whole. 63
The cultural and institutional differences between the United States
and Canada offer a useful basis from which to estimate the extent to
which the revolutionary break from colonial rule, with its concomitant
legitimation of various egalitarian ideologies and institutions as part of
the national value system, has been a major determining factor in shaping
the national ethos, as contrasted with the effects of such factors as an
"open frontier," the absence of European feudalism and primogeniture,
and so forth. Canada shares with the United States many of the same
ecological conditions, but differs in the way its national identity was
established. And though Canada is more similar to the United States in
many ways than it is to Britain or other European nations, it also differs
sharply from the United States in being a more conservative country
culturally, and a more steeply stratified nation in terms of its society
and polity. 64
Conversely, American political and social history illustrates the effect of
a nation operating within the context of a tradition in which liberal and
egalitarian values are part of the definition of nationhood itself. The
German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf catches the essence of the relation-
ship between the American value system and its revolutionary origins
in his commentary on Richard Hofstadter's estimate of William Graham
Sumner's conservative doctrines. Hofstadter says of the great nineteenth-
century conservative American thinker: *Sve may wonder whether, in the
entire history of thought, there was ever a conservatism so utterly progres-
sive as this." Dahrendorf agrees with this as an evaluation of "con-
servatism" in America. And he goes on to suggest that our conservative
YgJ T1fi<; "are characterised* by the desire to preserve progress rather than
to^preserve any particular state of affairs." And since aH Americans are,
ideologically speaking, descendants of revolutionaries, Americans both
of the left and right remain Utopian. It is probably the only developed
63 Frank Thisdethwaite, The Great Experiment (New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1955), pp. 38-41. The classic statement elaborating the radical
character and consequences of the American Revolution is, of course, that of
J. Franklin Jameson, The American Revolution Considered as a Social Move-
ment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1926). This monograph, which
appeared in 1925, was reevaluated in light of subsequent historical research;
Frederick Tolles concludes: "Basically, the 'Jameson thesis' is still sound. . . ."
See Tolles, "The American Revolution considered as a Social Movement:
A Re-evaluation," American Historical Review, 60 (1954), pp. 1-12.
64 These differences are discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.
90 America as a New Nation
country in the world "in which there are many who believe that Utopia
can come true." 65
Conclusion
All states that have recently gained independence are faced with two
interrelated problems, legitimating the use of political power and estab-
lishing national identity. And if it is a democratic polity they seek to
establish, they must develop institutional and normative constraints upon
efforts to inhibit organized opposition or to deny civil liberties to
individual critics of those in power.
This section has explored ways in which these problems were confronted
in the early history of the United States. National identity was formed
under the aegis, first of a charismatic authority figure, and later under
the leadership of a dominant "left wing" or revolutionary party led
successively by three Founding Fathers. The pressures in new nations
to outlaw opposition movements were reduced in America by the rapid
decline of the conservative opposition. The revolutionary, democratic
values that thus became part of the national self-image, and the basis for
its authority structure, gained legitimacy as they proved effective that
is, as the nation prospered.
The need to establish stable authority and a sense of identity led the
leaders of the United States to resist efforts by "old states" to involve
the young nation in their quarrels. But at the same time that Americans
rejected "foreign entanglements," they clearly used the Old World as
both a negative and a positive point of reference, rejecting its political
and class structures as backward, but nevertheless viewing its cultural
and economic achievements as worthy of emulation. The intellectuals in
particular expressed this ambivalence, since they played a major role in
establishing and defining the state; but they then found that the task of
operating and even living in it required them to conform to vulgar
populist and provincial values.
In specifying those processes in the evolution of the first new nation
that are comparable to what has been taking place in the societies of
Asia and Africa in our own time, I am relying upon analogy. It ought
65 Ralf Dahrendorf, "European Sociology and the American Self-image,"
European Journal of Sociology, 2 (1961), pp. 357, 364; see also Arthur
Schlesinger, Sr., New Vietopoints in American History (New York: Mac-
mfllan, 1922).
Formulating a National Identity 91
to go without saying that: <r We cannot assume that because conditions
in one century led to certain effects, even roughly parallel conditions
in another century would lead to similar effects. Neither can we be sure,
of course, that the conditions were even roughly parallel." 66 It is fairly
obvious that conditions in the early United States were quite different
from those faced by most of the new nations of today. Many of the
internal conditions that hamper the evolution of stable authority and a
unifying sense of national identity in the new nations of the twentieth
century were much less acute in the early United States. But the evidence
suggests that despite its advantages, the United States came very close to
failing in its effort to establish a unified legitimate authority. The first
attempt to do so in 1783, following on Independence, was a failure. The
second and successful effort was endangered by frequent threats of
secession and the open flaunting of central authority until the Civil
War. The advantages which the early United States possessed, as com-
pared with most of the contemporary new states, then, only show more
strongly how significant the similarities are.
There were other American advantages that should be mentioned.
Although internal conflicts stemming from attitudes toward the French
Revolution disrupted the young American polity, there was no world-
wide totalitarian conspiracy seeking to upset political and economic
development from within, and holding up an alternative model of
seemingly successful economic growth through the use of authoritarian
methods. Also the absence of rapid mass communication systems meant
that Americans were relatively isolated, and hence did not immediately
compare their conditions with those in the more developed countries.
The United States did not so urgently face a "revolution of rising
expectations" based on the knowledge that life is much better elsewhere.
The accepted concepts of natural or appropriate rights did not include
a justification of the lower classes' organized participation in the polity to
gain higher income, welfare support from the state, and the like. And
whatever the exaggeration in the effects frequently attributed to the
existence of an open land frontier, there can be little doubt that it con-
tributed to social stability.
Internal value cleavages, which frustrate contemporary new nations,
were comparatively less significant in young America. Shils points out
66 Karl W. Deutsch, S. A. Burrell, R. A. Kano, M. Lee, Jr., M. Lichterman,
R. E. Lindgren, F. L. Loewenheim, R. W. Van Wagenen, Political Cornmuriky
and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1957), p. 11.
92 America as a New Nation
that in today's new nations "the parochialism of kinship, caste and locality
makes it difficult to create stable and coherent nation-wide parties." 67
None of these parochialisms was as strong in the United States which
was formed by a relatively homogeneous population with a common
language, a relatively similar religious background (although denomina-
tional differences did cause some problems), and a common cultural
and political tradition.
American social structure did not possess those great "gaps" which, in
the contemporary new states, "conspire to separate the ordinary people
from their government." 68 The culture with which the educated identi-
fied contrasted less strongly with that of the uneducated. The ideology
in the name of which America made its revolution was less alien to
prevailing modes of thought than some of today's revolutionary creeds.
Perhaps most important, the class structure of America, even before
the establishment of the new nation, came closer to meeting the con-
ditions for a stable democracy than do those of the new nations of our
time or, indeed, than those of the Old World at that time. Writing
shortly before Independence was finally attained, Crfcvecoeur, though
sympathetic to the Tory cause, pointed up the egalitarianism of American
society:
The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as
they are in Europe. ... A pleasing uniformity of decent competence
appears throughout our habitations. ... It must take some time ere
he [the foreign traveler] can reconcile himself to our dictionary,
which is but short in words of dignity, and names of honor. . . .
Here man is as free as he ought to be; nor is this pleasing equality so
transitory as many others are. 69
The ability to work the institutions of a democratic nation requires
sophistication both at the elite level and the level of the citizenry at large.
And as Carl Bridenbaugh has well demonstrated, the America of revolu-
tionary times was not a colonial backwater. 70 Philadelphia was the second
largest English city only London surpassed it in numbers. Philadelphia
67 Edward Shils, "The Military in the Political Development of the New
States" in John J. Johnson, The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped
Countries (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 14.
/AH, p. 29.
69 J. Hector St. John Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer (New
York: Dolphin Books, n. d.), pp. 46-47.
70 Carl Bridenbaugh, Rebels and Gentlemen, Philadelphia in the Age of Frank-
lin (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1942).
Formulating a National Identity 93
and other colonial American capitals were centers of relatively high
culture at this time: they had universities and learned societies, and their
elite was in touch with, and contributed to, the intellectual and scientific
life of Britain.
In this respect, the political traditions that the American colonists
held in common, were of particular importance since they included the
concept of the rule of law, and even of constimtionalism/Each colony
operated under a charter which defined and limited governmental powers.
Although colonial subjects, Americans were also Englishmen and were
thus accustomed to the rights and privileges of Englishmen. Through
their local governments they actually possessed more rights than did
most of the residents of Britain itself. In a sense, even before independ-
ence, Americans met a basic condition for democratic government, the
ability to operate its fundamental institutions. 71
It requires, not only efficient administration, but an independent
judiciary with high professional standards and, in all branches of
government, a scrupulous respect for rules, written and unwritten,
governing the exercise of power. What these rules are must be
known to more people than those who actually have the power
supposed to be limited by these rules, and it must be possible to
lodge effective complaints against those people who are suspected
of breaking the rules. This means that there must be, in the broad
sense, constitutional government. 72
In many contemporary new nations, a potentially politically powerful
military class, who have a patriotic, national outlook, may use the army
to seize power if it becomes impatient with civilian leadership. 73 When
the United States was seeking to establish a national authority, it was
not bedeviled by such a class. The entire army in 1789 consisted of 672
men; and even after a decade of threats of war, there were only 3,429
soldiers in 1800. The potential military strength was, of course, much
larger, for it included various state militia reserves. The latter, however,
were simply the citizenry, and as long as the government had the
loyalty of the general population, it had no need to fear its professional
soldiers. 74
71 See John Plamenatz, On Alien Rule and Self Government (New York:
Longman's, Green, 1960), pp. 47-48.
/&,!. 51.
73 Shils, "The Military . . . ," op. cit., p. 40.
74 James R. Jacobs, The Beginning of the U. 5. Army, 1783-1812 (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947); see also Deutsch, et al., Political
Community and the North Atlantic Area 9 p. 26.
94 America as a New Nation
Of great significance in facilitating America's development as a nation,
both politically and economically, was the fact that the weight of
ancient tradition which is present in almost all of the contemporary new
states was largely absent. It was not only a ne^_nation, Jfc, was^a,jiew
society, much less bound to the customs and values of the past than
any nation of Europe. Crevecoeur well described the American as a
"new man," the likes of which had never been seen before. 75
Religion, of course, may be viewed as a "traditional" institution which
played an important role in the United States. But in the first half-decade
of the American Republic, as we have seen, the defenders of religious
traditionalism were seriously weakened, as the various state churches
Anglican in the South and Congregationalist in New England were
gradually disestablished. Moreover, the new United States was particularly
fortunate in the religious traditions which it did inherit. Cahdnistic
Puritanism, which was stronger in the colonies than in the mother
country, ^a&JiQt as "uncongenial to modernity? as are some of the
traditional beliefs inherited by~new mtiom today. A positive orientation
toward savings and hard work, and the strong motivation to achieve
high positions that derives from this religious tradition, have been seen
as causes of the remarkable economic expansion that made possible the
legitimation of equalitarian values and democratic government. Max
Weber, the most prominent exponent of the thesis that ascetic Protestant-
ism played a major role in the development of capitalism in the Western
world, argued that "one must never overlook that without the universal
diffusion of these qualities and principles of a methodical way of life,
qualities which were maintained through these [Calvinist] religious com-
munities, capitalism, today, even in America, would not be what it is 76
Calvinism's "insistence that one's works were signs of eternal grace or
damnation" has been transformed into a secular emphasis upon achieve-
ment. 77
75 "What then is the American, this new man . . . ? He is an American, who
leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones
from die new mode of life he has embraced. ... He becomes an American by
being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. The American is a
new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas
and form new opinions.'* Cr&vecoeur, Letters -from cm American Farmer ',
pp. 49-50.
76 Max Weber, "The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism," in Essays
in Sociology, translated by Hans Gerth and C. W. Mills (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1946), pp. 309, 313.
77 Robin Williams, American Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957),
p. 313.
Formulating a National Identity 95
Other Puritan influences on American development have perhaps not
been sufficiently emphasized. As Richard Schlatter has pointed out in a
recent summary of the researches on this subject, the Puritan tradition
involved a respect for learning which led to the establishment of schools
and universities on a scale that surpassed England. 78 The opportunities
for learning thus created, and the pressures for widespread education
that equalitarian values implied, 79 led to a wide distribution of literacy.
The census of 1840 reported only 9 per cent of the white population
twenty years old and over as illiterate. 80
' The Puritan tradition may also have made it easier to legitimize Ameri-
can democracy as the rule of law. Tocqueville saw the special need of an
egalitarian and democratic society for a self-restraining value system
that would inhibit the tyranny of the majority, a function supposedly
once fulfilled in the European societies by a secure and sophisticated
aristocratic elite. In a democracy only religion could pky this role,* tend
therefore the less coercive the political institutions of such a society, the
more it has need for a system of common belief to help restrict the
actions of the rulers and the electorate. As he put it:
But the revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible
respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not permit
78 Richard Schlatter, "The Puritan Strain," in John Higham, ed., The Recon-
struction of American History (New York: Harper & Bros., 1962), pp. 39^42.
See also Bernard Bailyn, Education in the Forming of American Society
(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1960), for a discussion
of the influence which the multiplication of numerous sects by the eve of
the Revolution had upon the spread of education. The promotional and prop-
agandizing possibilities of education made it an instrument of survival among
competing sects. "Sectarian groups, without regard to the intellectual com-
plexity of their doctrine or to their views on the value of learning to religion,
became dynamic elements in the spread of education, spawning schools of all
sorts, continuously, competitively in all their settlements; carrying education
into the remote frontiers." Bailyn, pp. 40-41.
79 "What strikes one most forcibly about the Puritans* efforts in education is
the expectation of uniformity. Every family, without regard to its fortunes
and the accomplishment of its head, and every town, without regard to its
condition or resources, was expected to provide an equal minimum of edu-
cation for who, in what place, should be exempt from the essential work of
life? . . . the quest for salvation . . . this was an occupation without limit,
in the proper training for which all were expected to join equally, without
regard to natural ability and worldly circumstance." Bailyn, op. cit., p. 8L
80 Bureau of the Census, A Statistical Abstract Supplement, Historical Statistics
of the E7.S. Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington: 1957), p. 214. The census
of 1840 was the first to report literacy.
96 America as a New Nation
them to violate wantonly the laws that oppose their designs; nor
would they find it easy to surmount the scruples of their partisans
even if they were able to get over their own Thus while the law
permits Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them
from conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what is rash or un-
just. 81
While Tocqueville pointed out that Catholicism was not necessarily
incompatible with democratic or egalitarian values, since "it confounds
all the distinctions of society at the foot of the same altar," he describes
the "form of Christianity" in early America as "a democratic and re-
publican religion." 82 It would indeed seem that the J3dvinistic-Puritan
tradition was particularly valuable in Jtraining^men to the sort of^ jdf-
restraint that Tocqueville felt was necessary for democracy. By making
every man God's agent, ascetic Protestantism made each individual
responsible for the state of morality in the society; and by making the
congregation a disciplinary agent it helped to prevent any one individual
from assuming that his brand of morality was better than others. 83
Puritanism had been associated with the movement of the squirearchy
for political recognition in England. As Trevelyan has put it:
Under Elizabeth the increasing Puritanism of the squires introduced
a new element. The fear and love of God began to strive with the
fear and love of the Queen in the breast of the Parliament men. . . .
Protestantism and Parliamentary privilege were already closely con-
nected, before even the first Stuart came to trouble [the] still
further seething waters [of Cromwell's rebellion]. 84
So that, as Schlatter has pointed out, the Puritan tradition implied a
concern for "constitutionalism and limited government," as well as a
belief "that they are a peculiar people, destined by Providence to live
in a more perfect community than any known in the Old World. . . ," 85
In establishing its identity, the new America quickly came to see
itself, and to be perceived by others, as a radical society in which con-
61 Tocqueville, Democracy in America y Vol. I, p. 316.
83 Williams, American Society, p. 312.
84 G. M. Trevelyan, History of England (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday
Anchor Books, 1954), Vol. II, pp. 143-144.
85 Schlatter, "The Puritan Strain," op. cit., p. 42.
Formulating a National Identity 97
servatism and traditionalism had no proper pjace. The religious tradi-
tions on which it drew stressed that it was to be different from European
nations. But its really radical character derived from its revolutionary
origins.
The political scientist Clinton Rossiter has described the effects of the
revolution on the political ideologies of the nation in explaining why
conservatism as a doctrine is weak in America:
The reason the American Right is not Conservative today is that
it has not been Conservative for more than a hundred years. . . .
Conservatism first emerged to meet the challenge of democracy.
In countries like England it was able to survive the rise of this new
way of life by giving way a litde at a time under its relentless
pounding, but in America the triumph of democracy was too
sudden and complete. It came to society as well as to politics; it
came early in the history of the Republic and found the opposition
only half dug in, ... The result was a disaster for genuine, old-
country Conservatism. Nowhere in the world did the progressive,
optimistic, egalitarian mode of thinking invade so completely the
mind of an entire people. Nowhere was the Right forced so abruptly
into such an untenable position. If there is any single quality that
the Right seems always and everywhere to cultivate, it is un-
questioning patriotism, and this, in turn, calls for unquestioning
devotion to the nation's ideals. The long-standing merger of
"America" and "democracy" has meant that to profess Conservatism
is to be something less than "one hundred per cent American";
indeed, it is to question the nation's destiny. Worse than that, this
merger has doomed outspoken Conservatism to political failure. 88
From Tocqueville and Martineau in the 1830's to Gunnar Myrdal in
more recent times, foreign visitors have been impressed by the extent
to which the values proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence have
operated to prescribe social and political behavior. And the legitimacy
which the American authority structure ultimately attained has been
based on the assumption that as a nation it is dedicated to equality and
to liberty, to the fn.lfiHme.nt of its original political objectives.
As Frank Thistiethwaite put it a few years ago:
In the mid-twentieth century the American people still pursue their
Revolutionary ideal: a Republic established in the belief that men
of good will could voluntarily come together in the sanctuary of an
86 Rossiter, Conservatism m America, pp. 201-202.
98 America as a New Nation
American wilderness to order their common affairs according to
rational principles; a dedicated association in which men participate
not by virtue of being born into it as heirs of immemorial custom,
but by virtue of free choice, of the will to affirm certain sacred
principles; a community of the uprooted, of migrants who have
turned their back on the past in which they were born; ... a society
fluid and experimental, uncommitted to rigid values, cherishing
freedom of will and choice and bestowing all the promise of the
future on those with the manhood to reject the past 87
87 Thisdethwaite, The Great Experiment, pp. 319-320.
STABILITY
IN THE MIDST
OF CHANGE
PART
II
A Changing
American
Character?
3
Two themes, equality and achievement, emerged from the interplay
between the Puritan tradition and the Revolutionary ethos in the early
formation of America's institutions. In this section the thesis is advanced
that the dynamic interaction of these two predominant values has been a
constant element in determining American institutions and behavior.
As we have seen, equalitarianism was an explicit part of the revolt
against the traditions of the Old World, while an emphasis upon succ^s
and hard work had long been a part of the Protestant ethic. In addition,
the need to maximize talent in the new nation's search to "overtake"
the Old World placed an added premium on an individual's achievement,
regardless of his social station. The relatively few changes that Andrew
Jackson made in the civil service, despite his aggressive equalitarian ethos,
and the fact that his appointments were well-trained, highly educated
men, show that ability was valued along with equality in the young
republic. 1
1 See Erik M. Erikkson, "The Federal Civil Service Under President Jackson,"
Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 13 (1927), pp. 517-540. Erikkson demon-
strates convincingly that Jackson did not inaugurate a spoils system, that
relatively few civil servants were fired after he took office. His conclusions
have been reiterated recently in a detailed analysis of the backgrounds of the
upper echelons of government under Jackson. Sidney Aronson agrees with
Erikkson that there was little turnover when Jackson took office. Both men
point to the fact that the changes introduced by Jefferson were about as great
102 Stability in the Midst of Change
The relationship between these themes of equality and success has been
complex. On the one hand, the ideal of equal opportunity institu-
tionalized the notion that success should be the goal of all, without ref-
erence to accidents of birth or class or color. On the other hand, in actual
operation these two dominant values resulted in considerable conflict.
While everyone was supposed to succeed, obviously certain persons were
able to achieve greater success than others* The wealth of the nation
was never distributed as equally as the political franchise. The tendency
for the ideal of achievement to undermine the fact of equality, and to
bring about a society with a distinct class character, has been checked
by the recurrent victories of the forces of equality in the political order.
Much of our political history, as Tocqueville noted, can be interpreted in
terms of a struggle between proponents of democratic equality and
would-be aristocracies of birth or wealth. 2
In recent years, many social analysts have sought to show how the in-
creasing industrialization, urbanization, and bureaucratization of American
society have modified the values of equality and achievement. In both the
1930's and the 1950's American social scientists were certain that the
country was undergoing major structural changes. In the 1930's they were
sure that these changes were making status lines more rigid, that there was
a movement away from achieved status back to ascribed status, and that
the equalitarian ethic was threatened as a consequence. 8 Such typical
writers of the 19SO's as David Riesman and William H. Whyte contend
that it is the achievement motive and the Protestant ethic of hard work that
are dying: they think that the new society prefers security, emotional sta-
bility, and "getting along with others." Riesman posits a transformation of
the American character structure from "inner direction" (i.e., responding
to a fixed internal code of morality) to "other direction" (i.e., responding
to demands of others in complex situations), 4 Whyte believes that values
as by Jackson. Aronson also demonstrates that Jackson's appointees were
highly qualified men, that most of them were college graduates in an age when
the total number of such graduates was insignificant. See Sidney Aronson,
Status and Kinship in the Higher Civil Service: The Administrations of John
Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson (doctoral dissertation, Colum-
bia University Department of Sociology, 1961).
2 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage Books,
1955), Vol. I, pp. 185-186.
3 These studies of the 1930's are discussed at the end of this chapter in more
detail.
4 David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1950).
A Changing American Character? 103
themselves have changed. He argues that the old value system of the
Protestant ethic, which he defines as the "pursuit of individual salvation
through hard work, thrift, and competitive struggle," is being replaced
by the "social ethic," whose basic tenets are a "belief in the group as the
source of creativity; a belief in 'belongingness' as the ultimate need of the
individual; and a belief in the application of science to achieve the
belongingness." 5
If the changes suggested by the critics of the 1930's or the 1950's were
occurring in the drastic form indicated in their books, then America no
longer could be said to possess the traits formed as a consequence of its
origin as a new nation with a Protestant culture. As I read the historical
record, however, it suggests that there is more continuity than change
with respect to the main elements in the national value system. This does
not mean that our society is basically static. Clearly, there have been
great secular changes industrialization, bureaucratization, and urbani-
zation are real enough and they have profoundly affected other aspects
of the social structure. Many American sociologists have documented
changes in work habits, leisure, personality, family patterns, and so forth.
But this very concentration on the obvious social changes in a society
that has spanned a continent in a century, that has moved from a predom-
inantly rural culture as recently as 1870 to a metropolitan culture in the
1950's, has introduced a fundamental bias against looking at what has been
relatively constant and unchanging.
Basic alterations of social character or values are rarely produced by
change in the means of production, distribution, and exchange alone.
Rather, as a society becomes more complex, its institutional arrangements
make adjustments to new conditions within the framework of a dominant
value system. In turn, the new institutional patterns may affect the social-
ization process which, from infancy upward, instills fundamental char-
acter traits. Through such a process, changes in the dominant value sys-
tem develop slowly or not at all. There are constant efforts to fit the
"new 3 ' technological world into the social patterns of the old, familiar
world.
In this section I examine the thesis that a fundamental change has oc-
curred in American society by treating three topics, each of which has
been widely discussed as reflecting important modifications in the basic
value system. This chapter deals with the arguments and evidence of
5 William H. Whyte, The Organization Man (New York: Simon & Schuster
1956).
104 Stability In the Midst of Change
chM>es ^ t ^ ie ' 3as ^ c predominant character traits of Americans .as sug-
gested by men like David Riesman and William Whyte. The following
chapter, 4, examines the evidence of major changes in religious participa-
tipnjandjbelief, since many have argued that American religion, the in-
stitution most closely identified with values, is much different from what
it was in the nineteenth century. And the last chapter of the section, 5,
analyzes an institution which has become significant only in this century,
and especially in the past three decades: the trade union. Trade unions
are given special treatment because the growth of these "class" organiza-
tions has suggested to some that the United States is finally entering the
era of working-class consciousness as a result of the hardening of class
lines, and that we are witnessing the end of the emphases on achievement
and equality.
In brief, I attempt in this section to present some of the evidence for
my thesis that it is the basic value system, as solidified in the early days of
the new nation, which can account for the kinds of changes that have
taken place in the American character and in American institutions as
these faced the need to adjust to the requirements of an urban, industrial,
and bureaucratic society.
Marcus Cunliffe has remarked on the American tendency to assert that
a wondrous opportunity has been ruined, "that a golden age has been tar-
nished, that the old ways have disappeared, or that they offer no useful
guide to a newer generation-" 6 He points out that, American belief to the
contrary, there has been surprising continuity in American history as
compared with the histories of European nations. This American propen-
sity to feel that the country is going through a major change at any
"present time" is related to an almost ^nJiereilLAnierican tendency to
beUev.e.that one Jias. been .cut off decisively from the jsait as
physical barrier." Cunliffe attributes this tendency to three main elements:
First it is a consequence of the undeniable fact of continuous and
rapid social change since the origins of settlement. This process has,
understandably, revealed itself in regrets and neuroses as well as in
pride and exuberance. Second, the tendency is rooted in the constant
American determination to repudiate Europe Europe equated with
the Past, in contrast with America as the Future and so to lose the
Past altogether. Third, the tendency is a consequence of the Amer-
ican sense of a society which is uniquely free to choose its own
destiny. The sense of mission, of dedication and of infinite possi-
6 Marcus Cunliffe, "American Watersheds," American Quarterly, 13 (1961),
pp. 479-494.
A Changing American Character? 105
bility, in part a fact and in part an article of faith, has led to acute
if temporary despairs, to suspicions of betrayal and the like, as well
as to more positive and flamboyant results, 7
In a sense, Cunliff e's analysis shows how some of the values we have
seen arising from America's revolutionary origins continue to be a part
of its image of itself. And perhaps more important, his observation that
there has been more_cpntinuity in American history than in European
history suggests that the values around which American institutions are
built have not changed abruptly. Others have pointed out that America
is an example of a country where social change does not have to destroy
the fabric of society, precisely because it is based upon an ideological
commitment to change. 8
- .-.-. 4J . --. * H*3
The thesis that the same basic values which arose in the American
Revolution have shaped the society under changing geographical and eco-
nomic conditions, has also been advanced by many historians. Thus Henry
Nash Smith has sought to show how the rural frontier settlements estab-
lished in the West on the Great Plains reflected not only the physical en-
vironment but also "the assumptions and aspirations of a whole society." 9
He has argued that revisions in the Homestead Act, which would have
permitted large farms and a more economical use of arid land, were op-
posed by the new settlers because they believed in the ideal of the family
farm. Walt Rostow suggests there is a "classic American style [which]
. . . emerged distinctively toward the end of the seventeenth century as
the imperatives and opportunities of a wild but ample land began to as-
sert themselves over various transplanted autocratic attitudes and institu-
tions which proved inappropriate to the colonial scene . . . [and] came
fully to life . . . after the War of 1812." And he further contends that
this style has not changed basically, since "the cast of American values
and institutions and the tendency to adapt them by cumulative experi-
ment rather than to change them radically has been progressively
strengthened by the image of the gathering success of the American ad-
venture." 10 Commager, writing of America in general, has said: "Circum-
7 Ibid., pp. 489-490.
8 Daniel Bell, "The Theory of Mass Society," Commentary, 22 (1956), pp. 75-83.
9 Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950), p. 124; for a similar point
see George W. Pierson, "The Frontier and American Institutions," New
England Quarterly, 15 (1942), p. 253.
10 W. W. Rostow, "The National Style," in Elting E. Morison, ed., The
American Style: Essays in Value and Performance (New York: Harper &
Bros., 1958), pp. 247, 259.
106 Stability in the Midst of Change
stances change profoundly, but the character of the American people has
not changed greatly or the nature of the principles of conduct, public
and private, to which they subscribe." 11 Three books dealing with Amer-
ican values, by Daniel Boorstin, Louis Hartz, and Ralph Gabriel, have
each, in a different way, argued the effective continuity of the fundamen-
tal ideals of the society. 12
The conclusions of these historians are affirmed also in a 'lexicographic
analysis of alleged American characteristics, ideals, and principles" re-
ported in a myriad of books and articles dealing with "the American
way." American history was divided for the purposes of the study into
four periods, "Pre-Civil War (to 1865), Civil War to World War (1866-
1917), World War to Depression (1918-1929), and Depression to present
(1930-1940)." For each period a list of traits alleged by observers was
recorded, and "when the lists for each of the four time periods were
compared, no important difference between the traits mentioned by
modern observers and those writing in the earlier periods of American
history was discovered." Among the traits mentioned in all four periods
were: "Belief in equality of all as a fact and as a right" and '^uniformity
and conformity." 13
The Unchanging American Character
Foreign travelers' accounts of American life, manners, and character
traits constitute a body of evidence with which to test the thesis that the
American character has been transformed during the past century and a
11 Henry Steele Commager, Living Ideas in America (New York: Harper &
Bros,, 1951), p. xviii. In the introduction to a collection of the writings of
foreign observers, Commager reported also that "a real unity emerges from
these heterogeneous selections . . . implicit in the material itself. ... To the
visitors of the seventeen-seventies and the nineteen-forties, America meant
much the same thing. America in Perspective (New York: Random House,
1947), p. xvi. (Emphasis in original.)
12 See Daniel Boorstin, The Genius of American Politics (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1953), and his The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (New
York: Holt, 1948); Louis M. Hartz, The Liberal Tradition in America: An
Interpretation of American Political Thought since the Revolution (New
York: Harcourt, Brace, 1955); and Ralph H. Gabriel, The Course of American
Democratic Thought (New York: Ronald Press, 1956). Boorstin sees these
values or basic premises as "naturalism." Hartz calls his version "liberalism,"
while Gabriel speaks of a "democratic faith" with three aspects.
13 Lee Coleman, "What is America? A Study of Alleged American Traits,"
Social Forces, 19 (1941), pp. 492-499.
A Changing American Character? 107
half. Their observations provide us with a kind of comparative mirror
in which we can look at ourselves over time. It is important to note,
therefore, that the type of behavior which Riesman and Whyte regard as
distinctly modern, as reflecting the decline of the Protestant Ethic, was
repeatedly reported by many of the nineteenth-century travelers as a
peculiarly American trait in their day. Thus the English writer Harriet
Martineau at times might be paraphrasing The Lonely Crowd in her
description of the American of die 1830's:
[Americans] may travel over the world, and find no society but
their own which will submit to the restraint of perpetual caution,
and reference to the opinions of others. They may travel over the
whole world, and find no country but their own where the very
children beware of getting into scrapes, and talk of the effect of
actions upon people's minds; where the youth of society determine
in silence what opinions they shall bring forward, and what avow
only in the family circle; where women write miserable letters,
almost universally, because it is a settled matter that it is unsafe to
commit oneself on paper; and where elderly people seem to kck
almost universally that faith in principles which inspires a free
expression of them at any time, and under all circumstances. . . .
There is fear of vulgarity, fear of responsibility; and above all,
fear of singularity. . . . There is something litde short of disgusting
to the stranger who has been unused to witness such want of social
confidence, in the caution which presents probably the strongest
aspect of selfishness that he has ever seen. The Americans of the
northern states are, from education and habit, as accustomed to
the caution of which I speak, as to be unaware of its extent and
singularity. * . .
Few persons [Americans] really doubt this when the plain case
is set down before them. They agree to it in church on Sundays, and
in conversation by the fireside: and the reason why they are so
backward as they are to act upon it in the world, is that habit and
education are too strong for them. They have worn their chains so
long that they feel them less than might be supposed. 14
Harriet Martineau is only one observer of early American life, and
not necessarily more reliable than others. But it is significant that her
comments on American "other-directedness" and conformism do not
flow, as do those of other nineteenth-century visitors who made com-
14 Harriet Martineau, Society m America (New York: Saunders and Oday,
1837), VoL HI, pp. 14-15, 17.
108 Stability in the Midst of Change
parable observations, from fear or dislike of democracy. Many upper-
class visitors, such as Tocqueville or Ostrogorski, saw here a threat to
genuine individuality and creativity in political and intellectual life, in
that democracy and equalitarianism give the masses access to elites, so that
the latter must be slaves to public opinion in order to survive. Harriet
Martineau, as a left-wing English liberal, did not come to America with
such fears or beliefs. She remained an ardent admirer of American
democracy, even though she ultimately decided that "the worship of
Opinion is, at this day, the established religion of the United States." 15
The most celebrated post-Civil War nineteenth-century English visitor
to America, James Bryce, saw inherent in American society "self-distrust,
a despondency, a disposition to fall into line, to acquiesce in the dominant
opinion. . . ." This "tendency to acquiescence and submission" is not to
be "confounded with the tyranny of the majority. . . . [It] does not
imply any compulsion exerted by the majority," in the sense discussed
by Tocqueville. Rather Bryce, like Harriet Martineau fifty years earlier,
described what he felt to be a basic psychological trait of Americans,
their "fatalism/* which involved a "loss of resisting power, a diminished
sense of personal responsibility, and of the duty to battle for one's own
opinions. . . ." 16
Although Harriet Martineau and James Bryce stand out among nine-
teenth-century visitors in specifying that these other-directed traits were
deeply rooted in the personalities of many Americans, the general
behaviors that they and Tocqueville reported were mentioned by many
other foreign travelers. For example, a summary of the writings of
English travelers from 1785 to 1835 states that one important characteris-
tic mentioned in a number of books "was the acute sensitiveness to
opinion that the average American revealed." 17 A German aristocrat, who
became a devotee of American democracy and a citizen of the country,
stated in the 1830's that "nothing can excite the contempt of an educated
European more than the continual fears and apprehensions in which even
the 'most enlightened citizens' of the United States seem to live with
regard to their next neighbors, lest their actions, principles, opinions and
beliefs should be condemned by their fellow creatures." 18 An interpreter
, p. 7.
16 James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (New York: Macmillan,
1912), Vol. H, pp. 351-352.
17 Jane L. Mesick, The English Traveller in America 1185-1835 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1922), p. 301.
18 Francis J. Grand, Aristocracy in America (New York: Harper Torch-
books, 1959), p. 162; see also pp. 52 and 157 for further comments.
A Changing American Character? 109
of nineteenth-century foreign opinion, John Graham Brooks, mentions
various other writers who noted the unwillingness of Americans to be
critical of each other. He quotes James Muirhead, the English editor of
the "Baedeker guide to the United States, as saying: "Americans invented
the slang word 'kicker, 7 but so far as I could see their vocabulary is here
miles ahead of their practice; they dream noble deeds, but do not do
them; Englishmen 'kick' much better without having a name for it."
Brooks suggested that it was the American "hesitation to face unpleasant
facts rather than be disagreeable and pugnacious about them, after the
genius of our English cousins, that calls out the criticism." 19
The observation that the early Americans were cautious and sensitive
has been made not only by foreign visitors but also, at different times,
by Americans as in fact many of the foreign authors report. In 1898,
the American writer John Jay Chapman echoed TocqueviUe's dictum of
seventy years before, that he knew "of no country in which there is so
little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America."
Chapman saw the general caution and desire to please as the source of
many of the ills of his day:
"Live and let live," says our genial prudence. Well enough, but
mark the event. No one ever lost his social standing merely because
of his offenses, but because of the talk about them. As free speech
goes out the rascals come in.
Speech is a great part of social life, but not the whole of it. Dress,
bearing, expression, betray a man, customs show character, all these
various utterances mingle and merge into the general tone which is
the voice of a national temperament; private motive is lost in it.
This tone penetrates and envelops everything in America. It is
impossible to condemn it altogether. This desire to please, which
has so much of the shopman's smile in it, graduates at one end of the
scale into a general kindliness, into public benefactions, hospitals, and
college foundations; at the other end it is seen melting into a desire
to efface one's self rather than give offense, to hide rather than be
noticed.
In Europe, the men in the pit at the theatre stand up between
the acts, face the house, and examine the audience at leisure. The
American dares not do this. He cannot stand the isolation, nor the
publicity. The American in a horse car can give his seat to a lady,
but dares not raise his voice while the conductor tramps over his
toes. 20
19 J. G. Brooks, As Others See Us (New York: Macmillan, 1908), p. 95.
20 The Selected Wrmngs of John Jay Chapman, Jacques Barzun, ed. (New
York: Doubleday Anchor, 1959), p. 278.
110 Stability in the Midst of Change
Although these accounts by travelers and American essayists cannot
be taken as conclusive proof of an unchanging American character, they
do suggest that the hypothesis which sees the American character
changing with respect to the traits "inner-" and "other-directedness"
may be incorrect.
The Unchanging American Values and Their
Connection with American Character
The foreign travelers were also impressed by the American insistence
on equality in social relations, and on achievement in one's career. Indeed,
many perceived an intimate connection between the other-directed be-
havior they witnessed and the prevalence of these values, such that the
behavior could not be understood without reference to them. An analysis
of the writings of hundreds of British travelers in America before the
Civil War reports: "Most prominent of the many impressions that
Britons took back with them [between 1836 and 1860] was the aggres-
sive egalitarianism of the people." 21 If one studies the writings of such
celebrated European visitors as Harriet Martineau, the Trollopes (both
mother and son), Tocqueville, or James Bryce, it is easy to find many
observations documenting this point 22
Baedeker's advice to any European planning to visit the United States
in the kte nineteenth or early twentieth century was that he "should,
from the outset, reconcile himself to the absence of deference, or servility,
on the part of those he considers his social inferiors." 28 A detailed exami-
nation of the comments of European visitors from 1890 to 1910 reports
general agreement concerning the depth and character of American
equalitarianism:
21 Max Berger, The British Traveller in America, 1836-1860 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1943), pp. 54-55.
22 For some detailed citations and references see S. M. Lipset, "Stability in the
Midst of Change,'* The Social Welfare Forum, 1959 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1959), pp. 16-18. See also Commager, America in Perspec-
tive, pp. xvir-xviL
^Quoted by Philip Burne-Jones, Dollars and Democracy (London: Sidney
Appleton, 1904), p. 69. Burne-Jones agrees with Baedeker and tells his English
readers to follow his good advice, because he who "doesn't do so ... will
probably live in a perpetual state of indignation and annoyance . . . [since
Americans at every social level think] that they are really every bit as good
as you are, in a country where all social distinctions are supposed to be non-
existent."
A Changing American Character? Ill
Whether they liked what they saw or not, most foreign observers
did not doubt that America was a democratic society. . . . Different
occupations of course, brought differences in prestige, but neither
the occupation nor the prestige implied any fundamental difference
in the value of individuals. . . . The similarity of conclusions based
on diverse observations was simply another indication of the absence
of sharp class differences. Even hostile visitors confirmed this judg-
ment. Some foreign observers found the arrogance of American
workers intolerable. 24
Even today this contrast between Europe and America with respect
to patterns of equality in interpersonal relations among men of different
social positions is striking. A comparison of writings of European visitors
at the turn of this century with those made by British groups visiting
here to study American industrial methods since World War n states that
"the foreign descriptions of * . . America in 1890 and 1950 are remarkably
similar. . . . The British teams [in the 1950's reported] ... the same
values . . . which impressed visitors a half century ago. Like them they
found the American worker is more nearly the equal of other members of
society than the European, with respect not only to his material prosperity,
but also to ... the attitudes of others toward him." 25 And this attitude
is apparent at other levels of American society as well. As one com-
mentator put it when describing the high-status Europeans who have
come to America in recent years as political refugees from Nazism and
Communism:
With his deep sense of class and status, integration in American
society is not easy for the emigre. The skilled engineer or physician
who . . . finally establishes himself in his profession, discovers that
24 Robert W. Smuts, European Impressions of the American Worker (New
York: King's Crown Press, 1953), pp. 3-7. It is interesting to note the similar-
ity between the complaints of presumably conservative upper-class Europeans
of the 1890's who found "the arrogance of American workers intolerable"
and the complaint of Frances Trollope in 1830 concerning that "coarse
familiarity, untempered by any shadow of respect, which is assumed by the
grossest and lowest in their intercourse with the highest and most refined," or
that of her son Anthony who visited America in 1860 and objected that "the
man to whose service one is entitled answers one with determined insolence."
See Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Whit-
taker, Treacher, 1832), p, 109, and Anthony Trollope, North America (New
York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), p. 77.
25 Smuts, European Impressions of the American Worker, p. 54.
112 Stability in the Midst of Change
he does not enjoy the same exalted status that he would have had in
the old country. I met several young Croatian doctors in the Los
Angeles area who were earning $25,000 to $35,000 a year, but still
felt declassed, 26
American emphasis on equalitarianism as a dominant value is significant
in determining what to many of the Europeans were three closely related
processes: Competition, status uncertainty, and conformity. Tocqueville,
for example, argued that equalitarianism maximizes competition among
the members of a society. 27 But if equalitarianism fosters competition for
status, the combination of the two values of equality and achievement
results, according to many of the travelers, in an amorphous social struc-
ture in which individuals are uncertain about their social position. In fact,
those travelers who were so impressed with the pervasive equalitarianism
of American society also suggested that, precisely as a result of the
emphasis on equality and opportunity, Americans were more status-
conscious than those who lived in the more aristocratic societies of
Europe. They believed, for example, that it was easier for the nouveaux
riches to be accepted in European high society than in American.
British travelers before the Civil War noted that Americans seemed to
love titles more than Englishmen. European observers, from Harriet
Martineau and Frances Trollope in the 1830's to James Bryce in the
1880's 28 and Denis Brogan in recent years, have pointed out that the
actual strength of equality as a dominant American value with the
consequent lack of any well-defined deference structure linked to a
legitimate aristocratic tradition where the propriety of social rankings
is unquestioned forces Americans to emphasize status background and
symbolism. 29 As Brogan has remarked, the American value system has
2*Bogden Raditsa, "Clash of Two Immigrant Generations," Commentary, 25
(1958), p. 12.
27 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. n, p. 146. See also Smuts, Euro-
pean Impressions of the American Worker, p. 13.
28 For citations and references in the foreign travel literature, see Lipset,
"Stability in the Midst of Change," op. cit., pp. 32-35,
29 "It is only an apparent contradiction in terms to assert that the fundamental
democratic and egalitarian character of American life is demonstrated by the
ingenuity and persistence shown in inventing marks of difference and symbols
of superiority. In a truly class-conscious and caste-dominated society, the marks
of difference are universally recognized even if resented. In America they must
be stressed, or they might easily be forgotten, and they must be added to, as the
old standards of distinction cease to serve their purpose. Apart from the
A Changing American Character? 113
formed "a society which, despite all efforts of school, advertising, clubs
and the rest, makes the creation of effective social barriers difficult and
their maintenance a perpetually repeated task. American social fences
have to be continually repaired; in England they are like wild hedges,
they grow if left alone." 30
"SSfu^ttrnn^ and the resultant conformism have not been limited
solelyT or even primarily, to the more well-to-do classes in American
society. Many of the early nineteenth-century travelers commented on
the extent to which workers attempted to imitate middle-class styles of
life. Smuts notes that visitors at the turn of this century were struck by
' Vhat they regarded as the spend-thrift pattern of the American worker's
life"; Paul Bourget, a French observer, interpreted this behavior as
reflecting "the profound feeling of equality [in America which] urges
simple economic criterion of conspicuous display, there are no generally ac-
cepted marks of social difference in America. And modern salesmanship makes
clothes, cars, and personal adornment far more alike than was possible in the
old days of belated styles and the Model T Ford. It is worth noting that the
main stress of American class distinction is put on 'exclusiveness.* In a society
without formal public recognition of difference in rank, with a poor and
diminishing stock of reverence for hereditary eminence, and with a constant
rise to the top of the economic system of new men amply provided with the
only substitute for hereditary eminence, wealth, it becomes extremely dif-
ficult to make 'society' anything but the spare-time activities of the rich. It
is characteristic that it is in cities whose days of economic advance are over,
in Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, that it has proved easiest to keep out the
newcomers." Denis W. Brogan, U. S. A.: An Outline of the Country, Its Peo-
ple and Institutions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941), pp. 116-117.
30 Denis W. Brogan, The English People (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1943),
p. 99. Gabriel Almond has commented in the same vein. "In a seme America
is a nation of parvenus. A historically unique rate of immigration, social and
geographic mobility has produced a people which has not had an opportunity
to 'set,' to acquire the security and stability which come from familiar ties,
associations, rights, and obligations. ... In more stably stratified societies the
individual tends to have a greater sense of location,* a broader and deeper
identification with his social surroundings. [The American pattern, con-
sequently,] leaves the individual somewhat doubtful as to his social legitimacy.
. . ." The American People and Foreign Policy (New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1950), pp. 63-64. (Emphasis mine.)
An American historian, Rowland Berthoff, has also noted recently: "The
evidence is already becoming plain that status striving is no latter-day
degeneracy of Americans: rather . . . such insecurity was a by-product of
excessive mobility." "The American Social Order: A Conservative Hypoth-
esis," American Historical Review, 65 (1960), p. 512.
114 Stability in the Midst of Change
them to make a show." As Werner Sombart, the German sociologist and
economist, put it, "since all are seeking success . . . everyone is forced
into a struggle to beat every other individual; and a steeple-chase
begins . . . that differs from all other races in that the goal is not fixed
but constantly moves even further away from the runners." And in an
equalitarian democracy "the universal striving for success [becomes a
major cause of] ... the worker's extravagance, for, as Miinsterberg [a
German psychologist] pointed out, the ability to spend was the only
public sign of success at earning." 31 And lest it be thought that such
concerns with conspicuous consumption emerged only in the Gilded Age
of the 1890's as analyzed by Veblen, sixty years earlier a medical study
of the "Influence of Trades, Professions, and Occupations, in the United
States, in the Production of Disease," described and analyzed behavior in
much the same terms:
The population of the United States is beyond that of other coun-
tries an anxious one. All classes are either striving after wealth, or
endeavoring to keep up its appearance. From the principle of
imitation which is implanted in all of us, sharpened perhaps by the
existing equality of conditions, the poor follow as closely as they
are able the habits and manner of living of the rich. . . . From these
causes, and perhaps from the nature of our political institutions, and
the effects arising from them, we are an anxious, care-worn people. 32
While some Europeans explained American behavior that they found
strange the sensitivity, kindliness, concern for others' feelings, and moral
81 Smuts, European Impressions of the American Worker, p. 13.
82 Benjamin McCready, "On the Influence of Trades, Professions, and Oc-
cupations in the United States, in the Production of Disease," Transactions
of the Medical Society of the State of New York (1836-1837), III, pp.
146-147. It is interesting to note the congruence between this report and
Tocqueville's comments about the same period. He noted: "In America I saw
the freest and most enlightened men placed in the happiest circumstances that
the world affords; [yet] it seemed to me as if a cloud hung upon their brow,
and I thought them serious and almost sad, even in their pleasures.
"The chief reason for this contrast is that the former [the peasants in
Europe] do not think of the ills they endure, while the latter [the Americans]
are forever brooding over advantages they do not possess. It is strange to see
with what feverish ardor the Americans pursue their own welfare, and to
watch the vague dread that constantly torments them lest they should not
have chosen the shortest path that leads to it." Tocqueville, Democracy in
America, VoL n, p. 144.
Riesman apparently overlooked this observation of Tocqueville's, since he
suggests that things have changed "since Tocqueville wrote . . . [in] that
A Changing American Character? 115
meekness by reference to the nature of political democracy or the over-
bearing desire to make money, others saw these jraits as consequences of
the extreme emphasis on equality of opportunity, the basic American
value which they properly regarded as unique. Many argued that this
very emphasis on equality, and the constant challenging of any pretensions
to permanent high status, has made Americans in all social positions
extremely sensitive to the opinions of others, and causes status aspirants
greater anxiety about the behavior and characteristics indicative of rank
than is the case with their counterparts in more aristocratic societies.
Discussing the writings of various travelers, John Graham Brooks states:
One deeper reason why the English are blunt and abrupt about their
rights ... is because class lines are more sharply drawn there.
Within these limits, one is likely to develop the habit of demanding
his dues. He insists on his prerogatives all the more because they
are narrowly defined. When an English writer ( Jowett) says, 'We
are not nearly so much afraid of one another as you are in the
States," he expressed this truth. In a democracy every one at least
hopes to get on and up. This ascent depends not upon the favor of
a class, but upon the good-will of the whole. This social whole has
to be conciliated. It must be conciliated in both directions at the
top and at the bottom. To make one's self conspicuous and dis-
agreeable, is to arouse enmities that block one's way. 33
One may find an elaboration of this causal analysis among many
writers at diflferent periods. Thus Max Weber, after a visit to America
in the early 1900's, noted the high degree of "submission to fashion in
America, to a degree unknown in Germany'* and explained it in terms
of the lack of inherited class status. 34 Seven decades earlier another
the sphere of pleasure has itself become a sphere of cares." The Lonely
Crowd, p, 148.
Herbert Spencer and Matthew Arnold made similar observations about
work and play in post-Civil War America. Gabriel Almond cites Spencer as
reporting that in America, "Exclusive devotion to work has the result that
amusements cease to please; and when relaxation becomes imperative, life
becomes dreary from lack of its sole interest the interest in business," and
states that Arnold felt that Americans **were extremely nervous because of
excessive worry and overwork." Almond, The American People and Foreign
Policy, pp. 34-35.
38 Brooks, As Others See Us, p. 97.
34 H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in
Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 188.
116 Stability in the Midst of Change
German, Francis Grund, who saw in American equality and democracy
the hope of the world, nevertheless also believed that the ambiguous
class structure made status-striving tantamount to conformity. He
presents both sides of the picture in the following items:
Society in America ... is characterized by a spirit of exclusiveness
and persecution unknown in any other country. Its gradations not
being regulated according to rank and tide, selfishness and conceit
are its principal elements . . * What man is there in this city [New
York] that dares to be independent, at the risk of being considered
bad company? And who can venture to infringe upon a single rule
of society?
This habit of conforming to each other's opinions, and the penalty
set upon every transgression of that kind, are sufficient to prevent
a man from wearing a coat cut in a different fashion, or a shirt
collar no longer a la mode, or, in fact, to do, say, or appear any-
thing which could render him unpopular among a certain set. In no
other place, I believe, is there such a stress laid upon "saving ap-
pearances." 35
James Bryce, a half-century later, also linked-^anforHiity to the
ambiguity of the status system, particularly as it affected the wealthy
classes. Hepointed out that it was precisely the emphasis on equality, and
35 Grund, Aristocracy in America, pp. 52, 157. In describing the emerging
America of pre-Civil War days, Dixon Wecter reports that "already in the
making was that peculiarly American psychology symbolized in the great
caravans moving westward of keeping up with one's neighbors, of regard-
ing solitude and independence as a litde eccentric, if not dangerous. In busi-
ness and mechanics the most daring of innovators, the American was already
developing that social and personal timidity, that love of conformity, which
is the hallmark of the parvenu'' The Saga of American Society (New York:
Scribner's, 1937), p. 103; see also his comments on p. 314.
In an essay concerning early Kansas, written in 1910, the historian Carl
Becker pointed to the interrelationship of intolerance, individualism, and
equalitarianism in American behavior. He asserted that intolerance has been
fundamental in the American character. American individualistic values, ac-
cording to Becker, stress personal achievement, rather than eccentricity; con-
formity has always been a prerequisite to success. And he notes, as did many
of the nineteenth-century foreign travelers, that Americans have tolerated
different religions, but have been intolerant of irreligion. See Carl L. Becker,
"Kansas," in his Everyman His Oivn Historian (New York: Appleton-Cen-
tury-Crofts, 1935), pp. 1-28.
A Changing American Character? 117
the absence of well-defined rules of deference, which made Americans
so concerned with the behavior of others and seemingly more, rather than
less, snobbish toward each other than were comparably placed English-
men.
It may seem a paradox to observe that a millionaire has a better
and easier social career open to him in England, than in America.
... In America, if his private character be bad, if he be mean or
openly immoral, or personally vulgar, or dishonest, the best society
may keep its doors closed against him. In England great wealth,
skillfully employed, will more readily force these doors to open.
. . . The existence of a system of artificial rank enables a stamp to be
given to base metal in Europe which cannot be given in a thoroughly
republican country. 36
In comparing the reactions of Englishmen and Americans to criticism,
James Muirhead (the editor of the American Baedeker) stated that "the
Briton's indifference to criticism is linked to the fact of caste, that it
frankly and even brutally asserts the essential inequality of man. . . .
Social adaptability is not his [the Briton's] foible. He accepts the con-
ventionality of his class and wears it as an impenetrable armor." 37
A number of the foreign travelers, particularly those who visited
America after the 1880's, were startled to find overt signs of anti-
Semitism, such as placards barring Jews from upper-class resorts and
social clubs which denied them membership. 38 But this, too, could be
perceived as a consequence of the fact that "the very absence of titular
distinction often causes the lines to be more clearly drawn; as Mr.
Charles Dudley Warner says: TPopular commingling in pleasure resorts
is safe enough in aristocratic countries, but it will not answer in a
republic.' " 39 The most recent effort by a sociologist, Howard Brotz, to
account for the greater concern about close contact with Jews in
America than in England, also suggests that "in a democracy snobbishness
can be far more vicious than in an aristocracy."
36 James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, p. 815.
37 James Fullerton Muirhead, America, the Land of Contrasts: A Britorfs View
of His American Kin (London: Lemson, Wolffe, 1898), p. 91.
38 Andrew J. Torrielli, Italian Opinion on America as Revealed by Italian
Travelers, 1850-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941),
p. 99.^
39 Muirhead, America, the Land of Contrasts, p. 27.
118 Stability in the Midst of Change
Lacking that natural confirmation of superiority which political
authority alone can give, the rich and particularly the new rich, feel
threatened by mere contact with their inferiors. . . . Nothing could
be more fantastic than this to an English lord living in the country
in the midst, not of other peers, but of his tenants. His position is
such that he is at ease in the presence of members of the lower
classes and in associating with them in recreation. ... It is this
"democratic" attitude which, in the first instance, makes for an
openness to social relations with Jews* One cannot be declassed, so to
speak, by play activities. 40
The intimate connection between other-directedness and equalitarian
values perceived by these observers recalls the same connection noted
by Plato in his theoretical analysis of democracy. In The Republic we
find these words:
[In a democracy, the father] accustoms himself to become like his
child and to fear his sons. . . . Metic [resident alien] is like citizen
and citizen like metic, and stranger like both. . . . The school-
master fears and flatters his pupils. . . . The young act like their
seniors, and compete with them in speech and action, while the old
men condescend to the young and become triumphs of versatility
and wit, imitating their juniors in order to avoid tie appearance of
being sour or despotic. . . . And the wonderful equality of law
and . . . liberty prevails in the mutual relations of men and
women . . . the main result of all these things, taken together, is that
it makes the souls of the citizens so sensitive that they take offense
and will not put up with the faintest suspicion of slavery [strong
authority] that anyone may introduce. 41
Plato's analysis points up the main question to which this chapter is
addressed: Are the conformity and the sensitivity to others "other
directedness" observed in the contemporary American character solely
40 Howard Brotz, "The Position of the Jews in English Society," Jewish
Journal of Sociology, 1 (1959), p. 97. Writing twenty years earlier Dixon
Wecter also suggested that "the present anti-Semitism of Society as expressed
in visiting lists, club memberships, and personal attitudes is markedly keener
in die United States than in England or France, where Rothschilds, for
example, seem to find virtually no doors barred against them. It is probably
an aspect of that insecurity, that timidity and conventionalism which looms
so large in our social picture." The Saga of American Society, p. 152.
41 Plato, The Republic, Ernest Rhys, ed. (London: J. M. Dent, 1935), pp.
200-226.
A Changing American Character? 119
a function of the technology, and social structure of a bureaucratic, in-
dusgializecLurban society, as Riesman and Whyte imply, or are they
also to some considerable degree an expected consequence of a social
system founded upon the values of equality and achievement? It seems
that sociological theory, especially as expounded by Max Weber and
Talcott Parsons, and much historical and comparative evidence, lend
credence to the belief that the basic value system is at least a major, if
not the pre-eminent, source of these traits.
As Plato noted, and as the foreign travelers testify, democratic man
is deeply imbued with the desire to accommodate to others, which
results in kindness and generosity in personal relations, and in a reluctance
to offend. All books that are published are "exalted to the skies," teachers
"admire their pupils," and flattery is general. 42 The travelers also bear
out Plato's remarks about the socialization of children in a democracy.
It appears that equalitarian principles were applied to child-rearing early
in the history of the republic. Early British opinions of American chil-
dren have a modern flavor:
The independence and maturity of American children furnished an-
other surprise for the British visitor. Children ripened early. . . .
But such precosity, some visitors feared, was too often achieved
at the loss of parental control. Combe claimed that discipline was
lacking in the home, and children did what they pleased. Marryat
corroborated this. . . . Children were not, whipped here [as in
England], but treated like rational beings. 43
42 Martineau, Society in America, VoL ffl, pp. 63-64.
43 Berger, The British Traveller in America, pp. 83-84. Dixon Wecter, who
relied more on the French foreign visitors, detailed similar comments and
reached the same conclusions: "Indeed without some mention of the dictator-
ship of the young, any chapter on American manners would be incomplete.
No other country in the world has made so much of its children, or given
them so free a hand in shaping its customs. ... As early as Revolutionary
times, French visitors in the more aristocratic households like the Schuylers',
for example, reported that children were 'spoiled' and 'self willed.* Yet social
precosity was one evident result of the attention paid them: Bayard describes
the master of a country house near Winchester, Virginia, where, 'dinner
hour having sounded, we sat down at a round table, his daughter, nine years
old, doing the honors very gracefully in the absence of her mother.'" And
Wecter goes on to report that throughout the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, "the surprise of visitors from abroad over the autocracy of our
youth has never ceased." The Saga of American Society, pp. 191-192.
120 Stability in the Midst of Change
Harriet Martineau's description of child-rearing in the America of
Andrew Jackson sounds like a commentary on the progressive other-
directed parent of the mid-twentieth century:
My [parent] friend observed that the only thing to be done [in
child-rearing] is to avoid to the utmost the exercise of authority, and
to make children friends from the very beginning- . . . They [the
parents] do not lay aside their democratic principles in this relation,
more than in others. . . , They watch and guard: they remove
stumbling blocks: they manifest approbation and disapprobation:
they express wishes, but, at the same time, study the wishes of their
little people: they leave as much as possible to natural retribution:
they impose no opinions, and quarrel with none: in short, they
exercise the tenderest friendship without presuming upon it. ...
the children of Americans have the advantage of the best possible
early discipline; that of activity and self-dependence. 44
What struck the democratic Miss Martineau as progressive was inter-
preted quite differently by Anthony Trollope, who visited this country
in 1860: "I must protest that American babies are an unhappy race. They
eat and drink as they please; they are never punished; they are never
banished, snubbed, and kept in the background as children are kept with
us." 45 And forty years later, another English visitor, typical of the many
who described American child-parent relations during a century and a
half, tells us that nowhere else, as in America, "is the child so constantly
in evidence; nowhere are his wishes so carefully consulted; nowhere is he
allowed to make his mark so strongly on society. . . . The theory of the
equality of man is rampant in the nursery. , . . You will actually hear an
American mother say of a child of two or three years of age: 'I can't
induce him to do this. . . .' " 46
44 Martiaeau, Society in America, pp. 168, 177. See also Arthur W. Calhoun,
A Social History of the American Family from Colonial Times to the
Present (Cleveland: The Arthur H. dark Co., 1918), Vol. II, pp. 63-64. For a
thorough documentation of child-centeredness in the nineteenth-century
American family, see Anne L. Kuhn, The Mother's Role in Childhood Edu-
cation: New England Concepts, 1830-1860 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1947).
45 Anthony Trollope, North America, p. 142; for similar comments see also
J. S. Buckingham, America: Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive (New York:
Harper & Bros., 1841), pp. 362-363; J. Boardman, America and the Americans
(London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1833), p.
156; Brooks, As Others See Us, pp. 48-50.
46 Muirhead, America, The Land of Contrasts, pp. 67-68. (Emphasis in
original.)
A Changing American Character? 121
If these reports from the middle and late nineteenth century are
reminiscent of contemporary views, it is still more amazing to find, in a
systematic summary of English travelers' opinion in the last part of the
eighteenth and early years of the nineteenth centuries, that the emphasis
on equality and democracy had already created the distinctive American
child-oriented family which astonished the later visitors:
A close connection was made by the stranger between the re-
publican form of government and the unlimited liberty which was
allowed the younger generation. . . . They were rarely punished at
home, and strict discipline was not tolerated in the schools. ... It
was feared that respect for elders or for any other form of authority
would soon be eliminated from American life. . - . As he could not
be punished in the school, he learned to regard his teacher as an
inferior and to disregard all law and order. 47
Equality was thus perceived by many of the foreign travelers as
affecting the socialization of the child not only within the family but
in the school as well. The German psychologist Hugo Miinsterberg
joins the late-eighteenth-century visitors in complaining, over a cen-
tury later in 1900, that "the feeling of equality will crop up where
nature designed none, as for instance between youth and mature years.
. . . Parents even make it a principle to implore and persuade their chil-
dren, holding it to be a mistake to compel or punish them; and they
believe that the schools should be conducted in the same spirit." 48 Various
visitors were struck by the extent to which the schools did carry out
this objective. The following description by an Englishman of schools in
the New York area in 1833 sounds particularly modern:
The pupils are entirely independent of their teacher. No correction,
no coercion, no manner of restraint is permitted to be used. * .
Parents also have as little control over their offspring at home, as
the master has at school. . - . Corporal punishment has almost dis-
47 Mesick, The English Traveller in America, pp. 83-84. A detailed summary
of the opinion of foreign travelers concerning the indulgent, child-centered,
pre-Qvil War family may be found in "The Emancipation of Childhood,"
in Calhoun, A Social History of the American Family, Vol. n, pp. 50-77.
Calhoun also tells us that the freedom of children was "attributed ... to
the spirit of republicanism. . . . All men are sovereigns. Personality is exalted;
and the political status overflows and democratizes family institutions." Ibid.,
p. 53.
48 Hugo Miinsterberg, The Americans (New York: McQnre, Phillips, 1904),
p. 28.
122 Stability in the Midst of Change
appeared from American day-schools; and a teacher, who should
now give recourse at such means of enforcing instruction, would
meet with reprehension from the parents and perhaps retaliation
from his scholars. 4 *
Tocqueville also found examples of the American's mistrust of author-
ity "even in the schools," where he marveled that "the children in their
games are wont to submit to rules which they have themselves estab-
lished" 50
The educational policies which have become linked with the name
of John Dewey and labeled "progressive education" actually began in a
number of school systems around the country long before Dewey wrote
on the subject: "To name but one example, the lower schools of St.
Louis had adopted a system intended to develop spontaneously the
inventive and intellectual faculties of the children by the use of games
and with no formal teaching of ideas, no matter how practical." 51
The Inadequacy of a Materialistic Interpretation of Change
Many of the foreign observers referred to above explained the other-
directedness and status-seeking of Americans by the prevalence of the
twin values of equality and achievement. Character and behavior were
thus explained by values. They pointed out that the ethic of equality
not only pervaded status relations but that it influenced the principal
spheres of socialization, the family, and the school, as well.
Both Whyte's and Riesman's arguments, in contrast, explain character
and values by reference to the supposed demands of a certain type of
economy and its unique organization. The economy, in order to be
productive, requires certain types of individuals, and requires that they
hold certain values. In the final analysis, theirs is a purely materialistic
interpretation of social phenomena and is open to the criticisms to which
such interpretations are susceptible.
The inadequacy of such an explanation of change in values and social
character is best demonstrated by comparative analysis. British and
Swedish societies, for example, have for many decades possessed oc-
cupational structures similar to that of America. Britain, in fact, reached
49 Isaac Fidler, Observations in Professions, Literature, Manners and Emi-
gration, in the United States and Canada, Made During a Residence There in
1832 (New York: J. and J. Harper, 1833), pp. 40-41.
50 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. I, p. 198.
51 Torriefli, Italian Opinion on America, p. 115.
A Changing American Character? 123
the stage of an advanced industrial society, thoroughly urbanized, where
the majority of the population worked for big business or government,
long before any other nation. The occupational profiles of Sweden,
Germany, and the United States have been similar for decades. If the
causal connection between technology and social character were direct,
then the patterns described as typical of "other-direction" or "the organi-
zation man" should have occurred in Great Britain prior to their occur-
rence in the United States, and should now be found to predominate in
other European nations. Yet "other-direction" and the "social ethic"
appear to be pre-eminently American traits. In Europe, one sees the
continued, even though declining, strength of deferential norms, enjoining
conformity to class standards of behavior.
Thus, comparative analysis strikingly suggests that the derivation of
social character almost exclusively from the traits associated with oc-
cupational or population profiles is invalid. So important an element in
a social system as social character must be deeply affected by the
dominant value system. For the value system is perhaps the most
enduring part of what we think of as society, or a social system. Com-
parative history shows that nations may still present striking differences,
even when their technological, demographic, or political patterns are
similar. Thus it is necessary to work out the implications of the value
system within a given material setting while always observing, of
course, the gradual, cumulative effect that technological change has upon
values.
In attempting to determine how American values have been inter-
twined with the profound changes that have taken place in American
society, it is not sufficient to point out that American values are
peculiarly congenial to change. Although equality and achievement have
reinforced each other over the course of American history, they have
never been entirely compatible either. Many of the changes that have
taken place in family structure, education, religion, and "culture," as
America has become a "modern" society, have manifested themselves
in a constant conflict between the democratic e^piaUrmsuiism, proclaimed
as a national ideal in the basic documents of the American Revolution,
and the strong emphasis on competition, success, and the acquisition of
status the achievement orientation which is also deeply embedded in
our national value system.
Richard Hofstadter has urged the recurring pattern of value conflict
and continuity in commenting on papers presented at a conference on
changes in American society:
12 4 Stability in the Midst of Change
Culturally and anthropologically, human societies are cast in a
great variety of molds, but once a society has been cast in its mold
Mr. Rostow is right that our mold as a nation was established by the
early nineteenth century the number of ways in which, short of
dire calamity, it will alter its pattern are rather limited. I find it
helpful also to point to another principle upon which Mr. Rostow
has remarked the frequency with which commentators find socie-
ties having certain paradox polarities in them. . . . We may find in
this something functional; that is, Societies have a need to find ways
of checking their own tendencies. In these polarities there may be
something of a clue to social systems. . . .
Mr. Kluckhohn's report contains some evidence that we have
already passed the peak of this shift about which I have been speak-
ing. I find some additional evidence myself in the growing revolt of
middle-class parents against those practices in our education that
seem to sacrifice individualism and creativity for adjustment and
group values. Granted the initial polarities of the success ethic,
which is one of the molds in which our society is cast, this ethic must
in some way give rise, sooner or later, to a reaction. ... I do not
think that we must be persuaded that our system of values has
ceased to operate. 62
The analyses of American history and culture in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, by both foreign and native interpreters, often differ
according to whether they stress democracy and equality, or capitalism
and achievement Generally, conservatives have found fault with the
decline of individuality and the pampering of children, and have seen
both as manifestations of democracy and equality; while liberals have
noted, with dismay, tendencies toward inequality and aristocracy, and
have blamed them upon the growth of big business. These contrary
political philosophies have also characterized the interpretation of Ameri-
can culture that predominates at any given period. Arthur Schlesinger,
Sr., has even tried to measure the systematic characteristic duration of
the "epochs of radicalism and conservatism [that] have followed each
other in alternating order" in American history. 58
A cursory examination of the numerous differences between the con-
52 Richard Hofstadter, "Commentary: Have There Been Discernible Shifts
in Values During the Past Generation?" in Elting E. Morison, ed., The
American Style: Essays in Value and Performance (New York: Harper &
Bros., 1958), p. 357. (Emphasis mine.)
63 Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., New Viewpoints in American History (New
York: Macmillan, 1922), p, 123.
A Changing American Character? 125
elusions of American social scientists in the 1930's and in the 1950's shows
the way in which interpretations of American culture vary with social
conditions. Writers of the 1930's amassed evidence of the decline of
equalitarianism and the effect of this on a variety of institutions. Karen
Horney in The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, for example, named
anxiety over chances of economic success as the curse of what she, with
many of her contemporaries, regarded as a completely pecuniary, achieve-
ment-oriented culture dominated by the giant corporations. Such analysts
as Robert S. Lynd, and W. L. Warner all agreed that the egalitarian
emphasis in American democracy was declining sharply under the growth
of the large-scale corporation, mono^^-^pitalism, and economic com-
petition. 54 They asserted categoriaJ^r35tmobility had decreased, and
Warner predicted the development of rigid status lines based on family
background.
Twenty years later, these interpretations are almost unamimously-rj^
jeqtgfl. Warner himself in one of his most recent works, shows that
chances of rising into the top echelons of the largest corporations are
greater than they were in the 1920's. 55 As indicated earlier in this
chapter, typical writers of the 1950's are concerned that the emphasis on
achievement in American society may be dying out.
In large measure, the difference between writers of the two decades
reflects the contrast between the economic circumstances of the times.
The depression of the 1930's inclined intellectuals toward an equalitarian
radicalism, which condemned capitalism and achievement orientation as
the source of evils. Even a conservative like Warner was led to emphasize
the growth of inequality and the restriction of opportunity. The pros-
perity of the 1950's, however, renewed the legitimacy of many con-
servative institutions and values, and discredited some of the innovations
of the previous decades. The social analyses of the 1950's, even those
written by men who still considered themselves liberals or socialists,
involved at least a critique of the radical excesses of the former period,
if not a critique of equalitarian values themselves. Perhaps the similarity
in attitudes between the analysts of the 1950's and many of the foreign
travelers of the last century is due to the fact that most of the European
54 Robert S. Lynd, Knowledge for What? (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press; 1940), p. 75; Harold Laski, The American Democracy (New
York: Viking Press, 1948); W. L. Warner and Paul S. Lunt, The Social Life
of a Modem Community (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1941).
55 W. L. Warner and J. C. Abegglen, Occupational Mobility in American
'Business and Industry (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1953).
126 Stability in the Midst of Change
visitors have been conservatives, or members of the elite of much more
aristocratic societies, and the modern Americans reflect the post-war
revival of conservative values.
While Riesman and Whyte would deny that their works contain
conservative value preferences, and insist that they are simply analyzing
changes, it seems fairly evident that like the more elitist travelers of the
nineteenth century, they deplore many of the dominant trends. They
point to the spread of progressive education, with its disbelief in rewards
for hard work, as illustrating the decay of the Protestant ethic, and they
assume, as a result of this, a decline in the opportunity for developing
creativity. Whyte points to the shift in scientific research from individual
to group projects, which in his opinion are less creative. Neither
Riesman nor Whyte explicitly asserts that there is more conformity now
than in the past, for the reason that men have always conformed to the
values of die day; but both argue that contemporary values and
personality traits emphasize accommodation to others, while the declining
Protestant ethic and the inner-directed character structure stressed con-
formity to a fixed rule of conduct rather than to the fluctuating actions
and moods of others. 56
This reaction against the apparent decline of the Protestant ethic of
56 It is ironic to note that most contemporary discussions which employ
Weber's concept of the Protestant ethic to typify a certain type of behavior,
which is then contrasted with other-directed behavior, ignore the fact that,
to Weber, one of the significant components distinguishing ascetic Protestant-
ism, and particularly Calvinism, from other religious ethics was precisely its
use of the need to conform to the judgment of others as a means of enforcing
discipline: "The member of the sect (or conventicle) had to have qualities
of a certain kind in order to enter the community circle. ... In order to
hold his own in this circle, the member had to prove repeatedly that he was
endowed with these qualities. . . . According to all experience there is no
stronger means of breeding traits than through the necessity of holding one's
own in the circle of one's associates. . . . The Puritan sects put the most
powerful individual interest of social self-esteem in the service of this breed-
ing of traits ... to repeat, it is not the ethical doctrine of a religion, but that
form of ethical conduct upon which premiums are placed that matters. . . .
The premiums were placed upon 'proving* oneself before God in the sense of
attaining salvation which is found in all Puritan denominations and 'prov-
ing' oneself before men in the sense of socially holding one's own within
the Puritan sects." A key difference between the Puritans and the Lutherans
and Catholics, in Weber's judgment, lies in this extensive use of an appeal to
"social self-esteem" or the power of group opinion by the former, and
imposing religious discipline "through authoritarian means" and punishing or
placing premiums on "concrete individual acts," by the latter. Gerth and Mills,
eds,, From Max Weber, pp. 320-321.
A Changing American Character? 127
achievement and hard work, which has become a dominant theme among
the intellectual middle class of the 1950's and early 1960's, should be
viewed as the counterpart of the concern with the seeming breakdown of
equality which moved comparable groups in the 1930's. The differences
in the concerns of the two periods illustrate the important point that
although the equalitarian ethos of the American Revolution and the
achievement orientation of the Protestant ethic are mutually supporting,
they also involve normative conflict. Complete commitment to equality
involves rejecting some of the implications of valuing achievement; and
the opposite is also true. Thus, when the equalitarianism of left or liberal
politics is dominant, there is a reaction against achievement, and when
the values of achievement prevail in a conservative political and economic
atmosphere, men tend to depreciate some of the consequences of equality,
such as the influence of popular taste on culture.
The supremacy of equalitarian values and liberal politics in the 1930's
was reflected in the school system in the triumph of progressive edu-
cation, a cause always associated with left-of-center leaders and ideologies;
in industry, by the introduction of the human relations approach as an
attempt to "keep the worker happy"; and in the society at large by
efforts toward a general redistribution of goods and services. Social
scientists and others interested in family structure criticized the sup-
posedly typical middle-class family as too authoritarian and rigid in its
treatment of children, suggesting that, in contrast to the more democratic
and affectionate working-class family, it bred "authoritarian" and "neu-
rotic" personalities. Popular psychology saw the "competitive personality"
of our time as the source of many personal and social evils. Historians
pictured the creators of American industry as "robber barons" and as
irresponsible exploiters of American resources.
This equalitarian liberalism was perhaps strongest in the school system,
where educators carried the ideal of equal treatment to a point where
even intellectual differences were ignored. Special encouragement of the
gifted child was regarded as an unfair privilege that inflicted psychic
punishment on the less gifted: personality adjustment for all became the
objective. In New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, the militant progres-
sive mayor, abolished Townsend Harris High School a special school
for gifted boys in which four years of work was completed in three
on die grounds that the very existence of such a school was undemo-
cratic, because it conferred special privileges on a minority.
In the prosperous 1950's and 1960's, these tendencies have been almost
completely reversed- Big business and business careers once more have
become legitimate. The Republicans held office in the 1950's, and cen-
128 Stability in the Midst of Change
trists rather than liberals dominate the revived Democratic Party of the
1960's. Although Keynesian economics has remained official govern-
ment policy, and is still supported by most economists, some leading
members of that profession have emerged who oppose almost all govern-
ment intervention. 57 Studies of the social structure of the family have
reversed the findings of the 1930's, suggesting that it is the working-
class family that is more likely to be a source of "authoritarian" per-
sonality traits. Vulgarizations of the theses of Riesman and Whyte have
been published in many magazines and are cited at P.T.A. meetings all
over the country, where outraged middle-class parents demand a return
to "old-fashioned" methods of teaching, in which hard work is rewarded
and the gifted receive special attention. 58 Many middle-class parents
have placed their children in private schools. While the rapid growth
of private schools in large part stems from the increasing prosperity of the
country, it also reflects the desire of middle-class parents that their
children receive an elite education.
The political battle between the reactions stemming from the pre-war
depression and those reflecting the post-war prosperity, between equality
and achievement, has been most conspicuously joined today in the
debate over schools. As the "progressive educationalists" begin to counter-
attack, they appeal specifically to the values of equality and democracy.
A speech by Professor A. Harry Passow of Columbia University Teach-
ers' College attacked a proposal to create twenty-five elite high schools
for gifted children in the following terms: "It is a perversion of democ-
racy to set aside certain youngsters and give them privileges which
automatically set them apart as an elite group of society. It goes against
the basic idea of American education, which is to give all children an
equal opportunity for the best possible education." 59
57 For example, Milton Friedman of the University of Chicago even advocates
that the entire educational system from elementary school on up be placed
under private ownership, since only through economic competition can we
be assured of securing the best system.
58 It should be noted again that the available evidence does not confirm the
assumptions that educational standards have declined, as judged by the
records and abilities of entering college freshmen over a thirty-year period.
In addition, more teenagers are learning Greek and Latin and foreign lan-
guages now than in 1900, largely as a result of the great spread of educational
facilities, though it is true that the proportion of students studying classical
tongues has declined greatly.
59 See "Plan of Schools for *Elite' Scored," The New York Times, March 25,
1958, p. 25.
A Changing American Character? 129
A leading expert, who has testified before Congressional committees for
the past twenty years or more concerning the need for educational re-
search, once reported that when a committee was discussing research
on underprivileged or mentally deficient children, the Democrats on the
committee would exhibit great interest; but when the committee turned
to the question of the gifted child, the Republicans perked up and the
Democrats sat back. The two parties did not, of course, oppose each
other formally on these questions, since both favored research on all
questions; but Republicans were simply more interested in achievement,
or the problem of the gifted child, while Democrats were more interested
in equality, or the problem of the underprivileged.
To stress the coincidence of these differing interpretations of Ameri-
can social trends with the political and economic cycle is not to suggest
that they are simply ideological reflections of material conditions or of
the climate of opinion. Most of them have pointed out genuine aspects of
the culture, and in so doing have improved our understanding of the
functions of different institutions and values. Both strands, the equalitarian
and the achievement-oriented, remain strong, but changing conditions
sometimes fortify one at the expense of the other, or alter the internal
content of each. Thus opportunity, as measured by the chances of success
in building up a major enterprise of one's own, has given way to op-
portunity measured by advancement in the bureaucratic elites. 60 The
politics of liberalism and equality have fostered institutional changes,
such as the constant spread of public education and of training facilities
within corporations, which have increased opportunities for advance-
ment.
Conclusion
This chapter essentially has urged that a materialistic interpretation of
American society sharply underestimates the extent to which basic
national values, once institutionalized, give shape to the consequences of
60 It should be noted, however, that the desire and the number of attempts
to start one's own small business certainly do not seem to have abated in
this country, unless past rates were fantastically high. Survey studies indicate
that the majority of American workers have drought of going into business,
and that a fifth of them actually have once owned a small business. Con-
versely, of those in small businesses, 20 per cent have previously been
manual workers. S. M. Lipset and R. Bendix, Social Mobility in Indusmd
Society (Berkeley: University of Calif ornia Press, 1959), p. 102.
130 Stability in the Midst of Change
technological and economic change. 61 Clearly, many nations may be
described as urbanized, industrialized, and capitalist, but they vary con-
siderably in their status systems, their political institutions, parent-child
relations, and so forth. The absence of a feudal past, with a concomitant
emphasis on equality of manners and of opportunity, has played a major
role in differentiating American behavior from that of other nations.
On the other hand, it may be argued that the entire Western world has
been moving in the American direction in their patterns of class relation-
ships, family structure, and "other-directedness," and that America, which
was democratic and equalitarian before industrialization, has merely led
the way in these patterns. Thus, at any given time, the differences be-
tween America and much of Europe may have remained constant, but
this difference might have represented little more than a time kg.
If one compares the America of the 1960's with the America of the
1880's or the 1830's one would undoubtedly note changes in the direction
suggested by Riesman. The vast majority of early- and mid-nineteenth-
century Americans were self-employed and lived on farms or in small
towns, while today most people are employees and live in cities. This
change alone has many consequences along the lines suggested by The
Lonely Crowd:
We can contrast the small grocer who must please his individual pa-
trons, perhaps by a "counter-side manner," with the chain-store
employee who must please both the patrons and his co-workers. . . .
61 In this discussion I have not been concerned with the truth of Riesman's
description of the changes in technology and in the nature of the economy.
One must be warned, however, against overestimating the drastic and far-
reaching nature of these changes. For example, the common image of profes-
sional occupation is that they are increasingly embedded in bureaucratic
structures, while they were formerly free of such structures. While this may
be true of some professions, it is not true of others. Daniel Calhoun, in his
recent study of American civil engineers, argues: "When a twentieth-cen-
tury writer describes the earlier engineer as 'free and named on his own
shingle, 7 he was slipping into a romantic notion of nineteenth-century society.
This notion applies not to the typical nineteenth-century engineer, but to the
exceptional or cantankerous individual. Almost as soon as American internal
improvements became extensive enough to give the civil engineer much
employment, the engineer became an organization man, a respectable member
of a bureaucracy." See Daniel Hoven Calhoun, The American Civil Engineer:
Origiw and Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Technology Press, 1960), pp. 194-
195. Calhoun's reference is to C. Wright Mills' description of the engineer
in White Cottar. But when Riesman speaks of die inner-directed man as
"wanting to build a bridge, to run a railroad," (The Lonely Crowd, p. 120),
he presumably has the image of the engineer in the back of his mind.
A Changing American Character? 131
The colleague, like the peer-grouper, is the very person with whom
one engages in competition for die scarce commodity of approval
and the very person to whom one looks for guidance as to what is
desirable. 62
The entrepreneur becomes an "other-directed person [who] gives up the
one-face policy of the inner-directed man for a multiface policy that he
sets in secrecy and varies with each set of encounters." 63 An employee
has less freedom and motivation to be individualistic than does the self-
employed. Farm and small-town dwellers know each other as total human
beings rather than as actors in specific relations, and are presumably less
motivated to exhibit status-seeking or to seek the good opinion of those
whom they have known all their lives and who are "significant others" in
a variety of limited contexts. 64 Residents of small communities are judged
by their total background and personal history and by any specific set of
62 P. 140. (Emphasis mine.)
^ Ibid., p. 147.
64 However, it should be noted that an early history of the state of Illinois,
written by a man who pioneered in the state, reports that the desire to be
admired by others at the major social event of the week, Sunday church
services, played an important role in stimulating general ambition: "For this
advancement in civilization, the young people were much indebted to their
practice of attending church on Sundays. Here they were regularly brought
together at stated times; and their meeting, if it affected no better end, at least
accustomed them to admire and wish to be admired. Each one wanted to make
as good a figure as he could; and to that end came to meeting well-dressed and
clean. . . . With pride of dress came ambition, industry, the desire of knowl-
edge, and a love of decency. It has been said that civilization is a forced state
of mind, to which [man] is stimulated by a desire to gratify artificial wants.
. . ." Thomas Ford, History of Illinois (Chicago: S. Q Griggs, 1854), pp.
95-96.
In contrast, Albert Blumenthal emphasized that "putting on a front" in
order to lay claim to a higher social status than one is entitled to is usually
unsuccessful in a small town. He stated, "He who would indulge in pretense in
Mineville must be very cautious lest he be wasting his time or be making
himself a target for scorn, ridicule, or amusement. To be sure, a certain
amount of bluffing can be done since, after all, persons have some privacy,
even in Mineville. But this bluffing must not be of a sort that easily can be
uncovered, for the people have litde patience with pretenders. Persons long
in the community know that there is scant use for them to *put on front'
of the more obvious sort such as by the wearing of fine clothes or the
purchasing of a cosdy automobile. ... By a ferreting-out process the people
soon discover whether or not a newcomer 'has anything to be stack up
about." 5 Small-Town Stuff (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932),
pp. 104-105.
132 Stability in the Midst of Change
acts. As many sociological studies of such communities have revealed,
they tend to have a relatively static status system, permitting much less
social mobility than that occurring in large cities. Consequently, the res-
ident of the small town tends to be somewhat like the citizens of more
rigidly stratified European states. The awareness of the relative perma-
nence of status position reduces the anxiety to win the good opinion of
others that exists where status is less stable.
There can be little question that Riesman and Whyte are right also in
showing how bureaucratization and urbanization reinforce those social
mechanisms which breed other-directedness. Success in a bureaucracy,
and in the proliferating service occupations of modern society, depends
primarily on the ability to get along well with others.
But it cannot be stressed too often that these mechanisms operate
within the context of an historic American value-system and status struc-
ture that had also generated such traits in a non-bureaucratic and non-
urban society. Other-direction, or, to put it less dramatically, sensitivity
to the judgments of others, is an epiphenomenon of the American equali-
tarian ethos, of the opportunities for rapid status mobility, and of the gen-
eral growth of an urban, bureaucratic society. 65 The increasing complex-
ity introduced by industrialization and urbanization makes adherence to
a rigid normative code obsolete, because such a code cannot be used as a
guide to the great variety of situations confronting modern, bureaucratic
man. ThisJ^iesman and,Whjte have well noted. However, the greater
flexibility and need to adapt to others that are demanded by urban and
bureaucratic life add to an already existing disposition to be concerned
with the opinions of others, a disposition caused by equalitarianism and
by the emphasis placed on social mobility.
Even despite the changes brought about by urbanization and bureau-
65 In commenting on the analyses of various, more psychologically oriented,
writers who preceded Riesman in describing "other-directed" character
traits (which, however, they tended to explain psychologically rather than
sociologically, that is, by the patterns of child-rearing in die modern Ameri-
can family rather than by the structural changes that seemingly underlie
these changes in child-rearing), Gabriel Almond also points up the dual
causal pattern. "De Tocqueville attributed it [American confonnism] to
competitiveness and the equality of conditions of the American people. It is,
of course, both factors taken together. What Homey, Fromm and Mead have
done is to trace this and other tendencies from aspects of the culture, to
patterns of child rearing in the family, to adult behavior." Almond, The
American People and Foreign Policy, p. 43.
A Changing American Character? 133
cratization, Americans still, appear to be quite achievement oriented when
compared to persons from more jtatus-bound nations. Foreign travelers
are still strucE" by the individual American's striving to get ahead. 66 In-
deed, there is some evidence that the higher valuation placed on social
skills in present American socialization practices is precisely oriented to-
ward upward social mobility in contemporary society. A study compar-
ing British and American beliefs about socialization points out that while
it places "getting along with others" as the most important aim of sociali-
zation, the American pattern differs from the British in that it aims "at a
smoothly functioning individual, equipped for getting ahead with a varied
armament of social skills."* 7
Some evidence that achievement still ranks high in the United States
as compared to other nations may be seen in the data from a comparative
study of the attitudes of school youth in five countries the United States,
Norway, West Germany, England, and France. Surprisingly, at least so
far as concerns the expectations of the researchers, American children
were less "other-directed" than those in the European countries, except
Norway, as judged by their responses to the question: 'Would you rather
be the most popular person in your class or die one who gets the highest
grades?" Among both ten-year-olds and fourteen-year-olds, Americans
were more likely to prefer high grades to popularity than were German,
English, and French youth.
Another indicator of the relatively high level of concern for academic
achievement may be seen in the response to a question concerning anxi-
66 Arvid Brodersen comments in this way on the beliefs of prominent foreign
visitors about the typical value orientations of the American people: "[They]
repeated the pattern of positive-negative reciprocity stressing notions such as
'hard-working/ 'active,* and 'energetic' as well as 'materialistic,' 'ambitious,*
'rush all the time."' Arvid Brodersen, "Themes in the Interpretation of
America by Prominent Visitors from Abroad/' The Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, 295 (1954), pp. 21-32. Comments by
Indian students in America reflect the same traits. "They are constantly in a
hurry to get done whatever they are doing and give very litde thought to the
meaning of what they are doing. They see only the material values in life
get more money, get more luxuries. . . . Most [Indian students] are captivated
by the opportunities for an open class system with its ample chances to climb
on the basis of ability and work with the widespread sharing of a high
standard of living." Ruth Hill Useem and John Useem, "Images of the United
States and Britain Held by Foreign Educated Indians," The Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Studies, 295 (1954), pp. 73-82.
67 Maurice L. Farber, "English and American Values in the Socialization
Process," Journal of Psychology, 36 (1953), pp. 243-250.
134 Stability in the Midst of Change
Table I
Preference for Highest Grades Rather than Popularity among
Students in Five Nations
PER CENT PREFERRING HIGHEST GRADES
Nation 10 year olds 14 year olds Combined ages
Norway 86% 83% 85%
United States 82 63 73
West Germany 62 50 56
England 63 45 54
France 53 30 42
Source: George Gallup and Evan Hill, "Is European Education Better than Ours?"
The Saturday Evening Post, 233 (Dec. 24, I960), $ 70
ety over school examinations. American and French youth led in the
proportion who reported worrying about exams (63 per cent); Nor-
wegians were slightly less anxious as a group (60 per cent), while English
and German students showed considerably less concern (48 and 28 per
cent).**
Comparative evidence that achievement orientation and other-directed-
ness may, in fact, be mutually reinforcing has been presented by David
McClelland as a conclusion of his extensive comparative studies of the
psychological processes which are related to economic development. He
suggests that " 'other-directedness' is an essential feature of rapid eco-
nomic development even in its early stages, rather than a special feature
of advanced urban culture in the United States as Riesman suggests." 69 As
he puts it:
[W]hat a modern society needs for successful development is flexi-
bility in a man's role relationships. His entire network of relations
to others should not be traditionally determined by his caste or even
his occupational status. . . . The transition to the new order is cer-
tainly likely to be helped if people can learn to listen to what "other
people" say is the right thing to do. 70
68 George Gallup and Evan Hill, "Is European Education Better than Ours?"
The Saturday Evening Post, 233 (Dec. 24, 1960), p. 73.
6& David C. McClelland, The Achieving Society (Princeton, N.J.: Van
Nostrand, 1961), p. 192.
A Changing American Character? 135
An increase in other-directedness helps facilitate economic development
by making individuals more receptive to "the opinion of the 'generalized
other/ " It creates greater willingness to accept new norms or techniques,
and it helps reduce particularistic ties, thus facilitating the operation of
pure market criteria.
To test the hypothesis of the interrelationship of other-directedness
and achievement orientation, McClelland analyzed children's readers from
over thirty countries in 1925 and 1950 by coding the themes of the sto-
ries in terms of measures of other-directedness and achievement motiva-
tion. Countries were then classified as above or below the median score
for other-directedness and achievement motivation in each period. Na-
tions could be categorized as high on both dimensions, low on both, or
high on one and low on the other. Looking then at the various countries
and the extent to which they grew economically during the succeeding
years (as indicated by growth in electric power), McClelland found that
nations which were high on both factors greatly outperformed countries
which were low on both, '"whereas those that were high on one and low
on the other showed an average gain somewhere in between." 71
It may come as something of a shock to realize that more could
have been learned about the rate of future economic growth of a
number of these countries in 1925 or 1950 by reading elementary
school books than by studying such presumably more relevant mat-
ters as power politics, wars and depressions, economic statistics, or
government policies governing international trade, taxation, or pub-
lic finance. The reason apparently lies in the fact that the readers
reflect sufficiently accurately the motives and values of key groups
of men in a country which in the long run determine the general
drift of economic and political decisions and their effect on produc-
tivity. Economic and political policies are of course the means by
which economic change is brought about, but whether policies will
be implemented, or even decided on in the first place, appears to
depend ultimately on the motives and values of men as we have suc-
ceeded in detecting them in the stories which they think it is right
for their children to read. 72
The two orientations of other-directedness and achievement motivation,
therefore, may be viewed as mutually supportive, rather than, as Riesman
and Whyte suggest, mutually contradictory.
pp. 201-202.
p. 202.
136 Stability in the Midst of Change
The concern with specifying how various structural changes have weak-
ened the Protestant ethic or inner-directed traits in American life has led
Riesman and others sometimes to ignore the beneficial consequences of
these changes. Thus, I have pointed out elsewhere that while bureaucrati-
zation results in a heightened need to make personality adjustments to
win the esteem of colleagues and supervisors, it also sets bounds to arbi-
trary power. By establishing rules of fair treatment, and by reducing the
area of personal discretion in personnel policy, bureaucracy can reduce
the fear of the employer or of the supervisor. 78 Trade unions, found most
commonly under conditions of large industry, accurately reflect their
member's desires when their policies involve more, rather than less, bu-
reaucratization of factory life. (As an example of this, unions have sought
seniority rules in hiring, firing, and promoting, which increase bureaucrati-
zation and reduce arbitrary power.)
Similarly, it may be urged that some of the consequences of bureau-
cratization reinforce, rather than weaken, strong work and achievement
orientations, particularly but not exclusively 74 in the upper echelons
of white-collar and executive life. The shift from the family-owned com-
pany to the management-run corporation, as Whyte pointed out, has
made group activities and adjustment to group norms seem more impor-
tant than before. But whatever else group dynamics in industry may be
concerned with, it certainly provides an excellent way of getting men
to work hard for the company. Traditionally, it has been a postulate of
business management, and an empirical finding of industrial sociology,
that men do not work as hard as they are able when the rewards of their
work seem to be going to others. Holding other factors constant, no one
works so hard as the head of an organization, or the self-employed or
73 S. M. Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1960), p. 414.
74 In the midst of the greatest prosperity in history, the U.S. Census reported
that in the summer of 1957, three and a half million workers had two jobs,
with the second job averaging twelve hours per week. In Akron, Ohio,
where many rubber workers were on a six-hour day and a five-day week, at
relatively high pay, and where a sizable proportion of wives were employed,
it was estimated that among the men "from one in seven down to one in five
rubber workers holds a second full-time job. ... In addition, something like
40 per cent engage in some sort of part-time outside work . . . the shorter
day even with a higher pay scale, increases the number of men who obtain
second jobs . . ." August Heckscher, "Time, Work and Leisure/' Political
Research: Organization and Design (PROD), 1 (1958), p. 156.
A Changing American Character? 137
the creative professional who is directly rewarded for his labors. By ex-
tending the control of work to committees at different levels in the cor-
poration, contemporary American business has found a means of inculcat-
ing into a large number of people a sense of responsibility for the whole
organization. <c Non-owners" now feel individually responsible, and the
number of hard-working executives who never watch the clock, and
who take work home with them, has been enormously enlarged. Thus,
while other-direction may have increased, the motivation for com-
petition and hard work remains, because the best are chosen to move up
the bureaucratic hierarchy.
It is a peculiar paradox that the same structural processes may account
for diverse and even sharply conflicting tendencies. Many analyses of
American society have stressed the fact that individualism and conform-
ism, creative innovation and dominance by low-level mass taste, are out-
growths of identical forces. For example, the pronounced spread of
higher education and a high standard of living have caused an unprece-
dented increase in both die proportion of the population involved in
genuinely creative, intellectual activities, and the influence by the popu-
lace on the major expressions of art, literature, and drama. 75 Alexis de
Tocqueville was fully aware of these dual tendencies when he pointed
out that "the same equality that renders him [The American] independent
of each of his fellow citizens, taken severally, exposes him alone and un-
protected to the influence of the greater number. ... I very clearly dis-
cern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried
thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all." 76
Today, too, there are many trends making for an increase in autono-
75 Daniel Miller and Guy Swanson state, in their detailed study of changes
in the American family: "[W]e wish to urge that serious consideration be
given to the possibility advanced here that bureaucratization has begun to
provide a new level of security and comfort for Americans and a new sense
of participation in a responsible moral community. As a consequence, we are
less disposed than some commentators to see the growth of 'do-it-yourself
projects and of adult education and the apparent increase of interest in
morality and religion as symptoms of a population withdrawing from a
complicated and confusing world. Instead, we suggest that these may well
signify the seizing of newly available opportunities for self-expression in the
fine and practical arts, for the development of sophistication about leisure,
and for a confronting of the problems of the relations of man to his fellows
and to history." Daniel R. Miller and Guy E. Swanson, The Changing
American Parent (New York: John Wiley, 1958), p. 212.
76 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. I, p. 12.
138 Stability in the Midst of Change
mous behavior, in free choice. Various social scientists have recently
begun to document these countervailing tendencies, a phenomenon that
may reflect the ever-present cyclical pattern of social analysis. Rowland
Berthoff points to the seeming "gradual decline since 1920 of those make-
shift communities, the fraternal lodges," which were part of the associa-
tional pattern that impressed Tocqueville, and suggests that "the psychic
energy that Americans formerly expended on maintaining the jerry-built
framework of such 'institutions' as these has in our more assured insti-
tutional structure of recent years been freed, at least potentially, for the
creation of more valuable kinds of 'culture.' " He also infers that "the re-
cent popular success of books deploring the unworthiness of status striv-
ing indicates that Americans are throwing off this obsession and making
it, as in other societies, including preindustrial America, merely one con-
cern among many/' 77 Robert Wood suggests, in the same vein, that "the
pattern of inconspicuous consumption, the web of friendship, and the out-
going life that Whyte describes also have something of the flavor of a
renaissance. Although ^keeping down with the Joneses' may indicate
group tyranny, it is still better than keeping up with them. At least it
displays disapproval of overt snobbishness. . . . While Whyte finds pres-
sures for benevolent conformity, he also discovers brotherhood." 78 Daniel
Bell has argued that the growth in education, among other factors, has
reduced coafonpity. He comments that "one would be hard put to find
today the 'conformity' Main Street exacted of Carol Kennicott thirty
years ago. With rising educational levels, more individuals are able to
indulge a wider variety of interests," such as serious music, good books,
high-level FM radio, and the like. 79
It may be fitting to conclude this chapter with the paradox formu-
lated by Clyde Kluckhohn, who has suggested:
Today's kind of "conformity" may actually be a step toward more
genuine individuality in the United States. "Conformity" is less of a
personal and psychological problem less tinged wih anxiety and
guilt ... If someone accepts outwardly the conventions of one's
group, one may have greater psychic energy to develop and fulfill
one's private potentialities as a unique person. I have encountered no
77 Berthoff, of. tit., p. 512.
78 Robert Wood, Suburbia: Its People and Their Politics (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1959), p. 15.
79 Bell, "The Theory of Mass Society," op. cit., p. 82.
A Changing American Character? 139
substantial evidence that this "conformity" is thoroughgoing!/
"inward." 80
As status-seeking is the by-product of strong equalitarianism, so conform-
ity and other-directedness may permit, or even demand, inner autonomy.
The institution most intimately connected with the value system is, of
course, religion. And many have suggested that developments within the
American church establishment have reflected the increase in "other-
directed" traits. For example, the American's greater propensity to con-
form is alleged to explain why church membership is at an all-time high
point; men increasingly join churches because it is the expected thing to
do. I would question the extent to which change has occurred in Amer-
ican religious participation and belief. The next chapter, therefore, turns
to an examination of the evidence supporting the assumptions that such
major modifications have occurred, and seeks to account for some of the
persistent traits in American religion by relating them to continuities in
the essential values of the society.
80 Clyde Kluckhohn, "Have There Been Discernible Shifts in American
Values during the Past Generation?" in Elting E. Morison, ed., The Ameri-
can Style: Essays in Value and Performance, p. 187. This article is the best
single summary and reference guide to the various empirical studies of changes
in values in America.
Religion and
American
Values
4
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
It is widely assumed that structural changes inherent in industrialization
and urbanization, with consequent bureaucratization and an increase in
"other directedness," have resulted in two major changes in American
religious practice and belief. First it is argued that many more people
outwardly adhere to formal religion and attend church than ever before;
and second, that this increase in formal practice does not reflect greater
religiosity on the contrary, it is suggested that American religion itself
is now secularized, that it has increasingly adjusted to the sentiments of
the general society.
It is variously noted that much of religion has become a matter of
private ethical convictions; that the churches are active in secular
affairs; that religious observances have been losing their super-
natural or other-wordly character. It is said that religion in America
tends to be religion at a very low temperature. . . .*
These trends in American religion have been related to the urbanization
and suburbanization of American society that have taken place in the
twentieth century. When the different Protestant sects wece geograph-
ically isolated from each other, and when immigrant Catholics and Jews
1 Robin Williams, American Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957),
p. 344.
Religion and American Values 141
were segregated in urban slums, the differences in their fundamental
beliefs were relatively unimportant. Those who professed one set of
beliefs were insulated against encountering beliefs that contradicted
them. Now that no group is really isolated, the different professions of
faith in America exhibit "other-directed" traits by emphasizing what is
common in their beliefs. 2 Will Herberg points out that the interfaith
movement, which has been reasonably successful on a national level,
consists of pruning the transcendental beliefs of all three religions to
bring about greater harmony among them. 3
Recent changes in American society may have accentuated these aspects
of American religion much as they have reinforced "other-directed" traits
in the American character. However, I would suggest that, as in the case
of "character" traits discussed in the previous chapter, much of the
historical record indicates that these aspects have always distinguished
American religion from religion in other nations. American religion, like
all other institutions, has made major adjustments in response to changes
in the size and scope of the nation, but as the institution most intimately
linked with values it has shown the tenacity exhibited by the value
system itself. 4
All-Pervasiveness, a Consistent Characteristic of
American Religion
Widespread interest in religion is not a new aspect of American society.
For almost a century, prominent European visitors who wrote on Ameri-
can life have been unanimous in remarking on the exceptional religiosity
of the society. After his visit to America in 1830, Tocqueville com-
mented: ". . . there is no country in the world where the Christian
religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in
America." 5 Martineau in 1834, Trollope in 1860, Bryce in 1883, and
2 Ibid., pp. 344-345.
3 Will Herberg, Protestant Catholic Jew: An Essay in American Religious
Sociology (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), Chapter 10.
4 Talcott Parsons presents essentially the same thesis: c *Looked at by compari-
son with earlier forms, religion seems to have lost much. But . . . the
losses are mainly the consequence of processes of structural differentiation
in the society, which correspond to changes in the character of the religious
values themselves." Talcott Parsons, Structure and Process in Modern Societies
(Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1960), p. 320.
5 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage Books,
1954), Vol. I, p. 314.
142 Stability in the Midst of Change
Weber in 1904, all arrived at similar conclusions. 6 Their accounts agree
substantially with that of a historian's summary of the impressions of
pre-Qvil War English travelers who
pointed to the fact that America, though still largely a primitive
country, had as many churches as the British Isles, that religious as-
semblages were being held at one place or another practically all the
time; that large donations were constantly being made for religious
purposes. America, they concluded, was basically a very religious
country. . . . Church services were always crowded on Sundays. . . .
Church-going, reported Maxwell, was all the rage in New York. . . .
the high percentage of males in the audience was in sharp contrast
to their paucity at English services. 7
Religious practitioners reached similar conclusions. Thus Robert Baird,
an American Presbyterian minister who spent eight years in Europe
between 1835 and 1843, wrote on his return home:
In no other part of the world, perhaps, do the inhabitants attend
church in a larger proportion than in the United States; certainly no
part of the Continent of Europe can compare with them in that
respect. The contrast between the two must strike anyone who,
after having travelled much in the one, comes to see any of the
cities of the other. 8
Philip Schaff, a Swiss theologian who eventually emigrated to America,
reported in similar terms to German Lutheran bodies. He witnessed much
greater church attendance in New York and Brooklyn than in Berlin.
He stated unequivocally: "There are- in America probably more
awakened souls, and more individual effort and self-sacrifice for religious
purposes, proportionately, than in any other country, Scotland alone
perhaps excepted."*
6 Harriet Martineau, Society in America (New York: Saunders and Oday,
1837), n, p. 317; Anthony Trollope, North America (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1951), p. 277; James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (New
York: Macmillan, 1912), Vol. II, pp. 770, 778; H. H. Gerth and C. Wright
Mills, ed., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1946), pp. 302-303.
7 Max Berger, The British Traveller m America, 1836-1860 (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1943), pp. 133-134.
8 Robert Baird, Reli&on in America (New York: Harper & Bros., 1844), p.
188.
9 Philip Schaff, America: A Sketch of the Political^ Social, and Religious
Character of the United States of North America (New York: C. Scribner,
1855), pp. 94, 118.
Religion and American Values 143
And a German liberal foe of religion, who found the prevalence of
religious practice in America distasteful to his agnostic sentiments, testi-
fied to the same set of facts which he, like others, linked in a very
materialistic fashion to the effects of the separation of church and state:
Clergymen in America must . . . defend themselves to the last, like
other businessmen; they must meet competition and build up a trade,
and it's their own fault if their income is not large enough. Now is it
clear why heaven and hell are moved to drive the people to the
churches, and why attendance is more common here than anywhere
else in the world? 10
The statistical data which bear on the question also suggest that the
increase in church affiliation in recent times is not as significant as has
been claimed. The earliest quantitative estimates of religious adherence
in America that I have been able to locate are those reported in The
American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge which was
published regularly for some years beginning about 1830. These volumes
reported detailed statistics for members and adherents of the various
denominations. The membership data were taken from statements by the
different church groups while the estimates of the number of adherents
were derived from various unmentioned publications. In 1831 the total
number of adherents listed was 12,136,953, in 1832 the total was 12,496,-
953, and in 1837 it had risen to 14,585,000. Since in 1831 the total
national population was 13,321,000 and in 1837 it was 15,843,000, n these
data testify to an almost universal religious adherence by Americans in the
1830's, comparable to the results obtained by public opinion surveys in
the past few decades which report that almost every American identifies
with a given denomination.
In 1856 Robert Baird published statistical data which also differentiated
10 Karl T. Griesinger, "Lebende Bilder aus Amerika" (1858), a section of
which is translated in Oscar Handlin, ed., This Was America (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949), p. 261.
11 For estimates of religious adherence see William G. Ouseley, Remarks on
the Statistics and 'Political Institutions of the United States (Philadelphia:
Carey and Lea, 1832), p. 207; The American Almanac and Repository of
Useful Knowledge for the Year 1832 (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1832),
p. 156; The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the
Year 1838 (Boston: Charles Bowen, 1837), p. 172. For population statistics
see ILS. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States,
Colonial Times to 1951 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1960), p. 7.
144 Stability in the Midst of Change
between members and "those under the influence of the evangelical
denominations." The total identified with these groups was 17,763,000.
(The total population of the country at the time was 26,500,000.) These
figures do not include Catholics, Unitarians, Universalists, Mormons, Jews,
and various other small, non-evangelical groups. Without describing how
he obtained his estimate of over 17 million supporters of the evangelical
groups, Baird states: "Accuracy in such a calculation is hardly to be
expected, but I have taken the best data I could find, and doubt not that
the estimate I have made is not much wide of the truth. Including all the
evangelical 'Friends,' this estimate would fall but little short of eighteen
million." 12
While the obvious problems of reliability and validity involved in the
use of American church membership statistics make it difficult to reach
any conclusions, the available evidence does suggest that, from some time
early in American history down to the present, the United States has
experienced a continuous "boom" in religious adherence and belief.
These data and observations pose the problem of how to reconcile the
estimates concerning the general commitment to religion in the first half
of the nineteenth century with the various estimates reported in the
Year Book of American Churches which indicate a steep rise in member-
ship in religious groups, particularly in the twentieth century. 13 There are
many methodological problems concerning the reliability of any histori-
cal estimates of church membership, since all of them are presumably
based on voluntary replies of church officers to questionnaires, and it is
difficult to find out how the reports for much of the nineteenth century
were compiled. 14 To some considerable degree, however, the rapid growth
12 Baird, Religion in America (1856 edition), pp. 530-532.
13 Benson Y. Landis, ed., Year Book of American Churches (New York:
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 1961), p. 247.
14 The lack of reliability of church membership data, even in recent times,
has been pointed out in a critique of the statistics assembled by the Year Book
of American Churches, which indicates considerable growth in church mem-
bership since 1940. Winthrop Hudson concludes that the supposed boom
is "largely an illusion," Among the many problems with the statistics is the
fact that increases often reflect reports from denominations which had never
reported before, as well as peculiar and suspicious increases, the validity of
which are never questioned. For example "when the Christ Unity Church
was listed for the first time in the 1952 Year Book with 682,172 members,
it alone accounted for more than one-third of the 1,842,515 gain reported
that year. The following year, the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox
Greek Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, each with
Religion and American Values 145
in reported membership after 1890 is a result of the considerable increase
in the non-Protestant denominations, whose concept of a church member
differed greatly from those of the Protestants. These groups, largely
Catholic and Orthodox, reported as a member every person born in the
faith, regardless of age or religious status, while most Protestant denomi-
nations all through the nineteenth century only considered as members
those who had joined the church as adults, often after fulfilling a rigorous
set of requirements.
The discrepancy between the travelers* reports that most Americans
75,000 members, were listed for the first time. The year after that, five
bodies listed for the first time contributed 195,804 to the total increase in
church membership/ 7 Winthrop S. Hudson, "Are Churches Really Booming?"
The Christian Century, 72 (1955), p. 1494. A critique of the reliability of data
indicating Catholic growth may be found in B. G. Mulvaney, "Catholic Popu-
lation Revealed in Catholic Baptisms," American Ecclesiastical Review, 133
(1955), pp. 183-193. A number of large denominations simply report their
membership in round figures, such as one million for the Greek Orthodox.
Others have reported amazing differences from year to year such as "the
Romanian Orthodox Church, which reported an increase in the 1952 Year
Book from 390 to 50,000. What these figures mean can best be seen in terms
of a single year's report. The greatest gain in church membership that has been
reported was in 1952 3,604,124. For this year, nine bodies with a total mem-
bership of 335,528 were listed for the first time. The Russian Orthodox
Church reported an increase of membership from 400,000 to 750,000; the
Churches of Christ, an increase from 209,615 to 1,500,000; Christ Unity
Science Church, from 682,172 to 1,112,123. (The following year die Christ
Unity Science Church reported a farther 469,163 increase, making a total
gain of 1,581,286 for the three year period.) These items alone account for
2,405,864 of the 3,604,124 gain in church membership for the year. If one
subtracts the reported gain in Roman Catholic membership [which is also very
dubious], all other religious bodies are left with no increase in membership,
to say nothing of keeping up with the increase in population." A further
difficulty rests in the extensive geographical mobility in the United States
which "may have resulted in ... duplications of church membership, with
many people joining a new church \vithout removing their names from
the roll of the old church. Some spot checks of membership have tended
to confirm this conjecture." Hudson, op. cit. 3 p. 1495.
A detailed look at the data provided by the twelve largest affiliates of
the National Council of Churches, who together account for 30 million of
the 35 million affiliated to the Council, indicates that their membership,
relative to total population, actually "declined" between 1940 and 1954, the
period dealt with by Hudson. He concludes that far "from offering 'proof
of a boom in church membership, the statistics . . . show that the boom is
largely a fiction." Ibid., p. 1496.
146 Stability in the Midst of Change
attended church regularly and the relatively small proportion of the
population who actually belonged to a church may be accounted for by
the fact that during this period most of those who attended churches
did not belong to a given denomination. Baird, for example, described
the situation as of the 1840's in the following terms:
Not only do persons who have not yet become members, by formal
admission as such, attend our churches; they form a very large part
of our congregations. In many cases they constitute two thirds, three
fourths, or even more; this depending much on the length of the
period during which the congregation has been organized, and
hardly ever less than a half, even in the most highly-favoured
churches. Nor do they attend only; they are cheerful supporters of
the public worship, and are often found as liberal in contributing of
their substance for the promotion of good objects, as the members
of the church themselves, with whom they are intimately connected
by the ordinary business of life, and by family ties The non-pro-
fessing hearers of the Word, then, are to be considered as simply
what we call them, members of the congregation, not of the
church- . . , 15
The reasons why men might attend church and support a given
denomination without becoming a member are not difficult to under-
stand, given the conditions for membership which existed for most of
the nineteenth century:
Certainly by modern standards, church membership was a strenuous
affair. All evangelical sects required of communicants a personal
experience of conversion and a consistent life. Two worship services
and Sunday School on the Sabbath were customary. The Methodists
invariably kept new converts on "probation" for many months.
Wesley's followers also attended a weekly class meeting. . . . Lay-
men of most denominations were responsible for a large amount of
missionary and benevolent work. . . , 16
Perhaps the most comprehensive attempt to specify the number of
"adherents" as distinct from "communicants" of the different Protestant
denominations is the study by H. K. Carroll, who was in charge of the
15 Baird, Religion in America, p. 188.
16 Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth
Century America (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957), p. 18; Baird, Religion
in America, pp. 185-187.
Religion and American Values 147
Division of Churches for the 1890 U.S. Census. 17 His efforts led him to
conclude that in 1890 with a population of 62,622,250, only 5 million
people were not communicants or adherents. In percentage terms, he
estimated that 92 per cent of the population in 1890 and 91 per cent in
1910 were linked to a denomination. These estimates are comparable to
those suggested by Ouseley for the 1830's and by Baird for the 1840's
and 1850's, and are similar to the results of public opinion surveys since
the mid-1930's and to the 1957 U.S. Census Sample Survey of Religious
Affiliation. And these statistical conclusions, of course, reiterate the almost
unanimous comments made for close to a century and a half by various
foreign travelers, who have never ceased to indicate their amazement at
the rarity of atheists or anti-religious people in America. 18
17 He secured an estimate of the ratio of communicants to adherents by "a
comparison between the census returns of the religious populations of various
communions in Canada [where the Census asks each person his religious
affiliation] with those which the denominations give themselves of com-
municants.'* H. K. Carroll, The Religious Forces in the United States. (New
York: The Christian Literature Co., 1893), p. xxxv. The average of Canadian
Protestant adherents to communicants was 3.2. To be on the safe side,
Carroll suggested, however, that this ratio was probably higher than in the
United States since there were many smaller and obscure denominations
here, and he concluded that he would be safe in assuming "that there are at
least 2.5 adherents in the United States to each Protestant communicant." Re-
lating reports on Protestant membership to this estimate, he derived a total
estimate of 49,630,000 for the aggregate of Protestant communicants and
adherents. He also determined the adherents and communicants for Catholic,
Jewish, and other religious groups. Some similar procedures were employed
by Dr. Carroll two decades later using 1910 materials. Carroll, op. cit. (1912
edition), pp. Ixxj-bndi. The ratio of communicants to adherents, however,
had to be reduced from 2.5 to 2 in view of the large gain in actual church
membership reported. In seeking to interpret the great gain in church mem-
berships in the 1910 report, we must note that litde, if any resulted from
any significant growth in Protestant religious enthusiasm. Rather, as Dr.
Carroll pointed out, the churches had changed their definition of a member.
"All Churches receive children into that relation much earlier in life than
formerly and there are other factors tending to reduce the ratio of adherents
to communicants, particularly the relaxation of discipline. , . ." Ibid., p. kxxii.
18 It is undoubtedly significant that the major change in the requirements for
church membership among the traditionally evangelical denominations oc-
curred within two or three years after the 1906 Census of Religion. This Census
(gathered like previous ones through reports by church bodies of their mem-
bership) followed two decades of massive, largely non-Protestant, immigra-
tion. The difference between the Protestant and the Catholic-Greek Orthodox-
Jewish concept of member resulted in a gross underestimate of the actual mi-
148 Stability in the Midst of Change
More precise historical data which belie the claim of drastic changes
in religious practice are provided by the Census reports for the second
half of the nineteenth century, which present the number of seats
available in all American churches. These data indicate an increase in
the ratio of church seats to population of from 62 to 69 per cent, 19 al-
though the Year Book of American Churches, the most frequently quoted
source on church affiliation in the United States, estimates a growth in
membership between 1850 and 1900 of from 15 to 36 per cent of the
total population. Since the 1850 population included two million slaves
(almost one-seventh of the population), a group which on the whole
lacked substantial church accommodations, it seems probable that the
relatively small increase in available church facilities was added by the
Negroes. AH during the second half of the nineteenth century, the
churches kept up with the tremendous population expansion in providing
accommodations for almost the entire adult population.
Figures on number of clergymen in America from 1850 to 1950 also
reveal a striking constancy. In each census year there has been approxi-
mately one clergyman for every 1,000 persons. In 1850 there were
1.16 clergymen per 1,000 population; by 1960, the figure had changed to
1.13. Actually, there has been no effective change in the ratio of clergy
to total population during the past century, although the proportions
of others in professional occupations increased sharply, a difference which
is shown in Table II*
This lack of an increase in the proportion of ministers adds further
support to the idea that there has been little change in the strength of
institutionalized religion, although in itself it is not conclusive evidence.
Certainly the ratio of parishioners to clergy may have changed, so that
merical strength of the Protestant groups. While the reasons advanced for the
changes made by the various denominations in their membership standards
did not allude to such competitive considerations, there can be little doubt
that these played a role. The decision to admit children to membership simply
added numbers. Other modifications in the requirements, however, made it
much easier for adults to join, as may be seen in die example of the Methodists.
The 1908 Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church dropped the require-
ment that a new member must have "met for at least six months in class," and
the further condition that he be "on trial" for six months "under the care of
the leaders" for the simple obligation that he be "properly recommended."
Franklin Hamlin Littell, From State Church to Pluralism (Garden City, N. Y.:
Doubleday Anchor, 1962), p. 81.
19 Unfortunately, the Census stopped reporting this datum so that we have
no comparable figures for this century.
Religion and American Values 149
Table II
Number of Clergymen and Professionals Per 1,000 Population for
Census Years 1900-1960
Clergymen
Professionals
1900
1.22
14.2
1910
1.28
18.6
1920
1.20
20.6
1930
1.21
26.5
1940
1.09
26.2
1950
1.12
32.8
1960
1.13
40.3
Sources: Data for Clergy m G. Stigler, Trends in Employment in the Service
Industries (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1916), p. 108; data for
professionals calculated from Alba M. Edwards, Comparative Occupational
Statistics for the United States, 1870 to 1940, Bureau of the Census, 1943, and
Statistical Abstracts, 1952.
modern clergymen may serve more members than those of the past
However, arguing against this possibility is the fact that the proportion
of ministers has failed to rise with the long-term increasing wealth of the
American people. That a congregation's ability to pay for religion would
be a factor is suggested by the sharp drop in the depression decade
revealed in the above table.
Some of those who contend that religious adherence in American
society has reached an all time high in recent times point to evidence,
derived from public opinion surveys and the 1957 U.S. Sample Survey
of Religious Affiliation conducted by the Census Bureau, which indicate
that over 95 per cent of the population state a belief in God and declare
an identification with some specific religious group. There are, of course,
no comparable interview data for the nineteenth century except for the
nearly unanimous reports by foreign travelers that almost everyone they
spoke to expressed religious beliefs and commitments. It is possible, how-
ever, to contrast the answers given by undergraduates in American col-
leges before World War I and in 1952 to questionnaires concerning their
religious beliefs.
In a study made in 1913, 927 students in nine colleges of "high rank"
replied to questions concerning their belief in God. Eighty-seven per
cent of the men and 93 per cent of the women reported belief. 20 The
20 James H. Leuba, The Belief m God and Immortality (Chicago: Open Court
Publishing Co., 1921), pp. 184-202.
150 Stability in the Midst of Change
same author received replies from 90 per cent of the students in "one
college of high rank," of whom 70 per cent believed in immortality and
after-life. 21 Four decades later, in 1952, a group of Cornell sociologists
administered questionnaires to 4,585 students selected through statistical
sampling procedures to be representative of male undergraduates at eleven
colleges and universities. Twenty-four per cent of the men were atheists
or agnostics. 22 Comparing the findings of these two studies suggests that
at least for college students the supposed religious "revival" of the 1950's
still has considerable distance to go before belief reaches a point compar-
able to that of 1913. 23
Such statistical data as we have examined all argue against the thesis
that religious practice in America in the mid-twentieth century is at its
high point. Rather, one concludes from these data that, although there
have been ebbs and flows in enthusiasm, basic long-term changes in formal
religious affiliation and practice have not occurred, and the current high
level of religious belief and observance existed in the past as well. As the
foreign travelers noted in their books, Americans have been and continue
to be a highly religious people. In fact, the one empirical generalization
which does seem justified about American religion is that from the early
nineteenth century down to the present, the United States has been
among the most religious countries in the Christian world. Considerably
lower proportions of religious responses (belief in God) are reported
by pollsters for European countries than for the United States. 24 With
respect to attendance, it is misleading to compare national rates because
of the varying proportions of Catholics and Protestants (who manifest
divergent church-going patterns) within populations. But American
Protestants attend church more frequently than Protestants in Sweden,
Denmark, Czechoslovakia (before the Communist coup), and Great
Britain. 25
21 Ibid., pp. 213-216.
22 Philip E, Jacob, Changing Values in College (New York: Harper & Bros.,
1957), p. 108. Universities differed: Almost one-third (32 per cent) of the
Harvard College students do not believe in God as compared with 13 per cent
of those at die University of Texas.
23 Actually, such a conclusion that there is less belief today than four decades
ago would not be warranted since the sampling methods and questions asked
differed greatly.
24 Leo Rosten, A Guide to the Religions of America (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1955), p. 247.
25 Hadley Cantril, Public Opinion 1935-1946 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton
University Press, 1951 ), p. <599.
Religion and American Values 151
Secularly, a Persistent Trait of American Religion
From the available evidence it is difficult to discern actual trends with
respect to the secularization of religion* There does appear to have been
a historic trend toward secularization but it does not seem to be as great
as many have argued. The supporters of the thesis of increased seculari-
zation would seem to minimize two somewhat contradictory but co-
existent tendencies. First, they ignore the possibility that the supposedly
modern, secularized religion may have characterized much of American
behavior in previous periods. Second, they are inattentive to the fact that,
now as in the past, a considerable number of Americans have a propensity
to follow evangelical religions and middle-class intellectuals tend to
compare nineteenth century evangelical movements which they know
from historical records with contemporary middle- and upper-class
liberal religion, the form they are personally acquainted with. They
forget that the religion of the better educated and more privileged has
always tended to be more secularly oriented than that of the lower
strata.
In the past three decades, as in the early nineteenth century, the
more orthodox and fundamentalist denominations, e.g., the Southern
Baptists, the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, the Catholic
Church, and the numerous small Pentecostal and fundamentalist sects,
have had more success in recruiting members than the "established"
denominations which belong to the National Council of Churches much
as in the nineteenth century the then revivalist Methodists and Baptists
had much greater success than the older higher status and more secularized
denominations such as the Fpisrnpfl.Hfl.Tis, Congregationalists, and Uni-
tarians.^
There is no question that various denominations have become more
secularized and less evangelical over time. But this change within specific
denominations such as the Presbyterians and the Methodists in large part
reflects the fact that their constituency has changed, from "out" groups
to "in" groups. Concentrating on the history of a given Protestant
denomination necessarily results in the misleading conclusion that there
has been a sharp change from ascetic fervor to a more secularized reli-
gious liberalism.
American religious denominations, like ethnic groups, have experienced
collective upward mobility. In the early years of the Republic, the
26 Hudson, "Are Churches Really Booming?" op. tit., pp. 1495-1496.
152 Stability m the Midst of Change
Presbyterians were among the more depressed strata economically and
socially, and their religious and political behavior reflected this fact. 27
They, however, soon became identified with the Congregationalists, the
Quakers, the Unitarians, and the Episcopalians, as the churches of the
more well-to-do and the urban middle classes. The Methodists and
Baptists became the predominant religions of the constantly expanding
frontier population and the urban working classes. With economic and
population growth, the Methodists, too, gained proportionally in middle-
class members, and the ministry, which had been largely uneducated,
gradually became a seminary or university trained one, a phenomenon
which tended to reduce their evangelical fervor and their appeal to the
"displaced" strata. New sects arose to satisfy the need for religious
enthusiasm. The upward mobility of the members of the older Protes-
tant denominations was also facilitated by immigration from Europe,
largely of Catholic and Lutheran background, followed by increasing
numbers of Jews and adherents of the Greek Orthodox creed. Most
recently, southern Negroes have moved into the cities. Since most of
these immigrants and Negroes have occupied the lowest positions in the
class structure, many white Protestant groups, particularly the Methodists
who had been the predominant evangelical sect for much of the nine-
teenth century, necessarily improved their location on the status kdder.
Thus, while the denominational affiliations of urban middle-class Ameri-
cans may have changed from a statistical point of view, the pattern of
American religion has remained fairly constant. Negro religious behavior
resembles that of the nineteenth century lower status migrant white
population. The Catholics have taken on the coloration of a funda-
mentalist orthodox religion comparable in tone and style, if not in
theology, to the nineteenth-century evangelical Protestant sects. Recently,
a leading French Dominican student of the American Church has com-
plained that American Catholics resemble American Baptists more than
they do Mexican or French Catholics. He comments that "one often has
the impression that American Catholics are more Puritan than anybody
else and that they are close to setting themselves up as the champions
of Puritanism." 28
The historic American pattern of a more secularized higher status
27 Manning Dauer, The Adams Federalists (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press,
1953), pp. 28-29.
2S R. L. Bruckberger, "The American Catholics as a Minority," in Thomas T.
McAvoy, ed., Roman Catholicism and the American Way of Life (Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960), pp. 45-47.
Religion and American Values 153
religion has been well described by Baltzell, who points out that, from the
beginning of the nineteenth century, men often turned to the Episcopal
Church as they became well-to-do. This was true for Presbyterian cotton
planters in the South, for the upper-class Quakers of Philadelphia, and
even for many old-family New England Unitarians and Congrega-
tionalists. 29 The secular motivations underlying such conversions were
not a secret to their contemporaries. Foreign travelers also were well
aware of the relationship between status-seeking and church member-
ship. 30
Many of the foreign observers also confessed their surprise to find that
the system of competing denominations in the United States did not mean
that the different groups rejected each other for adhering to "false
creeds." An Italian Jesuit, Giovanni Grassi, who served for five years,
1812 to 1817, as President of Georgetown College before returning to
Rome, commented in disturbed tones on these "other-directed" religious
phenomena:
Every sect there is held as good, every road as correct, and every
error as the insignificant weakness of poor mortals. . . .
Although how can one speak of sects? Those who describe them-
selves as members of one or another of the sects do not thereby
profess an abiding adherence to the doctrines of the founders of the
sect. . . . Thus the Anglicans of today no longer take much account
of their thirty-nine articles, nor the Lutherans of the Confession of
Augsburg, nor the Presbyterians of the teachings of Calvin or of
Knox. . . .
Among the peculiarities of America, not the most extreme is that
of finding persons who live together for several years without know-
ing each other's religion. And many, when asked, do not answer,
"I believe," but simply, "I was brought up in such a persuasion." 31
Timothy Smith concludes from his detailed examination of the writ-
ings of many nineteenth-century ministerial foreign travelers that visit-
29 E. Digby Baltzell, Philadelphia Gentlemen. The Making of a National Upper
Class (Glencoe, EL: The Free Press, 1958), pp. 225-233. See also Dixon
Wecter, The Saga of American Society (New York: Scribner's 1937), pp.
480-481.
30 SchaflF, America, pp. 154-155. See also Thomas C. Grattan, Civilized America
(London: Bradbury and Evans, 1895), VoL I, pp. 60-61.
31 Giovanni Grassi, Notbde varie sullo stato presente della republica degli
Stati Uniti del? America (1819), section translated in Oscar Handlin, ed.,
This Was America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949), pp.
147-148.
154 Stability in the Midst of Change
ing "Evangelicals were especially heartened to discover that the elimina-
tion of legal privilege [separation of church and state in America]
seemed to lessen sectarian rivalry." 32 He cites one English visitor in the
1830's who "noted with pleasure the numerous exchanges of pulpits,
union prayer meetings and joint efforts in Bible Society, Sunday school,
and mission 'work. She decided that the sectarian spirit of Europe's
churches arise not so much from 'conscientious scruples and differences
of opinion on government or doctrine' as from the fact that some had
endowments and some did not." 33 A leading French Calvinist pastor
who visited the United States two decades later confessed his surprise
at this phenomenon of mutual esteem among competing sects:
We thought, until our visit to the United States, that the multiplicity
of sects there, must, of necessity, present an obstacle to the progress
of the spirit of brotherly love. We do not yet think that a diversity
of communions is an efficacious means of developing among Chris-
tians the principle of charity; but we are glad to acknowledge that
our American brethren have combatted very effectually the at-
tendant dangers. So far as we have been able to judge, there exists
much harmony and good feeling, between all the evangelical de-
nominations. The pastors and members of the various religious com-
munities even among those most widely differing in church polity,
speak mutually of each 1 other with much kindness and esteem. 34
Tocqueville's companion on his visit to America, Gustave de Beau-
mont, was also struck by this behavior and confessed his puzzlement as to
how Americans could be fervent in their particular belief yet approve
of exchange of pulpits among ministers of different Protestant denomi-
nations:
As a matter of fact, nothing is commoner in the United States than
this indifference toward the nature of religions, which doesn't
however eliminate the religious fervour of each for the cult he has
chosen. Actually, this extreme tolerance on the one hand towards
religions in general on the other this considerable zeal of each
individual for his own religion, is a phenomenon I can't yet explain
32 Smith, Revivalism and Social 'Reform in Mid-Nineteenth Century America,
p. 37.
33 Ibid., p. 19. (Emphasis mine.)
34 J. H. Grand Pierre, A Parisian Pastor's Glance at America (Boston: Gould
and Lincoln, 1854), pp. 63-64.
Religion and American Values 155
to myself. I would gladly know how a lively and sincere faith can
get on with such a perfect toleration; how one can have equal
respect for religions whose dogmas differ. . . , 35
And Beaumont asked the same question about American religion in the
1830's that many have raised in recent years: "Would it not be from
their outward show of religion that there is more breadth than depth in
it?" SQ
Tocqueville himself commented that in no other country is Christian-
ity "clothed with fewer forms, figures, and observances than in the
United States, or where it presents more distinct, simple and general
notions to the mind. Although the Christians of America are divided into
a multitude of sects, they look upon their religion in the same light." 37
And in his private notes Tocqueville reported:
Go into the churches (I mean the Protestant ones), you will hear
morality preached, of dogma not a word. Nothing which can at all
shock the neighbour; nothing which can arouse the idea of dis-
sent. . . . [Ministers preach to other denominations.] But, said I,
how do these men and children, who are communicants of one sect,
like hearing the minister of another? The infallible response is this:
The different preachers, treating only the common ground of
morality, cannot do each other any harm. 3g
His English contemporary, Harriet Martineau, who stated that al-
most everyone professed some form of Christian belief, perceptively
added that people are not supposed to feel intensely about a particular
religion:
One circumstance struck me throughout the country. Almost as
often as the conversation between myself and any other person on
religious subjects became intimate and earnest, I was met by the sup-
position that I was a convert. It was the same in other instances:
wherever there was a strong interest in the Christian religion, con-
version to a particular profession of it was confidentially supposed.
This fact speaks volumes. 39
35 Quoted in George W. Pierson, Tocqueville in America (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Anchor, 1959), p. 70.
36 Loc. cit. (Emphasis mine.)
37 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, VoL n, p. 28.
38 Pierson, Toqueville in America, p. 100.
39 Martineau, Society in America, VoL II, p. 336.
156 Stability in the Midst of Change
In 1860 Anthony Trollope was struck by the fact that "the question
of a man's religion is regarded in a free and easy way." He notes that
fathers believe "that a young lad should go somewhere on a Sunday;
but a sermon is a sermon. . . . Everybody is bound to have a religion,
but it does not much matter what it is." 40 And in 1900, the German
sociologist Max Weber was also impressed, during his visit, with the
seeming secularization of religion and acceptance of religious diversity.
He reported: "In the main, the congregations refused entirely to listen
to the preaching of 'dogma' and to confessional distinctions. 'Ethics'
alone could be offered. . . . Today the kind of denomination [to which
one belongs] is rather irrelevant. It does not matter whether one be a
Freemason, Christian Scientist, Adventist, Quaker, or what not." 41
The foremost modern British scholar of America concludes his dis-
cussion of late nineteenth-century religious life:
Religion became a matter of conduct, of good deeds, of works with
only a vague background of faith. It became highly functional,
highly pragmatic; it became a guarantee of success, moral and
material. . . . Theological schools turned from theology to a form
of anthropology & moralistic and optimistic form, but anthropology
all the same. That 'the proper study of mankind is man' was the
evasion by which many American divines escaped the necessity for
thought about God. 42
Reports that American religion is much more secular than that found
in other nations have been just as consistent as reports that it has relatively
40 Trollope, North America, p. 278.
41 Gerth and Mills, eds., From Max Weber, p. 307.
42 Denis W. Brogan, The American Character (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1944), p. 102. Stow Persons states that "by the middle of the nineteenth cen-
tury ... the denominational pattern that had matured . . . conformed closely
to the contours of American social life. Under no other ecclesiastical system
could the expressions of the religious spirit have been expected to reflect so
immediately the character and outlook of the parishioners. . . . the middle
classes generally preferred a more sedate and formal worship in which tra-
ditional dogmas were wedded to the individualistic ethic of the Gospel of
Wealth. Urban professionals and intellectuals who were sensitive to currents
of opinion in the secular world were frequently drawn into that new phenom-
enon, the big city parish, centered on the resonant personality of a pulpit
orator who blended the elements of an innocuous theology with discussion of
current interests to produce a romantic individualism." "Religion and Modern-
ity, 1865-1914," in J. W. Smith and L. Jamison, eds, The Shaping of American
Religion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), pp. 370-372.
Religion and American Values 157
more adherents. Secularity has long been cited as a persistent trait of
American religion and cannot simply be attributed to an increase in
socially motivated church-going in the past few decades.
However, seculaiity is not the only notable characteristic of American
religion throughout its history. New sects have developed more readily
here than anywhere else in the world. 48 For the most part, these are
drawn from economically and socially depressed strata, and their
theology reflects this fact, such as in the belief that wealth or ostentation
is sinful or corrupting. 44 During the last Great Depression, when efforts
to form significant protest political parties failed totally, the religious
sectarians grew, while other religions declined or showed no change. 45
Since all of these characteristics have made American religion unique
throughout its history, they must be attributed to those features of
American society that have consistently distinguished it from other
cultures, rather than to recent changes. In each age, men have seen in the
almost total allegiance to religion by Americans a further evidence of
the conformist propensity of democratic man. Analysts, in the past as
well as the present, 46 have also attributed the secular quality of American
43 There are more than 200 Protestant denominations in the United States.
"Democracy has not only permitted the continuance of all the divisions of
Protestantism; it has also allowed, if not encouraged, the growth of new
groups." H. Richard Niebuhr, "The Protestant Movement and Democracy in
the United States," in J. W. Smith and L. Jamison, eds., The Shaping of
American Religion, pp. 52-53. See pp. 25-26 for a classification of Protestant
denominations in the United States based on the times of their origins.
44 E. T. Clark, The Small Sects in America (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury,
1949), p. 17. Stow Persons, in discussing Clark's account of the Millerite
movement and its reaction to the anticipated day of the Second Coining,
interestingly concludes that millenialism "cannot be explained as a product of
poverty or persecution [but rather] represented a stubborn refusal to accept
a modernist version of the historical process in which divine immanence was
reconciled with events naturalistically conceived." He finds evidence of diffuse
anxiety, rather than misery or tragedy, in Adventist literature. Stow Persons,
"Religion and Modernity, 1865-1914," op. tit., pp. 399-400.
45 William ~\y. Sweet, The American Churches (New York: Abingdon-Cokes-
bury, 1947), p. 73; A. T. Boisen, Religion m Crisis and Custom (New York:
Harper & Bros., 1955), pp. 71-75; also Michael Argyle, Religious Behavior
(Glencoe, HL: The Free Press, 1958), pp. 138-140.
46 H. Richard Niebuhr, indulging in a kind of animistic thinking, attributes
"other-directedness" to Protestant groups themselves. "Seeking to survive,
thrown into competition for attention, membership, and economic support,
not only with each other but with secular enterprises claiming the same re-
sources, they appear to have adjusted themselves all too well to the wishes of
the people. ... If Protestantism in America has . . . accepted . . . the dogmas
158 Stability in the Midst of Change
religion to its relationship with democracy. Tocqueville felt that the
emphasis upon morality, rather than transcendental beliefs, in American
religion, was a result of the numerous sects and religions being given
equal status before the law and in the eyes of men. He observed:
[The sects] all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the
Creator, but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due
from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar
manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of
God. . . . Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and
provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of that
religion are of litde importance to its interests. 47
In this respect, he does not differ too greatly from Herberg who says:
Just as the three great religions are the basic subdivisions of the
American people, so are the three great communions felt to be
recognized expressions of the spiritual aspect of the American Way
of Life. This underlying unity not only supplies limits within which
their conflicts and tensions may operate and beyond which they can-
not go it also supplies the common content of the three com-
munities. 48
Each of these analyses implies that both the secular and the all-pervasive
character of American religion is a result of its being viewed as part of
the "American Way of Life." Tocqueville found that "the whole nation,"
"every rank of society," felt that religion was indispensable to the main-
tenance of republican institutions. And he believed that this was why, on
the one hand, even those who did not "profess the doctrines of Christian-
ity from sincere belief in them" did so hypocritically "because they
fear[ed] to be suspected of unbelief; and why, on the other hand,
Christian morality rather than transcendental beliefs stood out in Ameri-
can religious attitudes. 49
American Protestantism has concentrated on the moral rather than the
contemplative, mystical, or communal and traditional elements of religion
partially because of its Puritan roots. The contemplative and the mys-
of democratic faith, then indeed it has lost its independence, then it no longer
challenges the social faith but is a passive representative of the culture." "The
Protestant Movement and Democracy . . . ," op. cit., pp. 57, 67.
47 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. I, p. 314.
48 Herberg, Protestant Catholic Jew, p. 247.
49 Tocqueville, Democracy m America, Vol. I, pp. 315-316.
Religion and American Values 159
tical have not played a significant role in Protestantism in general, and
in addition "the intellectual, theological element, though prominent in
Puritan Christianity came with the growth of the churches of the com-
mon man and the triumph of pietism to be neglected in American
religion":
In the main drift of religion in America the theological and liturgical
and mystical and contemplative move into the background; the
hierarchical and communal give place to the individualistic, the
traditional to the immediate, the authoritative to the freely decided,
the appeal to the mind and the aesthetic sense to the appeal to the
will, the awareness of the ultimate to the concern with the practical
life. The penumbra of beyondness, absoluteness, and mystery fades
away, and leaves as the core of what Americans think religion to
be the moral. 50
Voluntarism, the Source of Religious Strength
In seeking to explain the special character of American religion many
of the foreign visitors singled out the effect of the separation of church
and state, which resulted in American churches being voluntary organi-
zations in which congregational self-government was the predominant
form of church government. More specifically, the special quality of
American religion has been linked to three elements in the American
past: first, New England Puritanism infused certain ascetic values into
the very concept of Protestantism the Puritans' "Protestant ethic" lay
close to the heart of most denominations, regardless of doctrinal dif-
ferences; second, ideological emphases and institutional changes which
flowed from the American Revolution led to forms of church organiza-
tion analogous to popularly based institutions; and third, the fact that all
sections of the United States were formed out of an unsettled frontier
without any traditional class structure or significant aid or control from
a central government meant that religious institutions had to be created
almost completely from the resources of the local population, and hence
closely reflected their specific religious needs and their secular values.
It is difGcult to separate out the contributions of each of these, and
of other factors. As in all complex structures, the various elements tend
to interact continually. Thus, Puritanism has been credited with sup-
50 William Lee Miller, "American Religion and American Political Attitudes,"
in J. W. Smith and L. Jamison, eds., The Shaping of American Religion
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961), p. 94.
160 Stability in the Midst of Change
plying much of the motivation behind the Revolution. 51 Congregationalist
pastors overwhelmingly backed the Revolution, while the hierarchically
organized Episcopalians tended to be Tories. Congregationalism, with its
stress on self-government within the church, contributed to secular self-
government in the form of the New England town meeting. Comparative
studies of frontier settlement in Canada, Latin America, and Australia
have suggested that part of the democratic aspects of American frontier
settlement reflected the American ethos and political system, not simply
the needs of any new frontier society. In Canada, as will be detailed in
Chapter 7, central authorities played a much greater role in settling and
governing the frontier than was true in the United States. And in ex-
amining developments in American religion, it seems obvious that the
ideology which flowed from the Revolution and the subsequent political
triumph of the "left" in the early decades of the Republic led to the
decisive decision in favor of "disestablishment.'* The withdrawal of
government support from religion made American Protestantism unique
in the Christian world. The United States became the first nation in
which religious groups were viewed as purely voluntary associations.
To exist, American churches had to compete in the marketplace for
support. And conversely, membership in a given religious denomination
was a voluntary act.
This emphasis on voluntary associations which struck Tocqueville and
other foreign travelers as one of the distinctive American traits, and which
was also supportive of political democracy, has been traced by some as
essentially derivative from 'Voluntary religion." Sidney Mead points out
that even the Episcopalians became consciously aware of the fact that with
the end of the Revolution they could now exist only as "voluntary as-
sociations" (a term explicitly used in such an analysis by an Episcopalian
minister). This meant they had to involve the laity in church government,
and that a priest would have only as much influence as there was good
opinion of his ability. As Mead says, "the acceptance of religious freedom
and separation" came to mean that ministers had only "persuasive or
political power." 52
51 The best treatment of the relationship of religion to the background of the
Revolution is Carl Bridenbaugh, Mitre and Sceptre (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1962.
52 Sidney E. Mead, "The Rise of the Evangelical Conception of the Ministry
in America (1607-1850)," in H. Richard Niebuhr and Daniel D. Williams,
eds., The Ministry m Historical Perspectives (New York: Harper & Bros.,
1956), pp. 214-215. An excellent, detailed analysis of the interrelationship
between voluntary organizations and religious practice in the early United
States may be found in Baird, Religion m America.
Religion and American Values 161
The end of religious Establishment and the growth of the sects meant
that a new structure of moral authority had to be created to replace the
once dominant link between Church and State. In New England, many
Congregationalist ministers and laymen consciously recognized that they
had to establish voluntary organizations to safeguard morality in a demo-
cratic society that deemphasized the links between Church and Govern-
ment. 53 The early organization of local and national associations for
domestic missionary work, for the distribution of Bibles, for temperance,
for opposition to slavery, and for peace, was invariably undertaken by
well-to-do religious people, and by ministers adhering to the historic New
England denominations, who felt these were the only ways they could
preserve and extend a moral society. Eventually a host of voluntary
groups developed around the voluntary churches.
The separation of Church and State, and other causes, have given
rise to a new species of social organization, before unknown in
history. . . . Then opened on the American world the new era of
the Religious and Benevolent Society system, and summoned into the
field an immense body of superior and highly-cultivated talent. . . .
As to the right or wrong of these institutions, or as to whether
they are good or bad, is not, in this place, a subject of inquiry; but
simply the fact of their social importance, and their power. . . . And
it happens, that these voluntary associations are so numerous, so
great, so active and influential, that, as a whole, they now constitute
the great school of public education, in the formation of those
practical opinions, religious, social, and political, which lead the
public mind and govern the country. . . . 5 *
American Protestantism, although Calvinist in origin, fairly early in
its history became Arminian. A large majority of the Calvinist denomina-
tions, as well as most of the non-Calvinist ones, came to accept the
Arminian "doctrines of free will, free grace, and unlimited hope for the
conversion of all men." 55 To maintain themselves after disestablishment,
practically all the Protestant groups had become proselytizing churches.
And the Calvinist belief in predestination "could hardly survive amidst
63 See Clifford S. Griffin, Their Brothers' Keepers (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1960), pp. 23-43, for a description of the organiza-
tion of these societies.
54 An American Gentleman (Calvin Colton), A Voice from America to Eng-
land (London: Henry Colbuno, 1839), pp. 87-S8, 97.
55 Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform in Mid-Nineteenth Century America,
pp. 88-89.
162 Stability in the Midst of Change
the evangelists' earnest entreaties to 'come to Jesus,' " 8e American Prot-
estantism, with its emphasis on the personal achievement of grace, re-
inforced the stress on personal achievement which was dominant in the
secular value system. Both sets of values stressed individual responsibility,
both rejected hereditary status. The two dominant denominations, the
Methodists and the Baptists, which contained most Protestants, stressed
religious doctrines that reinforced "anti-aristocratic tendencies." 57 Here
again it is possible to suggest an interacting complex. An early nineteenth-
century analyst of American religion argued that the reason that these
denominations outgrew others was that the "disciplinary habits, the politi-
cal opinions, and ideological tenets, both of the Baptists and Wesleyans,
are more congenial to American democracy, than those of the better
educated and more accomplished religious sects. . . . Hence the political
opinions of America having been before determined those forms of
religion best adapted to harmonize with them, were likely to prevail
most. . . ." 5S To understand the character and strength of religion in
America, it is therefore important to see its fundamental links with the
prevalent secular values.
The fact of disestablishment, that is, the absence of a state church,
served also to enhance the application of religious morality to politics.
The existence of a state Church in Europe meant that "even 'sin,' in
European culture had been institutionalized."
There, an actual place had been made for it in life's crucial experi-
ence. It had been classified from time out of mind and given
specific names; the reality of "lust," "avarice," and "oppression" had
given rise to the most intricate of social arrangements, not for
eliminating them, but for softening their impact and limiting their
scope for protecting the weak and defining the responsibilities of
the strong. ... All this may well have been in [Henry] James's mind
when he exclaimed of America: "no church"
What, then, might be expected to happen if sin should suddenly
become apparent, in a nation whose every individual was, at least
symbolically, expected to stand on his own two feet? The reaction
was altogether destructive. The sense of outrage was personal, the
sense of personal guilt was crushing. The gentle American of mild
vices was transformed into the bloody avenger. 59
56 Ibid., p. 89.
57 Ibid., pp. 24-25.
58 Calvin Colton, A Voice from America to England, pp. 69-70. Colton him-
self was an Episcopalian conservative and disliked these tendencies.
59 Stanley F.lkins, Slavery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), p. 35.
Religion and American Values 163
The need to assuage the sense of personal responsibility has meant
that Americans have been particularly wont to support movements for
the elimination of evil by violent means if necessary. The movements for
temperance and prohibition, for the abolition of slavery, for resistance to
the growth of Catholicism, and most recently for the elimination of
Communists, have all drawn their vigor from the stress developed within
American society on personal responsibility for the struggle against
evil 60
Certainly there has been an interplay between religious and democratic
values from the beginning of the nation's history. The gradual identifi-
cation of Enlightenment ideals with national identity in turn affected the
content of our religious values. J. Franklin Jameson explains the amazingly
rapid decline of Calvinist doctrine in America after the Revolution,
and its replacement by Arminian religious beliefs, not only as a re-
flection of the doctrinal need of evangelical revivalistic religion, but
also by the assumption that, "in a period when the special privileges
of individuals were being called into question or being destroyed, there
would naturally be less favor for that form of theology which was
dominated by the doctrine of the especial election of a part of man-
kind, a growing favor for forms which seemed more distinctly to be
based upon the idea of the natural equality of all men." 61
The Arminian emphasis on the personal attainment of grace, perhaps
even more than the Calvinist stress on the existence of an "elect," served
as a religious parallel to the secular emphasis on equality of opportunity
and achievement. This parallelism, and even mutual reinforcement, was
noted by many nineteenth-century foreign visitors. Unlike the situation
in many European countries, in which economic materialism was viewed
by the social and religious establishments that is, the traditional aristoc-
racy and the church as conducive to uncouth behavior and immorality,
in the United States hard work and economic ambition have been perceived
as the proper activity of a devout man. Schaff commented that the
"acquisition of riches is to them [the Americans] only a help toward
higher spiritual and moral ends." 62 The considerable sums, as well as
60 1 have discussed these aspects of American political life in another publica-
tion dealing with '^Religion and Politics in America," in Robert Lee, ed.,
Religion and Social Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, forth-
coming).
61 J. Franklin Jameson, The American Revolimon Considered as a Social
Movement (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1926), p. 157.
62 Schaff, America, p. 259.
164 Stability in the Midst of Change
time, contributed to philanthropic works, which reached heights un-
dreamed of in Europe, have also been perceived as part of the inter-
relationship between religious and secular activities. The emphasis on
"voluntarism" in both areas has clearly been mutually reinforcing. For
much of the nineteenth century many voluntary activities, such as those
dealing with charity, education, and moral and social reform were closely
linked to religious concerns. Men were expected to be righteous, hard-
working, and ambitious. Righteousness was to be rewarded both in the
present and the hereafter, and the succesful had an obligation to engage
in good works and to share the bounty they had attained.
It is important to stress also that the strong commitment to a voluntaris-
tic denominational Protestantism reinforced the support for minority
rights even in the religious sphere itself. Although Sunday Blue Laws
continued for many decades after the Revolution, the rights of the
irreligious found considerable backing, as reflected in the insistence
already noted by the Democrats that the mails be delivered on Sundays.
In 1830 twenty years after the passage of the Sunday mails bill a
Senate committee report, authored by a future Vice-President and en-
dorsed by a majority of that House, stated explicitly that in the United
States religion and irreligion had equal rights, and that laws proclaiming
that the government should not provide services on Sunday would work
an injustice to irreligious people or non-Christians, and would constitute
a special favor for Christians as a group. The report, written by a
deeply religious active Baptist, stated these principles in unequivocal
terms:
The Constitution regards the conscience of the Jew as sacred as
that of the Christian, and gives no more authority to adopt a meas-
ure affecting the conscience of a solitary individual than that of a
whole community, ... If Congress shall declare the first day of the
week holy, it will not satisfy the Jew nor the Sabbatarian. It will
dissatisfy both and, consequently convert neither. ... It must be
recollected that, in the earliest settlement of this country, the spirit
of persecution, which drove the pilgrims from their native homes,
was brought with them to their new habitations; and that some
Christians were scourged and others put to death for no other crime
than dissenting from the dogmas of their rulers.
... If a solemn act of legislation shall in one point define the God
or point out to the citizen one religious duty, it may with equal
propriety define every part of divine revelation and enforce every
Religion and American Values 165
religious obligation, even to the forms and ceremonies of worship;
the endowment of the church, and the support of the clergy.
. , . It is the duty of this government to affirm to all to the Jew
or Gentile, Pagan, or Christian the protection and advantages
of our benignant institutions on Sunday, as well as every day of the
week. 63
Before the Civil War, successful struggles, often led by deeply believing
Protestants, were waged in many areas to eliminate any relationship
between state supported education and religion. By so doing, these
Protestants acknowledged the rights of all, even of the completely
irreligious. In 1853, in defending a ruling that prayers "could not be
required as a part of the school exercises" in New York state, a devout
State Superintendent of Schools wrote as follows:
[T]he position was early, distinctly, and almost universally taken
by our statesmen, legislators, and prominent friends of education
men of the warmest religious zeal and belonging to every sect
that religious education must be banished from the common school
and consigned to the -family and church. . . . Accordingly, the in-
struction in our schools has been limited to that ordinarily included
under the head of intellectual culture, and to the propagation of
those principles of morality in which all sects, and good men belong-
ing to no sect, can equally agree
Not only have the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Baptist and
the Methodist met on common and neutral ground in the school
room, but with them the Unitarian, the Universalist, the Quaker
and even the denier of all creeds.**
The fact that public officials could openly advocate that the federal
and state governments must consider the rights of non-believers indicates
the extent to which many believing Protestants of the first half century
of the United States were able to tolerate religious variety. Only Catholi-
cism, viewed by many American Protestants not as a different set of
religious beliefs but as an alien conspiracy seeking to undermine the
American Way of Life, was outside the pale.
63 Richard Mentor Johnson, "Sunday Observance and the Mail," reprinted in
George E. Probst, ed., The Happy Republic (New York: Harper Torchbooks,
1962), pp. 250-254. (Emphasis in original.)
64 Cited in R. Freeman Butts, The American Tradition in Religion cmd Educa~
tion (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1950), pp. 136-137. (Emphases are Butts's.)
166 Stability in the Midst of Change
Thus we may say, once again, that Tocqueville and other early foreign
travelers "foresaw" trends in American religious institutions, just as they
"foresaw" trends in the American character. These trends have become
accentuated as the nation's values have adjusted to the vast changes that
have taken place in the fabric of American society. The identification
which Tocqueville observed between democratic ideals and an affirmation
of religion seems even greater today. 65
While the secular and all-pervasive character of American religion
may stem from the intertwining of democratic and religious values, it
is easier to show how the propensity to form sects is a product of the
way democracy affected the structural position of religion in America.
Perhaps this can best be seen by comparing the growth of religion in
Canada and the United States. Religious sects have tended to develop, in
both Canada and the United States, where rapid social change, the
heavy shift of population to the frontier or the growing cities, and the
consequent social mobility, have torn individuals from their traditional
ties. However, the fact that religion is less explicitly separated from the
"national community" in Canada has meant that sects have been less able
to survive there than in the United States. In Canada:
Political pressures have forced the community to come to the sup-
port of organized religion and such support has placed a definite
limitation upon sectarian activity. With the collective weight of
the community brought to bear upon them, the sects have been
forced either to retreat behind a wall of isolation or build them-
selves into an integral part of the community, or else to seek de-
nominational supports by aligning themselves with the state and with
the traditional institutions of the community. 66
Once the sects aligned themselves with the traditional institutions in the
community, their differences became less important and they found it
easier to unite. As a result the union of churches proceeded more rapidly
in Canada than in the United States.
The "religious fecundity" of American Protestantism seems to be an
outgrowth of the intertwining of the democratic value of free expression
65 Evarts B. Greene, Religion and the State (Ithaca, N. Y.: Great Seal Books,
1959), p. 101.
66 S. D. dark, The Developing Canadian Community (Toronto: University
of Toronto Press, 1962), p. 178.
Religion and American Values 167
of all political ideas with the Protestant stress on the obligation to follow
individual conscience. 67 The norms of political tolerance and religious
tolerance have been mutually reinforcing. The special pressure on
churches to proselytize and to tolerate each other, brought about by
'Voluntarism," is reinforced by another particular trait of American
society its geographic, occupational, and class mobility, "This means that
people have to be won over and over again as they move geographically
and as they change their class orientations and find different aspirations
for themselves." 68 With the massive shifting of populations that has
characterized American history, neither individual churches or national
denominations could remain satisfied with holding their own. Those
denominations which did little proselytizing fell far behind in the com-
petition for members and adherents. In the past as in the present, those
who changed their circumstances have often been potential converts to
another denomination. And the wide-spreading religious mobility from
one sect to another, which has been stimulated by other forms of
mobility, has meant that in all periods of American history a large
proportion of the population has adhered to a denomination other than
the one in which they were reared. It has been suggested that at least one
consequence of this heterogeneity of the religious backgrounds of church
members is the "ecumenical movement in which major groups recognize
the legitimacy of each other." 69
The fact that American religion is denominational has facilitated the
development of religious groups which tend to serve only those parish-
ioners who are roughly on the same social level in society. And the
absence of multi-class religions (such as exist in countries where the
church is established or represents the sole religion of the country) has
meant that each "class" or ethnic religion could adapt its practices and
67 See A. T. Mollegen, "Ethics of Protestantism" in F. Ernest Johnson, ed.,
Patterns of Ethics m America Today (New York: [Institute for Religious and
Social Studies], Harper & Bros,, 1960), p. 53. "Christians and non-Christians . . .
have a claim to our consideration both of their criticism of our own position
and of their positive programs which differ from ours. This is the Protestant
support of the democratic forum of public opinions. . . , they do it ... in order
that Christians may know the shock of sincere Christians differing deeply and
thus be humbled in their own positions even when they cannot in conscience
change them." Ibid., p. 59.
^Albert T. Rasmussen, "Contemporary Religious Appeals and Who Re-
sponds," in Jane G Zahn, ed., Religion and the Face of America (Berkeley:
University Extension, 1958), p. 4*
69 Loc. cit.
168 Stability in the Midst of Change
specific beliefs to suit the needs of the group which it serves. 70 This has
also meant that in this country religion could be either conservative or
radical in its view of the class structure. No major social group has long
been excluded from, or caused to be disaffected from, the "normal"
religious life of the nation. Thus, denominationalism may have served to
stabilize the polity.
By virtue of their need to survive, denominational religions have
historically resisted state control over different aspects of cultural life
and in so doing have supported democracy. Tocqueville pointed out
that, because of the survival need, even American Catholics, laymen and
clergy alike, adopted democratic and republican principles. And he says:
"They constitute a minority, and all rights must be respected in order
to insure to them the free exercise of their own privileges. These . . .
causes induce them, even unconsciously, to adopt political doctrines
which they would perhaps support with less zeal if they were pre-
ponderant." 71 This explanation of Catholic support for democratic values
could easily be extended to all the denominations in the society, since
none of them is large enough to constitute a majority. Such religious
support for democracy constitutes the background for religious affiliation
being considered a part of the "American Way of Life."
The separation of the church and state has increasingly given religion
per se a specific rather than a diffuse role in American society. The
minister, the priest, and the rabbi, all deal in generalizations that extend
beyond the confines of the church itself; but the members of the con-
gregation do not necessarily carry these with them to their other activities,
because they judge the religious leader in his specific role. Democracy's
giving religion a specific role in American society as Sunday Religion
may have, oddly enough, contributed to its all-pervasive and secular
qualities. The only mention of religion on **weekdays" must be in terms
of generally agreed upon morality which cannot be identified with the
teachings of any given denomination. In so far as the secular and all-
pervasive characteristics of American religion are a result of the
emphasis on role specificity in American society, they have become
accentuated with urbanization and industrialization. However, the con-
sistency over time of foreign observers' remarks to the effect that Ameri-
can religion is unique in these characteristics shows that neither of them
has grown simply as a result of these modern trends.
.._ *
70 See Niebuhr, "The Protestant Movement and Democracy . . . ," op. cit. y
pp. 57-59; and Persons, "Religion and Modernity . . . , op. ch., pp. 371-372.
71 Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. II, p. 3 12.
Religion and American Values 169
The emphasis upon equality, between religions as among men, which
intensified after the American Revolution, gave the subsequent develop-
ment of religious institutions in America its special character. Democratic
and religious values have grown together. The results have been that,
on the one hand, Americans see religion as essential to the support of the
democratic institutions they cherish, and therefore feel that aU Americans
should profess some sort of religious faith; on the other hand, American
denominations stress the ethical side of religion which they all have in
common (and which is closely associated with other democratic values)
rather than stressing transcendental beliefs wherein they differ. At the
same time, democracy, by giving religious institutions a specific role
in American society, has allowed them to proliferate, to adjust to peculiar
needs, and to have a limited influence on their members' lives.
Thus the consistency with which both secularization and widespread
adherence have distinguished American religion throughout its history is a
result of the fact that democratic values have continued to influence the
growth of religious institutions as the society has changed. In this respect,
the persistent traits in American religion resemble the constant traits in the
American character. They have continued to distinguish America from
other countries, precisely because they have stemmed from the basic
American values that have remained relatively stable as the economy,
population, and society of the country have changed.
Trade Unions
and the American
Value System
5
Although many may argue with my stress on the continuity of the
essential traits of American character and religion, few would question the
thesis that our business institutions have reflected the constant emphasis in
the American value system on individual achievement. 1 From the earliest
comments of foreign travelers down to the present, men have identified
a strong materialistic bent as being a characteristic American trait. The
worship of the dollar, the desire to make a profit, the effort to get ahead
through the accumulation of wealth, all have been credited to the
egalitarian character of the society, that is, to the absence of aristocracy.
As Tocqueville noted in his discussion of the consequences of a democ-
racy's destruction of aristocracy: "They have swept away the privileges
1 See Francis X. Sutton, Seymour E. Harris, Carl Kaysen, and James Tobin, The
American Business Creed (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 355,
for a statement of the emphasis on achievement in business ideology as well
as the strains produced by conflicting values. These authors state that "A
basic stability ... in many elements of business ideology is evident from the
most cursory examination of past business pronouncements" (p. 385). They
believe that this ideological stability has maintained itself in the face of
changing social structure and values. A study of managerial ideologies (how
to deal with workers), as distinct from business ideologies, however, points
to changes inherent in increased size and bureaucratization. See Reinhard
Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry (New York: John Wiley, 1956),
pp. 254-340.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 171
of some of their fellow creatures which stood in their way, but they have
opened the door to universal competition." 2 And the study of the com-
ments on American workers of various nineteenth-century foreign
travelers cited earlier notes that most of these European writers, among
whom were a number of socialists, concluded that "social and economic
democracy in America, far from mitigating competition for social
status, intensified it. . . ." 8
American secular and religious values both have facilitated the
"triumph of American capitalism," and have fostered status striving. The
focus on equalitarianism and individual opportunity has also prevented
the emergence of class consciousness among the lower classes. The absence
of a socialist or labor party, and the historic weakness of American trade-
unionism, appear to attest to the strength of values which depreciated a
concern with class. The growth of a large trade-union movement during
the 1930's, together with the greater political involvement of labor
organizations in the Democratic party, suggested to some that the day
long predicted by many Marxists was arriving in which the American
working class would finally follow in the footsteps of its European
brethren. Such changes in the structure of class relations seemed to these
observers to reflect the decline of opportunity and the hardening of class
lines. To them such changes could not occur without modification in the
traditional value system, that is, without a decline in the stress on equality
and achievement.
A close examination of the character of the American labor movement,
however, suggests that it, like the church, may be perceived as reflecting
the basic values of the larger society. Although unions, like all other
American institutions, have changed in various ways congruent with the
growth of an urban industrial civilization, the essential traits of American
trade unions, as of business corporations, may still be derived from key
elements in the American value system.
Since a large labor movement is of relatively recent vintage in Ameri-
can society, I shall not try to trace historical continuities in its behavior
and structure. Rather, I shall attempt to specify how the character of
American unions differs from those in other industrial countries, and to
account for these differences by analyzing the relationship between labor
movements and the social structures of these nations. In moving from a
2 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage Books,
1959), Vol. n, p. 146.
a Robert W. Smuts, European Impressions of the American Worker (New
York: King's Crown Press, 1953), p. 13.
172 Stability in the Midst of Change
more historical to a more comparative approach, I have purposely limited
the scope of the comparison to those countries which most resemble the
United States in economic and political organization.
The union movements compared are all located in industrially devel-
oped nations which have relatively stable democratic political systems.
They are characterized by "the uninterrupted continuation of political
democracy since World War I and the absence of a major political move-
ment opposed to the democratic 'rules of the game/ "* They are also
similar in the assumptions they make about the role of unions and the na-
ture of industrial relations. The labor movements of these countries all
assume, more or less, as Hugh Clegg has recently put it, that "unions
must be independent both of the state and of management . . . , that only
the unions can represent the industrial interests of workers . . . [and] that
the ownership of industry is irrelevant to good industrial relations." 6 These
nations are "die United States, Britain, Scandinavia, Holland, Switzerland,
Australia, Canada and New Zealand." 6
Although the American kbor movement is similar to others in many
respects, it differs from those of the other stable democracies in ideology,
class solidarity, tactics, organizational structure, and patterns of leader-
ship behavior. American unions are more conservative; they are more
narrowly self-interested; their tactics are more militant; they are more
decentralized in their collective bargaining; and they have many more
full-time salaried officials, who are on the whole much more highly paid
and who exhibit a somewhat greater penchant to engage in corrupt prac-
tices. American unions have also organized a smaller proportion of the
kbor force than have unions in these other nations. 7
In stressing variations between American unionism and that of other
countries, particularly those of northwestern Europe and Australasia, I
do not mean to imply that any of these differences are of such magnitude
as to make American unionism a qualitatively different phenomenon from
the others. Clearly, the kbor movements in all industrialized democracies
have great similarities and perform similar functions. Although American
4 Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden
City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 48-49.
5 Hugh Clegg, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy (Oxford: Black-
well, 1960), p. 21.
6 Loc. cit. My list in Political Man includes Belgium and Luxemburg as well.
T These points have been elaborated and documented in my "Le syndicalisme
americain et les valeurs de la societe americaine," Sociologie du Travail, 2
(1961), pp. 161-181.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 173
unions are less class conscious politically than those of Europe, they are
certainly involved in politics. 8 American labor leaders earn more relative
to the rank and file than do European labor leaders, but the perquisites of
the latter are also quite considerable in the form of high status, power,
interesting work, travel, and the like. With the possible exception of lead-
ership corruption and involvement in private business, almost every prac-
tice which may be mentioned as characteristic of American unionism is
to be found in the northwestern European or Australasian movements.
Clearly, as Clegg indicates, the labor movements of this industrialized,
democratic "culture area" resemble each other greatly when contrasted
with the types of movements found in southern and Latin Europe and
in the underdeveloped states. But it is obvious also that considerable dif-
ferences do exist between the labor movement of the United States and
those of other countries in its "culture area."
Social Structure: the Source of American Unionism
In order to explain, in part, why American unionism differs from the
unionism of the other predominantly Protestant, industrial democracies
of northwestern Europe and Australasia, it is necessary to describe in more
detail the way in which the trade union, as an American institution, has
responded to and reflected the pressures generated by the interplay be-
tween America's basic values and the facts of social stratification in an in-
dustrial society. The stress on equality and achievement in American so-
ciety has meant that Americans are much more likely to be concerned
with the achievement of approved ends particularly pecuniary success
than with the use of appropriate means the behavior considered appro-
priate to a given position or status. In a country which stresses success
above all, men are led to feel that the most important thing is to win the
8 Their relations with the Democratic Party resemble those of many European
unions with their socialist parties. However, as Cyriax and Oakeshott note:
"The fact still remains that the British unions are 'in politics* in a sense in
which their United States counterparts are definitely not. Their leaders still
subscribe to a large body of Socialist objectives which can only be achieved
through political action. ... In America, by contrast, there is no distinct set
of political beliefs superimposed on the informal working arrangements be-
tween the unions and the Democratic Party. Formally, therefore, the AFL-CIO
is not affiliated to any party, and only tends to become involved in active
politics when anti-union legislation is in the air." George Cyriax and Robert
Oakeshott, The Bargainers: A Survey of Modern Trade Unionism (New
York: Praeger, 1960), pp. 212-213.
174 Stability in the Midst of Change
game, regardless of the methods employed in doing so. American culture
applies the norms of a completely competitive society to everyone. Win-
ners take all. As Robert K. Merton has put it:
What makes American culture relatively distinctive ... is that it is
"a society which pkces a high premium on economic affluence and
social ascent for all its members." . . . this patterned expectation is
regarded as appropriate for everyone, irrespective of his initial lot
or station in life. . . .
This leads naturally to the subsidiary theme that success or failure
are results wholly of personal qualities, that he who fails has only
himself to blame, for the corollary to the concept of the self-made
man is the self-unmade man. To the extent that this cultural defini-
tion is assimilated by those who have not made their mark, failure
represents a double defeat: the manifest defeat of remaining far be-
hind in the race for success and the implicit defeat of not having the
capacities and moral stamina needed for success. ... It is in this
cultural setting that, in a significant proportion of cases, the threat
of defeat motivates men to the use of those tactics, beyond the law
or the mores, which promise "success."
The moral mandate to achieve success thus exerts pressure to suc-
ceed, by fair means if possible and by foul means if necessary. 9
In contrast, one of the essential norms in more traditionalistic, as-
criptive, or aristocratic societies is that one should behave in a manner
appropriate to one's station. In the morality of aristocracy, to play the
game well is more important than victory. All privileged strata seek to
develop norms which justify their right to high status and which limit, if
they do not eliminate, the possibility that they may be supplanted by
"new men," by the upwardly mobile who succeed by "innovating" that
is, by ignoring the conventions. To emphasize correct behavior, manners,
and so forth, is to reward the characteristics which those born to privilege
are most likely to have. And since it is part of the logic of family life and
social stratification to desire to perpetuate if not enhance the status of
children and other family members, there is constant pressure in all so-
cieties to create "aristocratic" norms, or to preserve them if they have
Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, HI.: The
Free Press, 1957), pp. 167-169. Merton reports considerable evidence docu-
menting the thesis that pecuniary success is the dominant American value. I
have leaned heavily on his paper, "Social Structure and Anomie," in this anal-
ysis.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 175
been handed down from previous eras, as has been the case for most Euro-
pean countries.
Because of its revolutionary origins, America entered the era of a cap-
italist, industrial, and politically democratic society without the traditions
of an aristocratic or deferential order. As a result, the norms of aristoc-
racy, though present to a limited extent among the social elite, have not
been able to make much headway. The tendency of the successful achiev-
ers to undermine equality has been checked by the recurrent victories of
the forces of equality in the political order. Capitalism and industrialism
have reinforced equalitarian forces in this struggle: a market economy
operates best under conditions of free competition, recognising neither
family background nor social limitations.
In a society with aristocratic origins, where norms derived from a pre-
industrial social system still retain force and where they have often been
partly accepted by the newer upper class of industrial society, there is
greater emphasis on the propriety of class consciousness. Such a society,
which pkces less emphasis on general achievement by everyone regard-
less of background, usually incorporates more f articular sets of goals for
each major social stratum. Thus a worker who is the son of a worker is
less likely to view himself a personal failure than is a comparably situated
man in a more equalitarian and achievement-oriented culture such as that
of the United States. The weaker sense of personal failure felt by lower
stratum individuals in such a "particularistic" social order does not mean
that they feel less resentment over having inferior status, but rather that
they are less likely to feel personally responsible for their "failure" or to
feel the need to do something extraordinary about it. Deprived individ-
uals are more likely to try to improve their situations collectively through
social movements and class-conscious political parties. Or to put it in de-
scriptive terms: in an achievement-oriented society such as the United
States, the lower status person is more likely to feel impelled to drive
himself to get ahead; in the more ascriptive European cultures, there will
be greater emphasis on collective modification of the class structure. 10
Since the emphasis is on individual success in the United States, those in-
dividuals or groups who feel themselves handicapped and who seek to re-
solve their consequent doubts about their personal worth are under strong
pressure to "innovate," that is, to use whatever means they can find to
10 Of course, these are only relative comparisons; Europeans try to get ahead,
and Americans try to change the distribution of privilege. It is the difference
in emphasis that I stress here.
176 Stability in the Midst of Change
gain recognition. This pressure to innovate may be reflected in efforts
which established groups would not make for example, the develop-
ment of new and risky industries by those of recent immigrant back-
ground and low status who are barred, by limited economic resources
and social discrimination, from advancing up economic ladders. 11 Simi-
larly, urban machine politics, which required the use of "unconventional"
tactics, became a road to success for various immigrant groups.
The pressure to succeed may also lead individuals and groups to serve
social needs which are outside the law, in occupations usually described
as "rackets." Organized vice prostitution, bootlegging, and gambling
has been open to ambitious individuals from deprived social backgrounds
when other fields were closed. The rackets have attracted members of
minority ethnic groups who are strongly motivated by the American
emphasis on achievement, but who are limited in their access to legitimate
means of succeeding. Members of groups engaged in illegitimate businesses
often do not conceive of themselves as engaged in crime, but rather as
conforming to the achievement norms.
Criminal activities and corrupt politics may be found to some extent in
all countries and may be more prevalent in impoverished regions of the
world, such as Asia, southern Europe, and Latin America; but within the
general culture area of the predominantly Protestant, relatively affluent,
industrialized nations of northwestern Europe and the English-speaking
countries of the Commonwealth, the United States is well out in the lead.
As many observers have pointed out, the comparatively high crime rate
in America, both in the form of lower-class rackets and white-collar and
business defalcation, may be perceived as a consequence of the stress laid
on success. Daniel Bell, for example, has suggested that racketeering may
be seen as a natural by-product of American culture:
Crime, in many ways, is a Coney Island mirror, caricaturing the
morals and manners of a society. The jungle quality of the American
business community, particularly at the turn of the century, was
reflected in the mode of "business" practiced by the coarse gangster
elements, most of them from new immigrant families, who were
"getting ahead," just as Horatio Alger had urged. . . .
The desires satisfied in extra-legal fashion were more than a hun-
ger for the "forbidden fruits" of conventional morality. They also
involved in the complex and ever shifting structure of group, class,
11 The Jews, for example, pkyed a major role in developing the motion picture
industry and in introducing credit practices in retail selling.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 177
and ethnic stratification, which is the warp and woof of America's
"open" society, such "normal" goals as independence through a busi-
ness of one's own, and such "moral" aspirations as the desire for so-
cial advancement and social prestige. For crime, in the language of
the sociologists, has a "functional" role in the society, and the urban
rackets the illicit activity organized for continuing profit, rather
than individual illegal acts . . . [are] one of the queer ladders of
social mobility in American life. 12
Given the extent of the pressure to "innovate," it is not surprising to
find evidence that the successful may win general acceptance even if
there is public knowledge that they used extralegal methods to get ahead.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Charles Dickens commented that in Amer-
ica:
The merits of a broken speculation, or a bankruptcy, or of a suc-
cessful scoundrel, are not gauged by its or his observance of the
golden rule, "Do as you would be done by," but are considered with
reference to their smartness The following dialogue I have held
a hundred times: "Is it not a very disgraceful circumstance that
such a man as So-and-So should be acquiring a large property by the
most infamous and odious means, and notwithstanding all the crimes
of which he has been guilty, should be tolerated and abetted by
your citizens? He is a public nuisance, is he not?" 'Tes, Sir." "A
convicted liar?" 'Tes, Sir." "He has been kicked, and cuffed, and
caned?" "Yes, Sir." "And he is utterly dishonourable, debased, and
profligate?" *Tes, Sir." "In the name of wonder, then, what is his
merit?" "Well, Sir, he is a smart man." 13
A study of a Boston election in the 1940's in which James Curley was re-
elected mayor while under a charge of fraud (for which he was sub-
12 Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (Glencoe, HI.: The Free Press, 1960),
pp. 116-117.
13 Charles Dickens, American Notes, aid Pictures from Italy (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 245-246. This quotation has been fre-
quently cited. See Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure, p. 142; Gabriel
Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy (New York: Harconrt,
Brace, 1950), p. 34; and Henry Steele Commager, America in Perspective
(New York: Mentor Books, 1947), p. 80. Dickens* comments on the willing-
ness of Americans to accept bankrupts reiterated those of many other foreign
visitors; see, for example, Gustave de Beaumont, Marie, or Slavery in the
United States (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), pp. 221-222.
178 Stability in the Midst of Change
sequendy convicted) reported that there was a general image among his
supporters, who were aware of the charges of dishonesty, that he "gets
things done." 14
Societal Values and the Union Movement
THE RELATIVE LACK OF CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SELF-INTEREST OF
INDIVIDUAL UNIONS The lack of a class-conscious ideology in the Amer-
ican labor movement may be directly traced to the equalitarian, anti-class
orientation of the values associated with America's national identity. Thus
it may be suggested that one of the reasons unions have had trouble
nrga.-niy.ing new segments of the employed population as compared to
unions in northern Europe is that they have been handicapped by their
slightly illegitimate position relative to the value sytsem. "Union" con-
notes "class" organization.
In an interesting effort to account for the failure of socialism to take
root in American society, Leon Samson has suggested that an important
cause has been that Americanism is a political ideology with much the
same value content as socialism. 15 It endorses the progress of the society
toward the more equal distribution of privileges that socialism demands.
As a result, the rank and file members of American kbor unions have not
had to look for an ideology that justified the changes which they desired
in the society.
However, the failure of the American kbor movement to identify it-
self as a class movement may be traced more directly to the way in which
equalitarianism and achievement orientation permeated the social struc-
ture. As Schumpeter has noted, the self-interested orientation of the
American kbor movement is but the application, in the realm of working-
class life and trade unions, of the general value scheme. 16 Indeed, instead
of reducing the individualistic orientation that Marxism associates 'with
the early phase of capitalism, increasing industrialization in American so-
ciety has reinforced the egalitarian-achievement attitudes toward stratifi-
cation that early became part of the American natioTial character. In a
14 See Jerome S. Bruner and Sheldon J. Korchin, "The Boss and the Vote: A
Case Study in City Politics," The Public Opinion Quarterly, 10 (1946), p. 21.
15 Leon Samson, Towards a United Front (New York: Farrar and Rinehart,
1933), pp. 1-90.
16 Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York:
Harper & Bros., 1942), pp. 331-336.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 179
sense, industrialization has lent these attitudes continued legitimacy: in-
dustrialization and advancing technology brought about an almost un-
broken increase in national wealth on both an absolute and a per capita
basis, so that in the nineteenth century America became the wealthiest
country in the world, a position it has never relinquished. 17 And as David
Potter has well stressed, the fact of increasing abundance, no matter how
unequally distributed, has served to permit the majority of the American
population, including most trade-unionists, to enjoy a visible living stand-
ard roughly comparable among all groups with the exception of the ex-
tremely wealthy:
American social distinctions, however real they may be and however
difficult to break down, are not based upon or supported by great
disparities in wealth, in education, in speech, in dress, etc., as they
are in the old world. If the American class structure is in reality
very unlike the classless society which we imagine, it is equally un-
like the formalized class societies of former times. . . . the factor of
abundance has . . . constantly operated to equalize the overt dif-
ferences between the various classes. . . . 18
Within this context the very success of trade unions in improving the
relative position of their members vis <J vis other groups in the population
has simply contributed to the maintenance of their members' belief in the
American value system.
THE MILITANT TACTICS OF UNIONS Just as ideological conservatism
and pursuit of narrow self-interests may be derived from the value system,
17 Between 1869 and 1953 per capita annual income (standardized to 1929
prices) rose from $215 to $1,043. George J. Stigler, Trends in Employment in
the Service Industries (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1956),
p. 25. The gross national product increased five times from 1890 to 1950 as a
result of a two-fold increase in population and a three-fold rise in labor
productivity. Frederick C. Mills, Productivity and Economic Progress (New
York: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., 1952), p. 2. This increase
in the gross national product has, in turn, meant that the average income
per consumption unit increased. In 1929, it was $4,190 per year, standardized
to 1960 prices; in 1954, it was $6,730. Simon Kuznets, "Income Distribution
and Changes in Consumption," in Hoke S. Simpson, ed., The Changing
American Population (A Report of the Arden House Conference, jointly
sponsored by the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University, and the
Institute of Life Insurance, 1962), p. 30.
18 David Potter, People of Plenty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1954), p. 102.
180 Stability in the Midst of Change
so may the use of violent and militant tactics. 19 Here the labor movement,
like American business, reflects the social system's relatively greater
emphasis on ends as contrasted with means. One tries to win economic
and social objectives by whatever means are at hand. The fact that
American workers are sufficiently dissatisfied with their economic condi-
tions to tolerate relatively frequent, long, and bitter strikes may also be
explained by reference to the social structure and its values. In summing
up the conclusions of late nineteenth-century foreign visitors to America,
Robert Smuts points out that they saw it in this light:
The frequency and the bitterness of industrial conflict was the most
basic fault the foreigners found in American industrial life. . . .
Most of the European visitors explained industrial conflict as a
result rather than a contradiction of the material and social democ-
racy which typified the life of the American worker. The abundance
of his life, they pointed out, added to the strength of his ambition
for more. His self-reliance made him sensitive to his rights. Industrial
conflict in America was a man-to-man fight, with no quarter asked
or given, unmitigated by the tradition of subordination on the one
hand, or of benevolence and responsibility on the other. 20
It may also be argued that we should expect more individual discontent
with income and position among workers in America than within the
more rigidly and visibly stratified European countries. The more rigid
the stratification of a nation, the more candid the emphasis on the
existence of differences among classes, the greater the extent to which
lower status individuals will be likely to contrast their lot as a class
with that of the more privileged classes. On the other hand, in a more
loosely structured class system, people will be more prone to compare
themselves individually with other workers who are relatively close to
them in income and status. Thus if, in the latter system, groups or in-
19 For data on the greater propensity of North American and Australian
unions to strike, see Arthur M. Ross and Paul T. Hartman, Changing Pat-
term of Industrial Conflict (New York: John Wiley, 1960), pp. 141-145,
161-162. See also B. C. Roberts, Unions in America: A British View (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, 1959), p. 95.
20 Smuts, European Impressions of the American Worker, pp. 26-27. On
greater violence and bitterness, see also Roberts, Unions in America, p. 95;
Louis Adamic, Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America (New
York: Viking Press, 1934); and Henry Pelling, America and the British Left
from Bright to Sevan (New York: New York University Press, 1956), p. 79.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 181
dividuals improve their status, there will be resentment on the part of
those left behind.
In other words, an open-class system leads workers to resent inequalities
in income and status between themselves and others more frequently than
does an ascriptively stratified system, where the only inequalities that
count are class inequalities. America's equalitarian value system, by less
clearly defining the range of groups with which workers may legitimately
compare themselves, can make for greater individual discontent among
workers than is the case in Europe. 21 European social structure, by re-
garding labor, in the words of Winston Churchill, as "an estate of the
realm," makes clear to workers why they are lowly and calls upon them
to act collectively; American social structure, by eschewing estates, creat-
ing vague and even illegitimate class boundaries, and stressing equality,
blames individuals for being lowly and calls upon them to alleviate their
resentment by improving their status in as self-interested and narrowly
defined terms as possible. John L. Lewis, founder of the Congress of
Industrial Organizations, president of the United Mine Workers for
nearly forty years, and perhaps the most militant labor leader in the
United States since the 1920's was a Republican most of his life and a
strong advocate of conservative, laissez-faire economics (although he was
willing to use state power to bolster his union and the coal industry).
There is some evidence in support of the contention that this self-
interested bargaining policy does make sense for any particular group.
Recent research dealing with the influence of trade unions on wages
suggests that the existence of organized labor does not change the national
distribution of income between workers and owners through collective
bargaining, but it may improve the wage situation of one group of work-
ers relative to others. 22 (As will be noted later, it has been argued, how-
21 See Seymour Martin Lipset and Martin Trow, "Reference Group Theory
and Trade-Union Wage Policy," in Mirra Komarovsky, editor, Common
Frontiers of the Social Sciences (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1957), pp. 391-
411.
22 See John Dunlop, Wage Detennmation under Trade Unions (New York:
Macmillan, 1944), and The Theory of Wage Determination (New York:
Macmillan, 1957); Cyriax and Oakeshott, The Bargainers, p. 170; and Melvin
W. Reder, "Jb Scarcity and the Nature of Union Power," Industrial and
Labor Relations Review, 13, (1960), pp. 349-362. In a detailed summary of
research on the subject, Clark Kerr concludes that there is no evidence that
collective bargaining has increased labor's share of the national income in
the United States, and further that there is "no significant relationship be-
tween the degree of unionization and kbor's share, industry group by
182 Stability in the Midst of Change
ever, that aggressive unionism increases national wealth and thereby
workers' incomes in absolute terms by creating constant pressure on
employers to mechanize and increase productivity so as to readjust any
imbalances created by increases in labor costs.) Hence the narrow self-
interested policies traditionally pursued by many American unions would
seem to be warranted if the objective of unionism is to secure as much
as possible for the members of the given union. This is most likely to be
its objective if the union movement reflects the values of achievement
and individualism.
Conversely, however, there seems to be evidence that government can
redistribute income among the classes through welfare, tax, and spending
policies. 23 Thus, if the labor movement seeks to improve the situation of
an entire class, a goal inherent in the economic conflicts which emerged
in the previously aristocratic societies, a policy of concentrating on
political action rather than trade union militancy is warranted.
LARGE WAGE DIFFERENTIALS The approval of the pursuit of self-
interest within the American labor movement may also help to account
for the fact that wage differentials between skilled and unskilled workers
are larger in America than in the other nations. A study of such
differentials in six countries indicates that in France, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands, and Norway, "skill differentials are rather narrow,
compared, say, with United States averages." 24 And: "Differences in
wages between unskilled and skilled jobs in Swedish industry are gen-
erally much less than in America. For example, the head machine operator
in an American paper mill will earn at least 50 per cent more than the
lowest paid worker in the mill. In Sweden the difference is less than 20
per cent." 25
There are many factors related to variations in wage differentials, but it
industry group." See his "Trade-Unionism and Distributive Shares," The
American Economic Review, Tapers and "Proceedings, 44 (1954), p. 289. An
opposite conclusion is reached by Robert Ozanne, "Impact of Unions on
Wage Levels and Income Distribution," Quarterly Journal of Economics,
73 (1959), pp. 177-196.
^Kerr, "Trade Unionism and Distributive Shares," op. cit., pp. 279-292.
24 Adolf Sturmthal, ed., Contemporary Collective Bargaining in Seven Coun-
tries (Ithaca, N.Y.: Institute of International Industrial and Labor Relations,
1957), p. 335.
25 Charles A. Myers, Industrial Relations m Sweden (Cambridge, Mass.:
Technology Press, 1951), p. 42.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 183
seems possible that variations in basic values may pky a role. Sturmthal
points this out:
Undoubtedly also the notions of what are proper differentials . . .
vary a good deal on both sides of the Atlantic. The absence of
feudal concepts of the place in society to which a worker may
properly aspire may have pkyed a part in allowing the larger wage
differentials to arise in the United States, just as the heritage of the
feudal concepts may have helped maintain the highly compressed
wage structure in Europe. 26
The very insistence on the "formal" equality of all people in the
United States places a higher value on income and conspicuous con-
sumption than in societies in which status and occupation are closely
linked. Although comparative studies of occupational status indicate that
occupations tend to rank at roughly the same level in all industrial
societies, 27 occupation seems to be less important than sheer income as
a determinant of status in the United States, as compared with some
European nations. Two surveys made at about the same time in the
United States and Germany suggest this interpretation (see Table HI),
Although the differences in results may reflect the variations in the
questions that were asked, it seems likely that both surveys touched to
some extent on the same basic issue: the relative weight given to oc-
cupational prestige as compared with the size of income. In both countries
those who had higher status (Le., those who were either better educated
or who occupied a white-collar position) were more likely than those
of lower status to favor white-collar status, even if it meant lower income
than that obtained by a skilled worker. But the important result was
that the majority of the American respondents, even among the college
graduates, preferred the higher paid, lower status job; on the other hand,
26 Stunnthal, Contemporary Collective Bargaining m Seven Countries, p. 343.
27 See Alex Inkeles and Peter Rossi, "National Comparisons of Occupational
Prestige," American Journal of Sociology, 61 (1956), p. 339. These authors
compared the results of surveys completed in Japan, Great Britain, the United
States, Germany, Australia, and a sample of Russian "defectors." They con-
cluded that the rankings were roughly similar in these countries. Later studies
in Brazil, the Philippines, Denmark, and the Netherlands showed similar
results. For discussion and references, see S. M. Lipset and R. Bendix, Social
Mobility in Industrial Society (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1959), pp. 14, 111.
184 Stability in the Midst of Change
Table III
Preference Percentages for White-Collar Status and Low Income
or for Manual Position and High Income in Germany and the
United States
UNITED STATES 1951
"Which of these two jobs ivould you personally prefer a son of yours
to take, assuming he is equally qualified: a skilled worker's job at $100 a
week, or a white-collar desk job at $15 a week?"
Total
j. caid UJL JL:
jUUl-dUUJJ.
Answer
Sample
0-8
9-12
13-15
16
White collar
28
22
31
34
42
Skilled laborer
69
72
67
65
52
Don't know
3
6
2
1
6
Total
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
100.0
Number interviewed
(658)
(287)
(257)
(62)
(52)
Source: Computed from Gallup data m the files of the Roper Public Opinion Re-
search Center at Williams College.
GERMANY 1952
"Who do you think receives more prestige from the population in
general: a bookkeeper who earns 300 marks a month, or a foundry
'worker 'who brings home 450 marks a month?"
Answer
Total
Sample
Manual Worker
Respondents Only
The bookkeeper
The foundry worker
Don't know
58
24
18
56
28
16
Total
100.0
100,0
Source: Erich Peter Neumann and Elizabeth Noelle, Antworten, Politik im Kraftf eld
der offendichen Meinung (Allensbach am Bodensee: Verlag fur Demoskopie,
1934} , p. 1(H.
the majority of the German respondents ranked the lower paid, white-
collar job higher.
A report on a similar study in another European country, this time a
Communist one, Poland, suggests that in that country, as in Germany,
white-collar status is given more weight than income. This study, which
Trade Unions and the American Value System 185
was apparently more like the American than the German in its approach,
indicates that "passage of the better paid skilled manual workers to the
position of the slightly lower paid white-collar workers . , . in the
majority of cases is looked on as a promotion . * . [although] from the
point of view of the new criteria of prestige, this should not be considered
a promotion." 28
Assuming, therefore, that higher occupational status is more of an
incentive in countries with relatively formalized status systems than in
countries stressing equalitarian behavioral norms, there should be less need
in the first group of societies to magnify economic incentives in order to
motivate people to prepare for positions requiring long periods of train-
ing. 29 As Sturmthal has put it, "incentives that are necessary in one
country to produce a certain supply of highly skilled labor may be
excessive in another country or vice versa. This may be the result of
different non-economic compensations offered to the higher skills status
and prestige or simply of different 'styles of life' in which lesser
financial rewards are sufficient to bring about the desired result." 30
Differences in behavior of organized labor from country to country
seem to reflect in some measure variations in the differentials that are
considered morally appropriate. Thus, in the United States, for in-
dividuals or groups of individuals to seek to better themselves at the
expense of others tends to be encouraged by the dominant achievement
orientation. In the past few years, several industrial unions formed by the
CIO have had difficulty with skilled workers among their membership
who have insisted that the wage differentials be widened. In New York,
the most highly skilled groups employed on the city's transportation
system tried to break away from the Transport Workers' Union to
form separate craft unions. A strike called for this purpose failed, but
this relatively old industrial union made important concessions to its
skilled workers. In the United Automobile Workers the skilled crafts
have been allowed to form separate councils within the union and have
forced the union to press their demand for greater differentials. In some
old craft unions which accepted unskilled and semi-skilled workers, the
28 S. Ossowski, "Social Mobility Brought About by Social Revolutions,* 1 Fourth
Working Conference on Social Stratification and Social Mobility (Inter-
national Sociological Association, December, 1957, p. 3.
29 "The function of skill differentials is primarily to provide incentives to
embark upon careers requiring longer and arduous training." Sturmthal,
Contemporary Collective Bargaining m Seven Countries, p. 340.
p. 341.
186 Stability In the Midst of Change
latter were often given second-class membership, i.e., no voting rights,
to prevent them from inhibiting the bargaining strategy of the skilled
group. 81
In much of Europe, on the other hand, the norms implicit in socialist
and working-class ideology have made such behavior difficult. The
Swedish labor movement for many years made a reduction of dif-
ferentials one of its aims. 32 Clark Kerr notes that in Germany one of the
forces which explains the greater emphasis on wage equality has been
"Socialist theories of standardizing pay. . . ." 33 In Italy after World
War II, "for political reasons and under the pressure of left-wing parties,
the general trend was in favor of raising as much as possible the wages
paid to common laborers. . . ." 34 The Norwegian labor movement fol-
lowed for many years the policy of "wages solidarity," i.e., the reduction
of differentials. 35
In recent years, under pressure from their skilled members and on the
advice of various economists who are disturbed by the possible effects on
efficiency of narrow differentials for large variations in skills, many of
the European labor movements have formally dropped their insistence on
narrowing the gap, and some even advocate widening it. As far as the
labor economists can judge, the skill differentials, which began dropping
in most countries in the late 1930 J s and continued falling until around
1952, have been rising slightly since then. For socialists, however, to
avowedly seek to benefit a more well-to-do group at the expense of the
poorer one would seem to violate essential values. 36 And the greater
31 The practice is now illegal. For a general discussion of some of these
problems, see David Cole, "Union Self-Discipline and the Freedom of Indi-
vidual Workers," in Michael Harrington and Paul Jacobs, eds., Labor in a
Free Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), pp. 88-101.
32 Myers, Industrial Relations in Sweden, p. 43.
33 dark Kerr, "Collective Bargaining in Postwar Germany," in Adolf
Sturmthal, ed., Contemporary Collective Bargaining in Seven Countries, p.
208.
34 Luisa R. Sanseverino, "Collective Bargaining in Italy," in Sturmthal, ed,.
op. cit., p. 224.
35 Sturmthal, in Stunnthal, ed., op. cit., p. 339.
36 There has, of course, been tension between the skilled and unskilled sections
of the labor movement over such issues in most countries. The point here,
as in the other comparisons, is always a relative rather than an absolute one.
Denmark, for example, represents an extreme case of such internecine war-
fare. The Laborers Union, the union of the unskilled, which contains almost
40 per cent of all organized workers in the country, has had bitter battles
with the craft unions over wage systems. However, as Galenson notes, "Ac-
Trade Unions and the American Value System 187
centralization of the union movement in most of these European coun-
tries requires that such a wage policy be an explicit national one, rather
than one simply reflecting adjustments to immediate pressures.
The general behavior of American unions in perpetuating wide dif-
ferentials is congruent with the assumption that Americans remain more
narrowly self-interested and that the more powerful groups of workers
are able to maintain or occasionally even improve a relatively privileged
position at the expense of the less powerful, usually less organized, and
less skilled workers. 37
Societal Values and Union Leadership
Any effort to account for the ways in which American unionism
differs from unionism in northern Europe and Australasia necessarily
must deal with the behavior of the leaders. As recent congressional
investigations and journalistic exposes have made manifest, union officials
in this country receive higher salaries, are more wont to engage in
practices which violate conventional morality, and show a lesser regard
for the mechanisms of democratic procedure than leaders in the other
nations discussed here.
UNION LEADERS* JOB ORIENTATION, SALARIES, AND ENTRENCHED POSI-
TIONS The concept of "business unionism,*' the dominant ideology
of the American labor movement which perceives unions as fighting for
more money rather than for any program of social reconstruction, has
important consequences in encouraging union leaders to view them-
selves as bound by the same standards as profit-oriented businessmen.
ceptance of socialism by Danish workers by no means eliminated or even
dampened internecine strife when important economic interests were involved,
but it did contribute to prevention of the breaches of kbor solidarity some-
times witnessed in American rival union warfare." And in the 1930's, the
Danish Federation of Labor adopted "the so-called 'solidaristic' wage policy,
whereby lower paid workers were to receive extra wage concessions. . . ."
Walter Galenson, The Danish System of Labor Relations (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 50-57, 68, 186.
37 Skill and organized collective bargaining power do not necessarily go to-
gether. Among the less skilled groups which have powerful unions are the
coal miners, the truck drivers, and the West Coast longshoremen. It may
also be suggested that one further reason for widespread skill differentials in
the United States has been the constant addition of immigrants, most recently
Negroes and Puerto Ricans, to the lowest occupational strata. Such sources
of migration may involve downward pressure on the wages of the unskilled.
188 Stability in the Midst of Change
Usually the leaders of social movements are expected to have a
"calling," to feel moved by a moral ethic toward serving certain major
social values. In the early days of many American unions, when they
were weak, often illegitimate, and could yield few rewards in the f orm
of status, power, or income, their leaders did adhere to some such larger
ideology, often a variant of socialism. This ideology prescribed certain
standards of ethical behavior and a certain style of life. But as American
union leaders shifted from social or socialist unionism to business unionism,
they also changed their values and standards of comparisons. To a con-
siderable extent, those unions which have retained important aspects of
socialist values, such as the United Automobile Workers or the Inter-
national Ladies Garment Workers Union, are precisely the unions whose
leaders, even with great power, still insist upon relatively low officer
salaries and show great concern over problems of corruption and civil
liberties. 38 To the extent that union office has changed from a "calling"
to a "career" as unions have aged and ideology has declined, to that
extent have leaders lost their inhibitions about comparing themselves
with businessmen or widening the discrepancy between their salaries
and those of their members. 39
38 The two unions which have established external boards to review appeals
from members who feel that they have been deprived of their rights by
union officers are the United Automobile Workers and the Upholsterers
International Union. Both organizations are still led by men who show various
signs of having retained parts of their early socialist beliefs.
39 For a more elaborate discussion of these concepts, see Lipset, Political
Man, pp. 383-389. In the United States, "the gap between the members' wages
and the salaries of the presidents of the larger unions has increased relatively
during the 1940's and 1950's. The heads of the dozen largest unions have
salaries ranging from $18,000 to $60,000 a year, plus ample expense accounts
and frequently other perquisites.** Richard Lester, As Unions Mature (Prince-
ton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1958), p. 27. For data on union leaders'
salaries in three different periods, see G Wright Mills, New Men of Power
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1948), p. 305; Philip Taft, Structure and
Government of Labor Unions (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1954), pp. 104-110; and Harry Cohany and Irving P. Philips, Union Con-
stitution Provisions: Election and Tenure of International Union Officers,
1958 (Washington: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1958), pp. 21-24. A
recent study which yields much information on the salaries of European
labor leaders is Walter Galenson, Trade Union Democracy in Western
Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). British salaries are
reported in H. A. Clegg, A. J. Killick, and Rex Adams, Trade Union Officers
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp. 55-60.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 189
The emphasis on pecuniary success, combined "with the absence of the
kind of class consciousness characteristic of more aristocratic societies,
has thus served to motivate workers to use the labor movement itself as
an avenue to financial and status gain. The high incomes which many
union leaders receive represent their adaptation to the norm of "getting
ahead." As long as a union leader has the reputation for "delivering the
goods" to his members, they seem willing to allow him a high salary and
sometimes the right to engage in private business, or even to be
corrupt. 40
The greater perquisites attached to high union office in America, a
seeming consequence of pressure inherent in the achievement-equalitarian-
ism syndrome, may also account for the fact that American union leaders
have formally institutionalized dictatorial mechanisms which prevent the
possibility of their being defeated for re-election. Although trade-union
leaders in all countries have achieved a great deal by moving up from the
machine or bench to the union office, this shift has nowhere meant as
much in terms of money and consequent style of life as in the United
States. Most high status positions carry with them some security of tenure,
but political positions in democratic societies are insecure by definition.
Politicians in most countries may move from electoral defeat to highly
paid positions in private industry or the professions, but union leaders
customarily cannot do so. This means, as I have noted elsewhere, that
they are under considerable pressure to find means to protect their source
of status. Thus the greater the gap between the rewards of union leader-
ship and of those jobs from which the leader came and to which he might
return on defeat, the greater the pressure to eliminate democratic rights.
Within the American labor movement itself those unions in which the
gap between leaders and rank and file is narrow in income or in status
40 Some indication of the extent of corruption may be found in a speech by
George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, in which, discussing the revela-
tions of the Senate Committee, he commented: "We thought we knew a few
things about trade union corruption, but we didn't know the half of it, one
tenth of it, or the hundredth of it." Reported in the New York Times,
November 2, 1957, and cited in Sylvester Petro, Power Unlimited (New
York: Ronald Press, 1959), p. 146; and in Sidney Lens, The Crisis of Ameri-
can Labor (New York: Sagamore Press, 1959), p. 105. On corruption in
American unions, see also John Hutchinson, "Corruption in American
Unions," Political Quarterly > 28 (1957), pp. 214-235; Harold Seidman, Labor
Czars A History of Labor Racketeering (New York: Liveright, 1938); B. C.
Roberts, Unions in America, pp. 59-73; Petro, op. cit. (above), especially
pp. 144-181; and Lens, op. cit. (above), pp. 70-132.
190 Stability in the Midst of Change
seem to be much more democratic than those in which the gap is great
Among the unions which fall in this former category are Actors' Equity,
the American Newspaper Guild, and the International Typographical
Union. 41 Thus the very forces which press for higher rewards of various
types for American labor leaders also support and encourage greater
restrictions on democratic politics in the unions.
It may also be argued that in societies in which deferential values
are strong, union leaders may maintain an oligarchic structure with less
strain than is possible in America. And as I stated in an earlier essay:
Given the assumption that leaders in both [continents] would seek
to make their tenure secure, we would expect that American labor
leaders would be under greater pressure to formalize dictatorial
mechanisms so as to prevent the possibility of their being over-
thrown. Or, to put it another way, since the values inherent in
American society operate to make American union officers more
vulnerable than, say, their German counterparts, they would be
obliged to act more vigorously and decisively and dictatorially to
stabilize their status. 42
Some evidence that relatively elite societies are more willing to give
tenure to union leaders may be found in Great Britain and Sweden,
where the principal officers of many national unions are formally chosen
for life. 43 Although similar commitments are much less common else-
where, actual opposition to the re-election of national leaders is almost
non-existent among most European unions. Lower level leaders and con-
vention delegates may and often do oppose top leadership policies, but
such opposition and even successful efforts to change policies by con-
vention vote are rarely linked to an effort to replace the high-ranking
officers.
The logic of the argument presented here is similar to that made by
many foreign analysts of American stratification, who have suggested
41 See Seymour Martin Lipset, Martin Trow, and James S. Coleman, Union
Democracy (Glencoe, HI.: The Free Press, 1956).
42 Seymour Martin Lipset, "The Political Process in Trade Unions," in Monroe
Berger, Theodore Abel, and Charles Page, eds., "Freedom and Control in
Modem Society (Princeton, NJ.: Van Nostrand, 1954), pp. 116-117. These
two pages present my first efforts to suggest a relationship between societal
values and variation in union structures.
43 In Great Britain, 86 of 127 general secretaries of unions have permanent
status. These unions cover 74 per cent of the total membership of the T.U.C.
See V. L. Allen, Power in Trade Unicms (New York: Longmans, Green,
1954), p. 215. On Sweden, see Galenson, The Danish System of Labor
Relations, p. 74.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 191
that precisely because of the antagonism to aristocratic values in the
United States, upper-class Americans as contrasted with upper-class
Europeans are more likely to be concerned with the social origins and
social backgrounds of those with whom they associate at play, in clubs,
in school, and so forth. Insecurity stemming from an equalitarian democ-
racy's denial of permanent status, calls forth defensive reactions on the
part of those who would preserve their positions.
THE LARGE NUMBER AND PROPORTION OF PAID UNION OFFICIALS
Perhaps even more important in affecting the varying quality of the
internal political life of American and European unions is the difference
in the sheer number and proportion of full-time officers. A recent ELO
mission of European labor authorities studying American unions was
impressed by "the number of paid posts at all levels of union organiza-
tion," as contrasted with the much lower number in Europe. 44 The most
recent available data for various countries are reported in Table IV. These
indicate one officer for every 300 union members in the United States,
while three of the northern European movements, those of Britain,
Norway, and Sweden, have one officer for every 1,700 to 2,200 members.
(Australia, which has one officer for every 900 members, will be dis-
cussed together with Canada in a kter section.)
In Britain, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and many other European
countries, lay union officers and committees, i.e., men working full time
at their regular occupations while voluntarily performing union duties,
carry out many of die tasks which are performed by full-time union
executives and staff men in the United States. National officers clearly
cannot have the same degree of control over ky subordinates which they
have over paid officers whose tenure in, or advancement up, the union
hierarchy usually depends on being in the good graces of the top leaders. 45
^Report of a Mission from the International Labour Office, The Trade
Union Situation in the United States (Geneva: 1960), p. 133. The Swedish
economist and sociologist Gunnar Myrdal was startled by the differences
between the size of American and European trade union bureaucracies. See
his An American Dilemma (New York: Harper & Bros., 1944), p. 713.
45 "There are strong, dominating personalities at the head of many Scandi-
navian unions, but power tends to be vested in national committees, most of
which include lay members. ... By all accounts, these rank-and-file men
have strong local backing, and are quite capable of standing up to the perma-
nent officers. . . . This pattern of the lay majority on executive boards is quite
common in Scandinavia, and is regarded as an important contributor to union
democracy." Galenson, Trade Union Democracy m Western Europe, pp.
74-75.
192 Stability in the Midst of Change
Table IV
Numbers and Proportions of Full-Time Union Officers in
Various Countries
Total union
Total number
full-rime
Approximate
ratio of officers
Country
membership
officers
to members
United States
18,000,000
60,000
1:300
Australia
2,400,000
2,500-2,750
1:900
Great Britain
8,000,000
4,000
1:2,000
Sweden
1,500,000
900
1:1,700
Norway
Denmark
500,000
775,000
240
1,000
1:2,200
1:775
Sources: The American data, are from Eichard Lester, As Unions Mature (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958), p. 116. The British data are based on an
estimate by Hugh Clegg which is an extension of the materials presented in H. A.
Clegg, A. J. Killick, and Rex Adams, Trade Union Officers (Oxford: Blackwell,
1961), pp. 39, 94. These data, based on a detailed survey of most British unions,
report 3flOO full-time officers, 2/00 national officers and 400 branch secretaries, for
unions having a total membership of JJOOflOO in 1959. Earlier British estimates are
reported in George Cyriax and Robert Oakeshott, The Bargainers: A Survey of
Modern Trade Unionism (New York: New York University Press, I960), p. 133,
and in B. C. Roberts, Trade-Union Government and Administration in Great
Britain (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956}, p. 288* The Australian
estimates were furnished by Dr. Tom Truman of the University of Queensland
and 'were obtained from queries sent to union officials. The Norwegian data were
gathered by Dr. Stein Rokkan of the Christen Michelsens Institute of Bergen and
were supplied by the Norwegian L. O. (labor federation). The 240 Norwegians
include ISO elected officers and 90 appointed ones. The Swedish materials were
collected by Dr. Ingemar Lmdblad of the Swedish Royal Commission on Sound
Broadcasting and 'were secured from officials of the Swedish L. O. Danish data
were obtained from officers of Danish unions by Dr. Hennmg Friis of the Danish
National Institute of Social Research. German data which suggest a pattern sim-
ilar to the British one were collected by Professor Otto Stammer of the Free Uni-
versity of Berlin. They are not presented here since it was not possible to obtain
reports from most German unions.
To some degree, those who serve as unpaid officers must be men with a
sense of mission, who view the movement as something more than an
"insurance policy" for personal success, and who expect their paid officers
to adhere to the values of a social movement. Such lay leaders will
clearly remain relatively close in social position and values to the rank
and file. In large measure, the perpetuation of serious political debate
within union movements such as the British, the Norwegian, or the
Belgian reflects the fact that many lay leaders are drawn from the
Trade Unions and the American Value System 193
ranks of the more idealistic and politically motivated of the membership
and are not on a union career ladder.
In the United States, the large number of paid officials at all levels often
means that union conventions are to a considerable extent meetings of
the full-time local, district, and national leaders. Such meetings are much
less likely to create trouble for the national officers than are meetings
composed largely of men who are deeply involved in union matters, but
who continue to work at their trade. The British Amalgamated Engineer-
ing Union, one of the largest in the country, has a ky national com-
mittee of fifty-two members which is authorized to give the full-time
executive council "instructions for the ensuing year"; and B. C. Roberts
comments that this "is precisely what it does, and it enforces its con-
stitutional authority on a not always readily compliant executive council
. . . [which] is not infrequently prevented from pursuing a wise policy
by the powerful national committee,** In most British unions, "lay
status, that is, holding of no full-time office in the union, and non-mem-
bership on the executive council is generally necessary" to be a delegate
to a national convention. 46
Extensive lay involvement in union affairs does not, of course, prevent
the paid officials from effectively controlling policy on most matters
most of the time. An analysis of the voting on resolutions at nine British
conventions during 1950-1952 indicated that the leaders were defeated
on only 31 occasions out of 428 conference votes. 47 But in countries in
which most of the secondary leadership are men who work at their trade,
national executives are subject to more pressure to conform to con-
ventional norms of morality and due process than when the lower
echelons are paid union officers. 48 And even though British top union
46 B. C. Roberts, Trade Union Government and Administration m Great
Brhain (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 165.
47 Ibid., p. 195. This figure may be more significant than it appears, since many,
if not most, conference resolutions are noncontroversial.
48 Hugh Clegg, "The Rights of British Trade-Union Members," in Michael
Harrington and Paul Jacobs, eds., Labor in a Free Society (Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press, 1959), pp. 133-134. Another interesting consequence
of a high proportion of paid officials has been suggested by John Dunlop, in
discussing the causes of jurisdictional disputes in die building trades unions in
the United States. "The large number of paid union officials at the local level
with direct supervision over members at job sites is a feature ... of workers'
organizations in the United States system. 'Professionals' are available to ap-
pear at job sites to draw fine lines of jurisdiction. National and local union
rivalries are expressed at the work place because the machinery and manpower
194 Stability in the Midst of Change
officers, for example, usually remain in office as long as do the entrenched
heads of American organizations, the practice of lay participation on all
levels permits a greater part in decision-making by the rank-and-file
activists, who become unpaid officers, committeemen, and delegates to
conventions. Thus Hugh Clegg points to the fact that a major policy of
the British unions, the decision made in 1948 to cooperate with the Labor
Government's wage restraint policy, was reversed in 1950 "through the
gradual process of branch votes and conference decisions in the individual
unions. This took place without the wholesale replacement of trade-
union executives and officers by opposition leaders. . . , 49
The fact that union activists, in the form of lay officers and committee-
men, have much more influence over the policy of national unions in
Britain than in America does not necessarily mean that the British unions
more accurately reflect the sentiment of their general membership. The
activists are much more likely to be radical than either the rank-and-file
membership as a whole or the national leadership. This was clearly shown
in the case of the 1960 debate over unilateral disarmament. A national
opinion survey conducted in September 1960, shortly before the Labor
Party conference, reported that only 16 per cent of trade-union mem-
bers favored the proposal that Britain unilaterally give up its nuclear
weapons, the very policy which was backed by a majority of the delegates
representing the trade unions; 83 per cent of rank-and-file union members
expressed the opinion that Britain should retain such weapons until other
powers agreed to disarm. 50
Although it is relatively easy to suggest some of the effects of the
variation in the proportion of full-time officers on trade-union govern-
ment and behavior, it is much more difficult to explain the source of the
variation. Some have suggested that it reflects differences in the income
to express them on the job is available. In other countries . . . few full-time
professionals are available to police the rules. . . . Left to themselves on the
job site, the workers would engage in fewer and less severe disputes." John
T. Dunlop, Industrial Relation Systems (New York: Holt, 1958), pp. 252-253.
49 Clegg* "The Rights of British Trade-Union Members," op. cit., p. 138.
50 The survey, which was conducted for the London Daily Herald, is reported
in detail in Report on a Survey of Opinions Concerning Nuclear 'Disarmament
(London: Odham's Press, 1960). A survey conducted about the same time by
the British Gallup Poll bearing on the same issues, although wording its ques-
tion differently, also reported relatively little support (24 per cent) among
Labor voters for unilateral disarmament. (Gallup did not separate out trade-
union members in his report.) The Gallup survey is reported in the Gallup
Political Index, Report No. 9, September, 1960.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 195
of labor organizations in Europe and America- While this factor un-
doubtedly plays a role (though Swedish unions are quite well-to-do),
the fact remains that American unions began the practice of employing
full-time officers and staff members when many of the unions were weak
and impoverished. In discussing the American labor movement, the
Swedish sociologist and economist Gunnar Myrdal points out that the
foreign observer "is struck by the importance played by salaried
'organizers' and the relative unimportance of, or often the lack of, a
spontaneous drive from the workers themselves." He suggests that this
phenomenon reflects the general "passivity of the masses in America
[which] is, of course, a product of the nation's history." Specifically,
immigration produced cultural fragmentation and prevented strong in-
terest-group identification, while a very high rate of social mobility
drained the working class of its potential leaders. 51
Although the factors which Myrdal cites may account in part for the
relatively low level of "class consciousness" among American workers,
they do not explain the apparent willingness from a very early period in
trade-union history to pay leaders full-time salaries. As a further factor
contributing to this policy, it may be suggested that inherent in the ideol-
ogy of an equalitarian society like ours, as contrasted with those of coun-
tries like Britain and Sweden in which aristocratic values remain signifi-
cant, has been the principle that a man should be paid for his work. The
conception that public or social service is performed best when a leader
is not paid, or is paid an honorarium, is basically an aristocratic value
linked to the concept of noblesse oblige. In Britain, for example, recent
parliamentary discussions concerning the salaries of Members of Parlia-
ment have explicitly assumed that M. P.'s should not be paid well, because
it would be bad if men were attracted to a parliamentary career in order
to better themselves economically. The inhibitions against employing a
large number of officials permeate most voluntary associations in the Eu-
ropean nations and reflect the historic assumption that such activities
should be the "charities" of the privileged classes. The absence of a model
of noblesse oblige in an equalitarian society fostered the American belief
that such voluntary associations, whether they be the "March of Dimes,"
social work agencies, or trade unions, should be staffed by men who are
paid to do the job. In a sense, therefore, it may be argued that the very
emphasis on equalitarianism in America has given rise to the large salaried
bureaucracies which permeate voluntary organizations.
51 Myrdal, The American Dile7nma y pp. 71 -714,
196 Stability in the Midst of Change
In presenting this hypothesis, I do not mean to suggest that historic
differences in ultimate values themselves account for the perpetuation and
extension of the varying patterns down to the present. Rather, the dif-
ferent values in Europe and America helped to initiate differing early
models of behavior, which became institutionalized within varying social
structures. The European practice fostered and in turn has been sus-
tained by the ideologies, mainly socialist, which the various labor move-
ments adopted. Conversely, in the United States the establishment of the
union career ladder made union leaders receptive to incorporating the
society's achievement norms into the ideology and practice of the move-
ment, and these norms supported further extension of the practice of
maintaining a large and well-paid bureaucracy and leadership core.
The American Political System and the Union Movement
The difference between the American labor movement and those in
other modern industrial countries cannot be attributed solely to the direct
effect of American values on its ideology. The greater authority and
power centered in the hands of American national union presidents, as
compared with European leaders, 52 may also be viewed as an outgrowth
of the role of the executive and of federalism in American politics. 63
As a result of its history and size, the United States has adopted two
distinct political institutions, the presidential system and the federal sys-
tem. Our principal elections at the national, state, and local levels are for
one man the president, governor, or mayor. Government is largely
viewed as the government of the man who holds the key executive office.
His cabinet is responsible to him, not to his party nor to parliamentary
colleagues. Hence there is an emphasis on personality and a relative de-
62 The English labor authority B. C. Roberts has commented, "Once elected,
the power of an American union president generally far exceeds that of any
officer of British or Scandinavian unions." Unions in America, p. 36; see also
Cyriax and Oakeshott, The Bargainers, p. 79; Walter Galenson, ed., Compara-
tive Labor Movements (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1952), p. 121; and Leo
Bromwich, Union Constitutions (New York: Fund for the Republic, 1959),
p. 38.
53 American collective bargaining "is perhaps the most decentralized in the
world. 5 * Ross and Hartman, Changing Patterns of Industrial Conflict, p. 166.
See also the ILO Mission Report, The Trade Union Situation . . . , pp. 24-25;
Neil Chamberlain, "Collective Bargaining in the United States," in Adolf
Sturmthal, ed., Contemporary Collective Bargaining in Seven Countries, p. 259;
Roberts, Unions m America, p. 78; Lester, As Unions Mature, pp. 23-26.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 197
emphasis of party or principles. These factors, which have become nor-
mative elements in the political sphere, undoubtedly affect the way in
which other institutions, such as unions, operate.
The federal system, with its relatively strong local government institu-
tions, has also affected the logic and organization of trade unions, since
many of them are involved in various kinds of relations with the centers
of political power. If political power for certain major purposes rests on
the level of the municipality, this means that unions too must be able to
deal with local officials. But probably at least as important as this struc-
tural parallelism is the fact that federalism and local self-government have
facilitated the maintenance of strong norms of local and regional solidar-
ity and consciousness of difference from other parts of the nation. Business
power, also, is comparatively decentralized in the United States. The
norms support the institutionalization of competition; this is reflected in
the early passage of anti-trust laws and other legislation against unfair
restraint of trade. Unions have to deal not only with local political power
but with local business power as well. And business groups in various
parts of the country often follow different strategies. 54
The decentralization of authority may be rekted to other aspects of
union behavior discussed earlier. There are fewer organizational restric-
tions on union militancy when authority is decentralized. National agree-
ments require centralization of union authority and inhibit locally called
strikes. Hence American union militancy may be partly a reflection of the
prevalence of local agreements, which, as we have seen, may be regarded
as an indirect consequence of the overreaching value system.
The militancy of American unions, which has been derived from at-
tributes and consequences of these basic values, may in turn be one of the
major factors contributing to the pattern of innovation which character-
izes the economy. The editors of the London Economist have suggested
that the historic propensity of American unions to demand "more" forces
employers to find ways to resolve their dilemma by improving produc-
54 The ILO Mission points out in the conclusion of its report (p. 146) : "Much
has been said in this report about the different conditions for trade union
activity which are found in different parts of the country. . . . The
general public attitude towards trade unions may vary from one state, city
or locality to another. Relations with the employers vary in the same way. The
relations between the unions and a company may not be the same in all the
company's plants in different areas. Unions which are accepted in certain
industries in some parts of the country may be opposed in the same industries
in other parts."
198 Stability in the Midst of Change
tivity. 55 "Thus, there is generated a constant force pushing the employer
into installing more labor-saving equipment, into reducing costs in other
directions." 56 European unions with their involvement in making national
contracts and with their regard for the over-all needs of the polity and
economy concerns which seem in some measure to stem from their po-
litical commitments are less inclined to make "irresponsible" demands or
to insist on policies which will adversely affect a sizable part of an indus-
try. Decentralized collective bargaining is in part an outgrowth of a dy-
namic economy in which different portions are advancing at varying
rates, and in part a cause of that very dynamism.
Decentralization of power also facilitates corruption. Corruption in
American unions and other institutions is more prevalent on the local
than on the national level. Where lower level officials such as union busi-
ness agents or municipal inspectors deal direcdy with businessmen, the
possibilities of undetected corruption are much greater than they are in
relations among the heads of major organizations.
Political decentralization and strong local governments, as Tocqueville
noted well over a century ago, strongly reinforce the norms of individ-
ualism. Americans are encouraged to press for their objectives through
individual or organized group action, not to accept their lot or to hope
for remedy from an established upper class or a strong central govern-
ment. Over time, of course, changes in technology and the nature of so-
cial problems have led to increasing centralization of power within gov-
ernment, business, and kbor. But it still remains true that, on a compara-
tive scale, American institutions remain decentralized and local units retain
considerable autonomy. Hence one has here another example of inter-
related supports and consequences of the dominant value system.
Within the kbor movement, the emphasis on strong local organizations
has, in turn, facilitated the creation of the large numbers of full-time
union positions referred to earlier. Thus in its decentralization, as in its
* 5 Wffl Herberg, "When Social Scientists View Labor," Commentary, 11
(1951), p. 593.
56 Roberts, Unions m America, p. 102. Stunner Slichter pointed to this phenom-
enon even earlier: "[T]he tendency for collective bargaining to accelerate
technological discovery is undoubtedly one of its most useful effects. . . ."
The Challenge of Industrial Relations (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press,
1947), pp. 90-91. American union pressure to raise wages has been a major
force "goading management into technical improvement and increased capital
investment." Sidney Sufrin, Union Wages and Labor's Earnings (Syracuse,
N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1950), p. 86; see also p. 51.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 199
conservative politics and militant strike tactics, the American union may
be viewed as an outgrowth of the American social and American value
system.
Other Equalitarian Societies: Canada and Australia
In contrasting the labor movements in the various nations in the in-
dustrialized democracies' "culture area," I have largely ignored those of
Canada and Australia. Both nations, like the United States, are out-
growths of the settlement of a relatively vacant frontier. There is general
agreement that these two nations, along with the United States, are
among the most equalitarian in their basic values.
However, as will be detailed in Chapter 7, while Canada, Australia, and
the United States have value systems that are relatively similar as com-
pared to other Western industrial nations, they differ significantly among
themselves. Australia has been perceived as an even more equalitarian
society than the United States* According to various interpreters of
Canadian culture, Canada is somewhat less egalitarian, less achievement
oriented, and less individualistic than the United States. Australia, on the
other hand, seems to be even more anti-elitist in its basic values than the
United States, but the values of a universalized individualism seem
weaker, particularly among workers.
Given their strong similarities in basic values when contrasted with Old
World societies, the three large, predominantly English-speaking overseas
democracies also fulfill the expectations of having similarly structured
labor movements. For example, these three extremely wealthy nations
"have led the world in working days lost through [labor] disputes." 57
Over four decades ago, James Bryce explained the militancy of Australian
labor as derivative from Australia's equalitarian emphasis, using much the
same logic as has been used by such sociologists as Robert Merton to ex-
plain the propensity of Americans to engage in innovating or illegitimate
actions in order to succeed:
Neither social equality nor the standard of comfort much above
that of England, which the workers enjoy, has softened the clash
of economic interests ... it is hardly a paradox to say that the more
the condition of the wage-earners rises, the more does their dis-
satisfaction also rise. . . . Where other distinctions are absent, and
57 Clegg, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy, p. 26; see also Ross and
Hartman, Changing Patterns of Industrial Conflict, pp. 161-162.
200 Stability in the Midst of Change
a few years can lift a man from nothing to affluence, differences in
wealth are emphasized and resented, deemed the more unjust be-
cause they often seem the result of chance, or at least of causes due
to no special merit in their possessor. 58
Most continental and British unions favor works councils or joint consul-
tation in industry, while Australian, American, and Canadian unions are
either opposed to, or uninterested in, such institutions. 'What cannot be
handled by a trade union and written into a collective agreement, had,
in their eyes, better be left alone." 59 As in the United States, "collective
bargaining . . - is not really very centralized." 60 The union movements of
all three nations also tend to be legalistic and highly dependent on "labor
lawyers," a category which hardly exists in Great Britain. 61 As compared
with European unions, the Canadian and Australian unions, though linked
to labor or socialist parries, show less of a sense of responsibility for the
needs of the polity. 62 There is also some evidence that Australian and, to
a lesser extent, Canadian union leaders have resembled American ones in
their efforts to subvert the processes of organizational democracy in so
far as these affect opposition efforts to defeat incumbent administrations.
The three national union movements, which not only are influenced by
58 James Bryce, Modern Democracies (London, Macmillan, 1921), Vol. II, p,
273. And as in the United States, Bryce reports that the Australians are too
easy-going in dealing with the successful who achieve their position by cor-
rupt means: "[Mjany of their statesmen have through long and chequered
careers retained the loyalty of the masses . . . their indulgent temper is apt to
forget misdeeds which ought to have permanently discredited an offender. . . .
Tergiversation, and still more severely pecuniary corruption, are censured at
the time, yet such sins are soon covered by the charitable sentiment that
*bygones are bygones.' " Ibid., pp. 276-277.
58 Qegg, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy, p. 26.
60 Ross and Hartman, Changing Patterns of Industrial Conflict, pp. 146, 166.
61 A comparison of the legal profession in England and the U. S. reports:
"[T]he English lawyer plays a far less important role in collective bargaining
between employers and labour and in industrial relations generally. In the
States this is an important and lucrative branch of legal practice; in England
lawyers have been almost totally excluded from the field." L. C, B. Gower and
Leolin Price, "The Profession and Practice of the Law in England and Amer-
ica," Modern Law Review, 20 (1957), p. 327, For a discussion of the role of
law and lawyers in affecting union patterns in the United States, see S. M.
Upset, "The Law and Trade Union Democracy,'* Virginia Law Review, 47
(1961), pp. 1-50.
62 See D. W. Rawson, "Politics and Responsibility in Australian Trade Un-
ions," Australian Journal of Politics and History, 4 (1958), pp. 224-243.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 201
similar national values but operate within continental, federal political
systems, resemble each other too in having relatively decentralized na-
tional unions as compared to those of northern Europe. They also have
extremely weak central federations. Canadian policy in these matters has
been akin to the American, while the Australians have been even more
decentralized. The main unit of an Australian union is the state organiza-
tion, not the national body; a permanent national federation of Australian
unions, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, was not established until
1927. 63 The central state federation of one state, Western Australia, re-
mained outside of the ACTU until 1949, and the largest single union in
the country, the Australian Workers Union with 200,000 members, has
never affiliated.
In many other aspects of their behavior, Australia and Canada tend to
behave in ways which put them intermediate between the United States
and Britain or the countries of northern Europe. Thus the best available
estimates of the total number of paid full-time officers, presented in Table
IV above, indicate that Australia has approximately one official for every
900 members, Britain, one for 2,000, and the United States, one for 300.
No reliable estimate exists for Canada, but the guess of some Canadian
union leaders is that it would be somewhat closer to the United States
than to the Australian figure.
With respect to officers' salaries and other perquisites, the picture is
similar, although it is difficult to formulate a conclusive judgment with
regard to Canadian unions, most of which are affiliates of American ones
and have their salary schedules determined in some part by the pattern
set by the international organization. In Australia the bulk of union of-
ficials receive relatively low salaries compared to those in North Amer-
ica, but their incomes are higher than those of British or northern Euro-
pean officials. Union officers in Australia estimate that the average sala-
ries for the secretaries of state unions, usually the highest full-time posts,
are between 1,200 and 1,600 pounds, while the average worker's annual
income is about 750 pounds. Where information is public, as it is for
unions which have secured awards on officers' salaries from the Arbitra-
tion Court, secretaries' salaries are known to be 2,000 pounds a year. The
Australian Workers Union, which is a general union of laborers and which
has close to 10 per cent of the total national union membership, seems to
operate on American standards. Its general secretary receives 4,500 pounds
63 See Lloyd M. Ross, "Trade Unionism" in AustraLim Encyclopedia (East
Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1958) VoL 9, p. 9.
202 Stability in the Midst of Change
a year plus a 600 pound tax-free allowance for expenses. In addition to
this regular income, the union gives him a traveling allowance of five
pounds a day, the use of an automobile together with its operating costs,
long-service leave worth 6,000 pounds on retirement, an insurance policy
subsidized by union funds, and a loan of 6,000 pounds at 1 per cent inter-
est to purchase a home. 64
There seems to be much less corruption among union officials in Aus-
tralia and Canada, as compared with the United States. 65 However, Eng-
lish visitors to Australia are struck with the extent to which they "will
put up with boss-rule and corruption in trade-unions." 66 On the whole,
kbor groups in both Canada and Australia would appear to be less law-
abiding than similar organizations in northern Europe and Britain. Aus-
tralian unions "can reduce the law, or parts of the law, to impotence.
Practically every strike of any size in Australia is illegal, yet the Australian
record of man-days lost per head since the war is challenged only by the
United States." 67 In Canada, as compared with the United States, "there
has generally been less violent conflict between workers and employers.
Professional strikebreakers, kbor spies, 'goon squads,' 'vigilante' groups,
armed militia, and other spectacular features of industrial warfare in die
United States in previous decades have been absent from the Canadian
scene again with several notable exceptions. 68
Many differences among these three nations are analyzed in detail kter,
and they will not be pursued further here. It does seem appropriate,
however, to call attention to the fact that individually Canada, Aus-
tralia, and the United States may each be contrasted with most, if
not all, of the industrial democracies of northwestern Europe in terms
of differences in value orientation, and that in most respects the dif-
ferences between the behavior of their individual labor movements and
those of Europe fit the assumptions made here about the consequences of
varying national value systems and social structures on trade-union
behavior. 69
64 1 am indebted to Dr. Tom Truman of the University of Queensland for
gathering these data. The materials on the Australian Workers Union are
taken from Voice, the organ of the Council for Membership Control.
65 Lester, As Unions Mature, p. 62.
M Jeanne Mackenzie, Australian Paradox (London: Macgibbon and Kee, 1962),
p. 164.
67 Clegg, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy, p. 22,
68 Jamieson, Industrial Relations in Canada, p. 7.
60 Other reasons accounting for the number of strikes in the three countries
are presented in Ross and Hartman, Changing Patterns of Ijidustrlal Conflict,
pp. 141-151, 161-170.
Trade Unions and the American Value System 203
Conclusion
The basic values equality and achievement that America acquired
from its Revolutionary and Puritan origins have continued to shape
American institutions. From early in their histories to the present day,
many of the unique features in American institutions may be attributed
to them.
Thus the American kbor movement has been less class conscious and
more militant than those in European countries where there is less
emphasis on individual achievement and equalitj/. Since the American
emphasis has been upon individual responsibility 'for success or failure,
the American worker has not seen himself as a member of a class. He has
felt his lower status as a persoaaLaffrontjyhile he has felt that his attempts
to better himself, collectively as well as individually, were legitimate.
As a result there have been pressures, unchecked by traditional deference
relations between classes, to support aggressive union action.
While the principle of equality has thus extended pressures to succeed
to all members of the society, regardless of class, ttje.sfless on ^achieve-
ment has^^ed.iaeq^aB&es. The difference between the income and
status of union leaders and the union rank and file is but one example
of the way in which the stress on both equality and achievement may
bring about institutional features that appear contradictory to one an-
other.
The ability of American trade unionists calmly to accept such a paradox
may be partially explained by the fact that labor unions, like other
American associations, tend to play a specific rather than diffuse role in
the lives of their members. From time to time union leaders have espoused
radical class conscious ideologies, but the members generally have not
followed them. Rather they have viewed the union as a means 6F
specifically improving their wages and working conditions, rather than as
a means of raising them from their generally c *lowly status."; These
ideologies did not convince them that they were part of an under-
privileged class, because they believed that, as individuals, they had as
good a chance as anyone else.
The paradox of ideological conservatism and militant tactics parallels,
to some extent, the paradox that American society is, at the same time, one
of the most religious (moral) and one of the most secular (materialistic)
societies in the world. Both paradoxes are made possible by the specificity
of therolethat these two institutions play in American society. Thus, bodf
the church and the trade union are allowed to express generalizations
that people do not necessarily accept because they judge religious and
204 Stability in the Midst of Change
trade union institutions in terms of their specific roles rather than their
ideologies. But whereas, in the area of religion, this has simply meant t&at
Americans limit the degree to which religious principles govern their
daily lives, it has deeply affected the structure of the labor movement.
Democracy has divorced religion from political power, and made the
organization of its Protestant sects democratic. It is antagonistic to the
self-righteous concept of "the elect" in Calvinism. As such, democracy
has made religious institutions an inappropriate place to satisfy the in-
dTviduaTs ambition to succeed!! On die other hand, trade unions deal
with money and power, both of which provide very tangible evidence
of where one stands in relation to others. In a sense, trade unions represent
an organized attempt to achieve individual equality and as such they are
permeated by the peculiarly American characteristic, the pressure to
succeed.
Much of the behavior which we deplore in the American labor move-
ment is the expression of the tension inherent in valuing both equality
and achievement. The American trade union, like the American church,
behaves in ways which often displease those whose institutional model is
of European origin. True believers in one area desire militant class con-
sciousness and honest unionism, just as, in the other, they desire devout,
theologically serious religion with a high level of participation in ob-
servances. America gives them some traits which they lite, combined
with some which they dislike. But such contradictions are seemingly in-
herent in complex social structures. To illustrate the way in which the
differing value systems of all societies, resulting from variations in
history, produce comparable structural paradoxes, the next section of
this book turns to a more detailed examination of comparative social
systems.
DEMOCRACY IN
COMPARATIVE
PERSPECTIVE
PART
Ill
Values and
Democratic
Stability
6
*********** A* A****************** A A** A AA A A*A* A
Parts I and II of this study examined how the United States produced
a particular set of "structured predispositions," which is one way of
defining values, for handling strains generated by social change. These
predispositions have affected the status system, the "American character,"
the pattern of American religion, and tie development of class interests
among the workers. The effort has been to demonstrate that American
status concerns, "other-directedness," religious participation, church or-
ganization, kbor union structure, and the like, differed from those of
other nations because of our distinctive value system. Within self-
imposed limitations, this has represented an effort to present an integrated
view of American society. Only in the treatment of trade-union behavior
did the analysis move toward an attempt also to explain behavior in other
countries.
In this concluding section of the book, I turn from a concentration
on the United States to comparative analysis of a given institutional
structure the organization of democratic polities. 1 In a sense, the dis-
*! have dealt with sach problems in preceding publications. Thus Political
Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960) is
addressed to an analysis of the relationship between stages or degrees of eco-
nomic development and political systems, and to the effect of varying types
of legitimacy on die intensity of conflict within political systems. Union De-
mocracy 9 with Martin Trow and James Coleman (Glencoe, DDL: The Free
Press, 1956) and Agrarian Socialism (Berkeley: University of California Press,
208 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
cussion here represents a further effort to illustrate the worth of the
preceding analyses of American society by a systematic presentation of
the way American institutions differ from those of other nations with
varying value systems. It represents an effort to extend the type of value
analysis employed in preceding chapters to locate some of the sources
of variation among a number of national polities, including the American.
However, it should be obvious that institutions and reactions cannot be
derived soley or even primarily from the basic value systems; and, as one
illustration of the way in which specific legal enactments may influence
the course of nations, I turn in the final chapter of this section to a discus-
sion of the processes through which the varying structure of the polity
may itself affect the form and stability of the political system.
Since I have attempted elsewhere to elaborate a sociologically meaning-
ful definition of a democratic system, I do not want to repeat these
discussions here. 2 Essentially, I have urged the view that realistically the
distinctive and most valuable element of democracy in complex societies
is the formation of a political elite in the competitive struggle for the
votes of a mainly passive electorate. This definition is premised on the
common assumption that democracy means a system in which those out-
side of the formal authority structure are able significantly to influence
the basic direction of policy. If the citizenry as a whole are to have access
to decisions, there must be a meaningful competitive struggle within the
political elite which leads factions within this elite to look for generalized
as well as specific support. But the political elite can be leaders and
representatives only if there are mechanisms within the culture which
foster the kinds of personal motivations that lead men to perceive and
strongly support their interests within a political system which has rela-
tively well-defined rules. Mechanisms that undermine the democratic
rules or whifeh inhibit institutionalized conflict are destructive of democ-
racy, in that they restrict the general population's access to, or power
over, key societal decisions. Hence it is necessary to look for factors
which, on the one hand, sustain the separation of the political system
from the excesses inherent in the populist assumptions of democracy
1950) dealt with the ways in which variation in the number and type of sec-
ondary organizations mediate between the population and the government
and thus affect the conditions for democracy or dictatorship.
2 See Political Man, pp. 21-41 and 45-48; and my Introduction to a new
paperback edition of Robert Michels, Political Parties (New York: Collier
Books, 1962), pp. 15-39, especially pp. 33-38.
Values and Democratic Stability 209
the belief that the majority will is always sovereign and, on the other,
encourage participation in organizations that conflict with one another
and with state agencies concerning the direction of public policy on all
major issues.
Earlier I argued that the effects of American values on the American
labor movement could best be specified by comparing that movement
with those in countries at relatively similar levels of development. The
same argument applies to any attempt systematically to examine the way
in which a nation's values affect its polity.
Value Patterns and a Democratic Polity
To compare national value systems, we must be able to classify them
and distinguish among them. Talcott Parsons has provided a useful tool
for this purpose in his concept of "pattern variables." These were
originally developed by Parsons as an extension of the classic distinction
by Ferdinand Tonnies between "community" and "society" between
those systems which emphasized Gemeinschaft (primary, small, tradi-
tional, integrated) values, and those which stressed Gesettschaft (im-
personal, secondary, large, socially differentiated) values. 3 The pattern
variables to be used in the following analysis are achievement-ascription,
universalism-particidarism, and specificity-diffuseness. According to the
achievement-ascription distinction, a society's value system may emphasize
individual ability or performance or it may emphasize ascribed or inherited
qualities (such as race or high birth) in judging individuals and placing
them in various roles. According to the \iniversalism-particularism distinc-
tion, it may emphasize that all people shall be treated according to the
same standard (e.g., equality before the law), or that individuals shall be
treated differently according to their personal qualities or their particular
membership in a class or group. Specificity-diffuseness refers to the
difference between treating individuals in terms of the specific positions
3 Ferdinand Tonnies, Community and Society, Gememschaft und Gesellschaft
(East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1957). A somewhat more
complex specification of the component dements of these two concepts may
be found in Charles P. Looxnis, Social Systems: Essays on Their Persistence
and Change (Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand, 1961), especially pp. 57-63.
The pattern variables may also be seen as derived from Max Weber's types
of social action, especially the traditional and the instrumentally rational. See
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1947), pp, 115-118.
210 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
which they happen to occupy, rather than diffusely as individual mem-
bers of the collectivity. 4
The pattern variables provide us with a much more sensitive way of
classifying values than the older polar concepts of sociology, such as the
folk-urban, mechanical-organic, primary-secondary, or Gemeinschaft-
Gesellschaft, etc. For instance, they make it possible for us to establish
differences in value structures between two nations that are at the same
end of the Gememschaft-Gesellschaft continuum, or are at similar levels
of economic development or social complexity. They are also useful
for describing differences within a society. Thus the family is inherently
ascriptive and particularistic while the market is universalistic and achieve-
ment oriented the weaker the kinship ties in a given society, the
greater the national emphasis on achievement is likely to be.
The manner in which any set of values is introduced will obviously
affect the way the values are incorporated into a nation's institutions. In
France, for instance, where the values of universalism, achievement, and
specificity were introduced primarily through a political revolution, we
would expect to find them most prominent in the political institutions;
in Germany, where they have been introduced primarily through in-
dustrialization, we would expect to find them most prominent in its eco-
nomic institutions. The American example suggests that for democratic
values to become legitimate in a post-revolutionary polity the norms of
universalism, achievement, and specificity must be introduced into its
economic institutions as well. This fosters rapid economic development,
and encourages the underprivileged to believe that they as individuals
may personally improve their status. 5
4 Parsons has two other pattern variables which I ignore here, largely for
reasons of parsimony: affecrivity-affective neutrality, and the instrumental-
consommatory distinction. A third set -elf-orientationr-collectivity-orientation
is discussed briefly toward the end of Chapter 7. For a detailed presentation
of the pattern variables, see Talcott Parsons, The Social System (Glencoe, DL:
The Free Press, 1951), pp. 58-<57. Parsons* most recent elaboration of the
relationship of pattern variable analysis to other elements in his conceptual
framework is "Pattern Variables Revisited," American Sociological Review,
25 (1960), pp. 467-483; see also his article, "The Point of View of the
Author," in Max Black, ed^ The Social Theories of Talcott Parsons (Engle-
wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961), pp. 319-320, 329-336.
5 Karl W. Deutsch, S. A. Burrell, R. A. Kann, M. Lee, Jr., M. Lichterman,
R. E. Undgren, F. L. Loewenheim, R. W. Van Wagenen, Political Com-
mumty and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1957).
Values and Democratic Stability 211
I shall add the equaKtarian-elitist distinction to the pattern variables
just outlined. According to this, a society's values may stress that all
persons must be given respect simply because they are human beings, or
it may stress the general superiority of those who hold positions of power
and privilege. In an equalitarian society, the differences between low
status and high status people are not stressed in social relationships and
do not convey to the high status person a general claim to social deference.
In contrast, in an elitist society, those who hold high positions in any
structure, whether it be in business, in intellectual activities, or in govern-
ment, are thought to deserve, and are actually given, general respect and
deference. 6 All ascriptively oriented societies are necessarily also elitist in
this use of the term* On the other hand, achievement orientation and
egalitarianism are not necessarily highly correlated, since a stress on
achievement is not incompatible with giving generalized deference to all
who have achieved their elite positions. To a considerable degree societies
which are in the process of changing from an emphasis on ascription to
one on achievement seem disposed, as we shall see later, to retain their
elitist orientations and institutions when contrasted with societies in
which ascriptive values have never had a preeminent role.
In actual fact, no society is ever fully explicable by these analytic
concepts, nor does the theory even contemplate the possible existence of
such a society J Every society incorporates some aspect of each polarity.
6 Although all four polarity distinctions are important to the analysis of die
political system, ascriprionr-achievement and univei^alism-particularism seem
more important than the other two. As Parsons has suggested, these are the
variables which have the most reference to the total social system, rather
than to subparts or to the motivation of individuals, "They are concerned
. . . with the type of value-norms which enter into the structure of the social
system." Combinations of these pairs are also most useful to help account for
"structural differentiation and variability of social systems." See Parsons, The
Social System, p. 106. The other two pairs, specificity-diffuseness and equali-
tarianism-elitism, are to a considerable degree dependent on the particular
combinations of the first two.
7 As Parsons has put it: "In a very broad way the differentiations between
types of social systems do correspond to this order of cultural value pattern
differentiation, but only in a very broad way. Actual social structures are not
value-pattern types, but resultants of the integration of value-patterns with
the other components of the system." Ibid., p. 112. (Emphases in the original.)
Gabriel Almond has criticized the utility of pattern-variable analysis for the
study of comparative politics on the grounds that it results in exaggerations
of the differences among political systems, particularly between Western and
non-Western and primitive ones. He argues that "all political systems the
212 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
We may, however, differentiate among social structures by the extent
to which they emphasize one or another of these polarities. 8 It should be
added that classifications of the relative emphases among nations with
respect to certain value polarities do not imply that such values are either
prescriptive or descriptive of actual behavior. Rather, they are intended
to provide base lines for comparative analysis.
I have chosen to discuss the United States, Great Britain, Canada,
Australia, France, and Germany to illustrate the relationship between
values and the stability of democratic political systems. 9 These nations
are all relatively industrialized, all have capitalist or mixed economies,
and the religious traditions of all can be traced back to the same Hebraic-
Christian source. They all have democratic political systems. Yet they
developed Western ones as well as the less-developed non-Western ones are
transitional systems in which cultural change is taking place." Thus they
both include elements of each polarity of the pattern variables in many of
their institutions. See Gabriel Almond, "Introduction: A Functional Approach
to Comparative Politics," in Gabriel Almond and James S. Coleman, eds.,
The Politics of Developing Areas (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University
Press, 1960), pp. 20-25. This criticism is useful if it is considered as a warn-
ing against reifying these concepts, or tending to exaggerate the integrated
character of societies, whether large or small. However, there is no reason
why use of the pattern variables for analytic purposes need fall into these
errors, and Parsons himself repeatedly stresses that systems and structures are
never wholly one.
A detailed criticism of Parsons' analysis of politics, which, however, does
not touch on the concepts dealt with here may be found in Andrew Hacker,
"Sociology and Ideology," in Max Black, ed., The Social Theories of Tdcott
Parsons (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1961) pp. 289-310.
8 It is important to note also that the pattern variables can be and have been
used to distinguish among and within different orders of social systems or
structures. Thus we may characterize total epochs (feudalism compared to
capitalism), whole nations (the United States compared to Britain), subsystems
within nations that logically may operate with different combinations of the
variables (the state, or industry), subsystems within nations that logically must
follow a specific set of pattern variables (the family), and subsystems within
which there is conflict between different pattern variables (e.g., the French
business system, to be discussed later).
9 There have been other efforts at using the pattern variables for political
analysis. For the most part, however, they do so in the context of specifying
differences between Western and agrarian societies and hence posit ideal
types of integrated Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft cultures. A paper which
does attempt to use the variables to analyze contemporary differences is Wil-
liam Evan, "Social Structure, Trade Unionism, and Consumer Cooperation,"
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 10 (1957), pp. 440-447.
Values and Democratic Stability 213
differ in one important respect: the United States, Britain, Canada, and
Australia have stable polities, while France and Germany have (or have
had) unstable ones. The prime empirical focus in this chapter is on the
four most populous countries; the two overseas dominions of the British
Crown are contrasted with the United States and Britain in the next
chapter.
The United States and Great Britain
Though the United States and Great Britain are both urbanized,
industrialized, and stable politically, they are integrated around different
values and class relations. Tocqueville's Democracy in America and
Bagehot's The English Constitution accurately specified these different
organizing principles. According to Tocqueville, American democratic
society was equalitarian and competitive (achievement oriented); ac-
cording to Bagehot, Britain was deferential (elitist) and ascriptive. As
both Tocqueville and Bagehot indicated, a society in which the historic
ties of traditional legitimacy had been forcibly broken could sustain
a stable democratic polity only if it emphasized equality and if it con-
tained strong, independent, and competitive institutions. Conversely, if
the privileged classes persisted and continued to expect ascriptive (aris-
tocratic) and elitist rights, a society could have a stable democratic
system only if the lower classes accepted the status system. These dif-
ferences will be explored in more detail subsequently. Suffice it to say now
that a stable democracy can result from different combinations of pat-
tern variables.
The United States, more than any other modem non-Communist
industrial nation, emphasizes achievement, equalitarianism, universalism,
and specificity. 10 These four tend to be mutually supportive. This does
not mean that other stable combinations are not possible or that the
"American" combination does not exhibit tensions. From the perspective
of the polity, however, this combination of variables does encourage
10 For a discussion of the American value system, see Robin Williams, Ameri-
can Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1951), pp. 372-442; see also
Talcott Parsons and Winston White, "The Link Between Character and
Society," in S. M. Lipset and Leo Lowenthal, eds., Culture and Social Char-
acter (New York: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 98-103; on values and the
political system see William Mitchell, The American Polity (New York;
The Free Press, 1963). I devote less space here to elaborating on American
values than on those of die other nations, since I have already dealt with
them in detail in the earlier chapters of this book.
214 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
stable democracy. The upper classes can accept improvements in the
status and power of the lower strata without feeling morally offended.
Since all men and groups are expected to try to improve their position
vis ci vis others, success by a previously deprived group is not resented
as deeply as in countries whose values stress the moral worth of
ascription. 11 Similarly, the emphasis on equalitarianism, universalism, and
specificity means that men can expect and within limits do receive
fair treatment according to the merits of the case or their ability. Lower-
class individuals and groups which desire to change their social position
need not be revolutionary; consequently their political goals and methods
are relatively moderate. There is little class consciousness on their part,
since this consciousness is in part an adaptation to the behavior of the
upper class in those societies characterized by ascription, elitism, par-
ticularism, and difFuseness. The latter values imply that men will be
treated by others and will treat each other diffusely in terms of class
status. American values support interaction with an individual in terms
of his role as worker in one situation, as suburban dweller in another, as a
member of the American Legion in a third, and so forth.
The above comments are, of course, an oversimplification. In fact,
American society does display ascriptive, elitist, particularistic, and
diffuse culture traits. These are not completely dysfunctional, as will
be shown. They do create frictions (see the analyses of McCarthyism
as a reaction to "status-panic"), 12 but in general, with the exception of
race and ethnic relations, these have not affected the basic stability of
the polity.
The American South, which has stressed ascriptive-elitist-particularis-
tic-diffuse values in race relations and to some extent in its total social
system, has constituted a major source of instability in the American
polity. It was retained in the nation only by force, and down to the
present it does not have a stable, democratic polity. To the extent that
its citizens have felt the pull of the dominant value system, the South
11 Like all comparative generalizations, this is a relative rather than an
absolute statement. It is obvious that in the United States, as in other coun-
tries, those with higher status dislike any challenge to their privileged
positions, and resist and resent new claimants. The common resistance to the
claims for status equality of upwardly mobile ethnic groups such as the
Jews, the Irish, and the Italians illustrates this. Status resentments against rising
groups have been a frequent source of social tension all through American
history.
12 Daniel Bell, ed^ The Radical Eight (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963).
Values and Democratic Stability 2 1 5
has always found it difficult to build an integrated regional social order
on its own terms. 13
Britain has come to accept the values of achievement in its economic
and educational system, and to some extent in its political system, but
retains a substantial degree of elitism (the assumption that those who
hold high position be given generalized deference) and ascription (that
those born to high place should retain it). 14 Tocqueville described the
British class system as an "open aristocracy," which can be entered by
13 See the essays in Charles Sellers, ed., The Southerner as American (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), for interesting insights on
the difficulties faced by Southern whites both before and after the Civil War
in resolving the conflicts generated within the society and within the in-
dividuals by the sharply varying dictates of alternative value systems.
14 The general concept of elitism explicitly affects the training given to
prospective members of the British upper class. Thus a description of the
English public schools (private in the American sense) reports that "learning
and the getting-fit are represented as part of the 'training for leadership*
which many public-schoolmasters see as their social role. ... It infects the
whole set-up with a certain smugness and a certain frightening elite concept.
The word 'breeding' is often on their lips, . . . Many of these boys go around
looking for people to lead: they actually say at the University interviews that
they feel they have been trained to lead . . ." John Vaizey, "The Public
Schools," in Hugh Thomas, ed., The Establishment (New York: Ckrkson
Potter, 1959), pp. 28-29.
"What does die middle-class Briton mean when he says that Eton or some
obscure public school in the Midlands will develop his son's character? . . *
I would say that he includes in character such traits as willingness to take
responsibility, loyalty to the class concept of the nation's interests, readiness
to lead, which implies, of course, a belief that he is fit to lead and that people
are willing to be led. . . ." Drew Middleton, The British (London: Pan
Books, 1958), pp. 230-231.
The role of the public schools as a means of training an elitist upper class
which took into itself the best of the arrivistes was an explicit objective
of the reforms of the public school system initiated by Thomas Arnold in the
1830's. He strongly admired aristocracy, saw respect for it at the heart of
England's security and freedom, and wanted to make certain that it would
not be corrupted. As he saw it, public school boys were "destined to become
the new masters, the epitome of all the new tendencies, annexed and made
subservient to the old aristocratic order of things. Tfou should feel,' he said
in addressing the boys of the Sixth Form, Tike officers in the Army or Navy.*
Officers! This comparison has been applied ever since to the public school men
of England" G. J. Renier, The English: Are They Human? (New York:
Roy Publishers, 1952), p. 249 and pp. 229-270; see also Asa Briggs, Victorian
People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), pp. 150-177; and Denis
Brogan, The English People (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943), pp. 18-56.
216 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
achievement but which confers on new entrants many of the diffuse
perquisites of rank enjoyed by those whose membership stems from their
social background. 15 Thus Britain differs from the United States in
having, in terms of pattern variables, a strong emphasis on ascriptive,
elitist, particularistic, and diffuse values.
In the nineteenth century the British business classes challenged the
traditional pre-industrial value integration. 16 But the British upper class
15 Writing in Thomas Arnold's day in 1833, Tocqueville pointed out that
what distinguished the English aristocracy "from all others is the ease with
which it has opened its ranks. . . . [W]ith great riches, anybody could hope
to enter into die ranks of the aristocracy. . . . The reason why the French
nobles were the butt of all hatreds, was not chiefly that only nobles had the
right to everything, but because nobody could become a noble. . . . The
English aristocracy in feelings and prejudices resembles all the aristocracies
of the world, but it is not in the least founded on birth, that inaccessible
thing, but on wealth that everyone can acquire, and this one difference makes
it stand, while the others succumb. . . .
"[O]ne can clearly see in England where the aristocracy begins, but it is
impossible to say where it ends. It could be compared to the Rhine whose
source is to be found on the peak of a high mountain, but which divides into
a thousand little streams and, in a manner of speaking, disappears before it
reaches the sea. The difference between England and France in this manner
turns on the examination of a single word in each language. 'Gentleman' and
*gentilhomme' evidently have the same derivation but 'gentleman* in England
is applied to every well-educated man whatever his birth, while in France
gentilhomme applies only to a noble by birth. . . . This grammatical observa-
tion is more illuminating than many long arguments. . . .
"[I]f you speak to a member of the middle classes; you will find he hates
some aristocrats but not the aristocracy. . . .
"The whole of English society is still clearly based on an aristocratic foot-
ing, and has contracted habits that only a violent revolution or the slow and
continual action of new laws can destroy. . . ." Alexis de Tocqueville,
Journeys to England and Ireland (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1958), pp. 59-60, 67, 70-71.
Similarly, the great French student of English history, Elie Halevy,
described the English upper class as "an aristocracy in which no rank was a
closed caste, an aristocracy in which the inferior regarded the superior not
with envy but respect. It was not impossible to climb into a superior class
and those who respected those above them were respected in turn by those
below. . . ." History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century (Lon-
don: Ernest Bern Ltd., 1961), Vol. IV, p. 345. See also Vol. I, pp. 221-222.
For a recent discussion stressing the same point, see Anthony Sampson,
Anatomy of Britain (New York: Harper & Bros., 1962), especially pp. 3-30.
16 For a detailed analysis of the way in which the values regulating class
relations gradually changed with the rise of industry, see Reinhard Bendix,
Work and Authority m Industry (New York: John Wiley, 1956), pp. 100-116.
Values and Democratic Stability 217
(in contrast to most Continental aristocracies) did not strongly resist
the claims of the new business classes, and later those of the workers,
to take part in politics. For reasons to be discussed later, when pressure
for political participation developed within these classes in Britain, it was
members of already enfranchised classes who took the leadership in
reform movements. If communication between the different strata in
Britain had been blocked by jealously guarded privileges as it had
been in France conflicts over the suffrage might have become more
divisive. As Robert Michels once pointed out, the presence of upper-
class leaders in a working-class party serves to reduce conservatives'
hostility toward it. To the extent that the social system permits a "left**
party to recruit leaders from the existing elite, it is easier for this party
to become an accepted part of the polity. It is worth noting that, unlike
the British Labour Party, the German socialists have recruited few, if any,
leaders from the old upper classes.
Thus the economy and polity in Britain have been characterized by
achievement, elitism, universalism, and diffuseness. The social class system,
however, retains many elements of ascription, elitism, particularism, and
diffuseness. The traditional upper classes and their institutions the
public schools, the ancient universities, and the tided aristocracy remain
at the summit of the social structure. 17 At the same time, achievers in
job and school are not barred from securing diffuse elite status, and the
lower classes feel that the political institutions operate for their benefit.
Like the liberal bourgeoisie before them, the British workers have never
seriously developed the objective of eliminating the old privileged classes,
either socially or economically, 18 Having been allowed into the political
17 See C. A. R. Crosland, The Future of Socialism (London: Jonathan Cape,
1956), pp. 232-237; Raymond Williams, The Long Revolution (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 318-321; Sampson, Anatomy of Britain,
pp. 160-217.
18 Writing in the early 1860's, before Bagehot laid down his thesis that the
stability of the British polity rested on the strength of deferential ties, Taine
predicted that these social relations would maintain the class structure even
under conditions of universal suffrage: "[B]eneath the institutions and charters,
the bill of rights and the official almanacs, there are the ideas, the habits and
customs and character of the people and the classes; there are the respective
positions of the classes, their reciprocal feelings in short a complex of deep
and branching invisible roots beneath the viable trunk and foliage. , . . We
admire the stability of British government; but this stability is the final product,
the fine flower at the extremity of an infinite number of living fibres firmly
planted in the soil of die entire country. . . .
"For the grip of tradition, sentiment and instinct is tenacious. There is
no stronger attachment than- attachment- . . . Even at die time of die rotten
218 Democracy In Comparative Perspective
dub almost as soon as British labor developed organizations of its own,
working-class leaders have supported the rules of the parliamentary game.
Unlike many early continental socialist parties, they were willing, while
a small minority party, to cooperate with one of the older parties. And
currently they remain the only socialist party whose policies "sustain"
the legitimacy of aristocracy; their leaders, like other members of the
Establishment, willingly accept aristocratic tides and other honors from
the Grown. 1 *
boroughs Parliament was representative of the people's will, as it is today
although the number of people having a vote is rather small. And it will
still be so in ten years 7 time, if the Reform Bill extends the suffrage. In my
view changes in the law relating to the suffrage do no more than perfect
the system in detail, without affecting fundamentals. The important thing
remains the same, public assent. And, enfranchised or not, the labourer and
the 'shopkeeper' agrees in wanting a man of the upper classes at the helm."
On the other hand, Taine felt that "attachment" to leaders or representatives
was absent in his native France; democracy could not work well there because
France was characterized by "egalitarian envy," while at the same time it
lacked the educated mass base which made possible "an intelligent democracy"
in the United States. Hippolyte Taine, Notes on England (Fair Lawn, N.J.:
Essential Boots, 1958), pp. 162, 164-165.
^dement Atlee, speaking as leader of the Labour Party in the House of
Commons on July 9, 1952, opposed sweeping economies in royal expenditures
on the following grounds: "It is a great mistake to make government too
dulL That, I think, was the fault of the German Republic after the first World
War, They were very drab and dull." Cited in Edward Shils and Michael
Young, "The Meaning of the Coronation," in S. M. Lipset and Neil Smelser,
eds., Sociology; Tbe Progress of a Decade (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-
Hall, 1961), p. 22L
**In 1957, three people in five throughout the country were still keeping
souvenirs from the 1953 Coronation; and three in ten claimed to have a
picture of a royal person in their house." Tom Harrison, Britain Revisited
(London: Victor Gollancz, 1961), p. 232.
George Orwell suggested that elitist sentiments are strong among British
workers as well "Even in socialist literature it is common to find contemptuous
references to slum-dwellers. . . . There is also, probably, more disposition to
accept class distinctions as permanent, and even to accept the upper classes
as natural leaders, than survives in most countries. . . . The word *Sir* is much
used in England, and the man of obviously upper-class appearance can usually
get more than his fair share of deference from commissionaires, ticket-col-
lectors, policemen, and the like. It is this aspect of English life that seems
most shocking to visitors from America and the Dominions." The English
People (London: Collins, 1947), p. 29.
The British journalist Jenny Nasmyth has pointed out that "most Labour
M,P.s who can afford it, and many who cannot, send their children to the
Values and Democratic Stability 219
The deference shown to the system by the leaders and the rank and
file of the labor movement is not simply a reaction to the strength of the
status system. The British upper class has long shown a high level of
sophistication in handling the admission of new strata to the "club." Thus
in 1923, as Labour was about to form its first government, the Sundy
Times printed a manifesto by Richard Haldane (Viscount of Cloan)
urging that the two old parties give Labour a fair chance at government:
We have to recognize that a great change is in progress. Labour
has attained to commanding power and to a new status. There is no
need for alarm. All may go well if as a nation we keep in mind the
necessity of the satisfaction of two new demands that for recogni-
tion of the title to equality, and for more knowledge and its system-
atic application to industry and to the rest of life. , . The result
of the General Election may prove a blessing to us if it has awakened
us to our neglect of something momentous which has been slowly
emerging for years past. . . . Three quarters of a century since, the
old Whigs, wise in their limited way, refused to meet the Chartist
movement merely with a blank refusal. Thereby they earned our
gratitude. For while most of the nations of Europe were plunged
into revolution as a result of turning deaf ears to their violent
progressives, we were saved, and remained in comparative quiet.
. . . We had spoken with the enemy in the gate, and he had turned
out to be of the same flesh and blood as ourselves. . . .*
Edward Shils, in The Torment of Secrecy, seeks to account for the
great emphasis on publicity concerning political matters in the United
States, e.g., congressional investigations, as contrasted with the stress on
privacy and secrecy in Britain. His explanation hinges on the fact that
Britain is still a deferential society as compared with the United States:
The United States has been committed to the principle of publicity
since its origin. The atmosphere of distrust of aristocracy and of
pretensions to aristocracy in which the American Republic spent its
traditional [public] schools of die governing classes. They do this, perhaps,
not primarily because they are snobs, but because, having themselves assumed
the obligations of governing, they have an easy conscience (so easy that they
seem blind to the inconsistencies between their political principles and their
private lives) about partaking in the privileges of the governing classes." "Dons
and Gadflies," The Twentieth Century, 162 (1957), p. 386.
20 Quoted in Kingsley Martin, The Cro*wn and the Establishment (London:
Hutchinson, 1962), p. 88.
220 Democracy In Comparative Perspective
formative years has persisted in many forms. Repugnance for gov-
ernmental secreriveness was an offspring of the distrust of aristoc-
racy.
In the United States, the political elite could never claim the
immunities and privileges of the rulers of an aristocratic society. . . .
American culture is a populistic culture. As such, it seeks publicity
as a good in itself. Extremely suspicious of anything which smacks of
"holding back," it appreciates publicity, not merely as a curb on the
arrogance of rulers but as a condition in which the members of
society are brought into a maximum of contact with each other.
. . . Great Britain is a modern, large-scale society with a politicized
population, a tradition of institutionalized pluralism, a system of
representative institutions and great freedom of enquiry, discussion,
and reporting. . . . British political life is strikingly quiet and con-
fined. Modern publicity is hemmed about by a generally well-
respected privacy
Although democratic and pluralistic, British society is not populist.
Great Britain is a hierarchical country. Even when it is distrusted,
the Government, instead of being looked down upon, as it often is
in the United States, is, as such, the object of deference because the
Government is still diffused with the symbolism of a monarchical
and aristocratic society. The British Government, of course, is no
longer aristocratic . . . [But it] enjoys the deference which is
aroused in the breast of Englishmen by the symbols of hierarchy
which find their highest expression in the Monarchy. . . .
The acceptance of hierarchy in British society permits the Gov-
ernment to retain its secrets, with little challenge or resentment.
. . . The deferential attitude of the working and middle classes is
matched by the uncommunicativeness of the upper-middle classes
and of those who govern. . . . The traditional sense of the privacy
of executive deliberations characteristic of the ruling classes of
Great Britain has imposed itself on the rest of the society and has
established a barrier beyond which publicity may not justifiably
penetrate. 21
21 Edward A. Shils, The Torment of Secrecy (Glencoe, HL: The Free Press,
1956), pp. 37-51. This book deserves recognition as at least a minor classic of
sociological analysis of a social problem; and yet curiously is not well known.
There are few other books I know of which are as illuminating concerning
the interrelationships of American society and polity. The earlier article by
Shils and Michael Young on the monarchy is also well worth reading in the
context of problems raised in this chapter. "The Meaning of the Coronation,"
op. cit., pp. 220-233. See also H. H. Hyman, "England and America: Climates
of Tolerance and Intolerance,*' in Daniel Bell, ed., The Radical Right, pp. 227-
258.
Other articles and books which present interesting case materials on
Values and Democratic Stability 221
The protection from populist criticism which an elitist system gives to
all who possess the diffuse status of "leaders" extends not only to the
political and intellectual elites but to school teachers and the school
system as well. A study of the comparative position of teachers in Eng-
land and America points this out well:
Conservative, Labour, and Liberal parties alike have consistently
held to the view that the content of education and methods of in-
struction are not matters for popular debate and decision, but should
be left in the hands of teachers themselves and of other professional
educators. This being so, individuals or groups seeking to "use"
the schools for their own purposes are confronted, not by the hastily
constructed defenses of the teacher or of a single school or school
board, as in America, but by the massive disregard of experienced
politicians and administrators. This willing delegation of educational
issues to educators is possible because the latter form a coherent
and predictable element in the authority structure that moulds
society. . . .
The relation between the school and the family also differs in the
two countries. In America, for the most part, the parents hand over
their child to the school system, but maintain a continuous scrutiny
over progress. In England, "interference" by the parents in the
school is resisted both by teachers and by educational administrators.
Parents' associations and parent-teacher associations are becoming
increasingly common, but they limit their activities to social func-
tions and to meetings at which school policy is explained but not
debated. 22
significant differences between various aspects of British and American
society are: Stephen Richardson, "Organizational Contrasts on British and
American Ships," Administration Science Quarterly, I (1956), pp. 189-207;
L. C. B. Gower and Leolin Price, "The Profession and Practice of Law in
England and America," Modern Law Review, 20 (1957), pp. 317-346; Roy
Lewis and Rosemary Stewart, The Managers: A New Examination of the
English, German y and American Executive (New York: Mentor Books, 1961);
P. S. Florence, The Logic of British and American Industry (Chapel Hill:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1953); E. Lipson, Reflections on
"Britain and the United States Mainly Economic (London: The Pall Mall
Press, 1959), see especially Chapter 1, "The American and British Way of
Life**; GAR. Crosiand, The Future of Socialism, pp. 238-257 and passim; and
George Baron and Asher Tropp, "Teachers in England and America," in
A. H. Halsey, Jean Floud, and C. A. Anderson, eds., Education, Economy, and
Society (New York: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 545-557.
22 Baron and Tropp, "Teachers in England and America," op. cit., p. 548.
222 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
Ralph Turner also shows how variations in the basic values of the
two societies impinge on their educational systems. American education
reflects the norms of contest mobility, "a system in which elite status is
the prize in an open contest and is taken by the aspirants' own efforts.
Since the 'prize' of successful upward mobility is not in the hands of
the established elite to give out, the latter are not in a position to determine
who shall attain it and who shall not." Conversely, British education
reflects the norms of sponsored mobility, in which "elite recruits are
chosen by the established elite or their agents, and elite status is given
on the basis of some criterion of supposed merit and cannot be taken by
any amount of effort or strategy. Upward mobility is like entry into a
private club, where each candidate must be 'sponsored' by one or more
of the members."
The American system, with its emphasis on the common school and
opportunities for further education at every level, encourages all to
advance themselves through their own efforts. 'TEvery individual is
encouraged to think of himself as competing for an elite position, so that
in preparation he cultivates loyalty to the system and conventional at-
titudes." 23 Conversely, the British system has always selected the minority
who will go ahead in the educational system at a relatively early age.
Those not selected, the large bulk of the population, are taught to
"regard themselves as relatively incompetent to manage society. . . .
The earlier that selection of the elite recruits can be made, the sooner
the masses can be taught to accept their inferiority and to make 'realistic'
rather than phantasy plans." 2 * Those selected for the elite, on the other
23 Ralph Turner, "Modes of Social Ascent through Education: Sponsored and
Contest Mobility," in Halsey, Floud, and Anderson, Education, Economy, and
Society, pp. 122, 125. (Emphasis in original.) For a discussion of the elitist as-
sumptions and consequences of the English school system by a Labour Party
leader who is much impressed by the egalitarian aspects of the American edu-
cational system, see Crosland, The Future of Socialism, pp. 258-277 and
passim; see also Sampson, Anatomy of Britain, pp. 174-194.
24 Turner, "Modes of Social Ascent . . . ," op. rit., p. 126. One of the key
differences between England and the United States that has been noted as
most clearly reflecting the contrast between an egalitarian society with a
"common school" and an elitist society with a highly class segregated system
of education is accent variations. As G, A. R. Crosland has put it: "[P]art of
the reason why these differences [between classes in England] make so strong
an impact is that they are associated with, and exaggerated by, the most
supremely nnmistakeable of all symbols of social standing differences of
accent and vocabulary. In no other country is it possible in the same way
to assess a person's social standing the moment he opens his mouth, . . ,"
The Future of Socialism, pp. 177-178.
Values and Democratic Stability 223
hand, are removed from competition and admitted to a school, either
public or grammar, in which there is great emphasis on absorbing the
elite's aesthetic culture, manners, and sense of paternalism toward the
non-elite. Unlike the situation in America, where in the absence of a
sense of a special elite culture the masses retain their right and ability
to determine taste, English society operates on the assumption that only
the elite may determine what is high or low quality. 25
And in a recent report on English life, the founder of Mass Observation
(an organization which has studied mass behavior through systematic obser-
vation techniques since 1937), writing about working-class life, comments
that in spite of all the other major changes that have occurred since they
began their observations: "No voice changes can be detected between 1937
and 1960. Radio, television and other outside impacts oriented to a more
standard English appear to have had litde or no effect. A tiny minority have
consciously altered their voices. But elocution and speech training are still
not important here. An English master at one of the big local schools . . .
gave his considered opinion that if anything the standard of speaking of what
he called 'King's English' had gone down" Harrison, Britain Revisited, p.
32. (Emphasis in original.)
25 For an analysis of the way in which the variations in the status of elites,
diffuse or specific, affect the position of intellectuals in England and
America, see rny Political Man, pp. 326-328. A. G. Nicholas has argued that
although intellectuals do not have high status iffithm the elite in England, the
intellectual there receives more overt respect from the population as a whole
than does his compeer in America because the former "has been in some
degree sheltered by his very position in what Bagehot called a 'deferential*
society. Not very deferential to him, perhaps; less deferential than to the
landowner, the administrator, the soldier, the clergyman, or the lawyer, over
all of whom the protective gabardine of the appellation 'gentleman* has
fallen more inclusively, with fewer ends sticking out. Nevertheless the
[English] intellectual has shared in it too. . . , n "Intellectuals and Politics in
the U.S.A.," Occidente, 10 (1954), p. 47; see also Gertrude Himmelfarb,
"American Democracy and European Critics," The Twentieth Century, 151
(1952), pp. 320-327.
A clear indication of the differences in the values of those in charge of
English elite education and those of comparably placed Americans may be
seen in the criticism of the views of the former president of the highest
status American university, Harvard, by the Master of the Manchester
Grammar School: "When Professor Conant demands *a common core of
general education which will unite in one cultural pattern the future
carpenter, factory workers, bishop, lawyer, doctor, sales-manager, professor
and garage mechanic,' he is simply asking for the impossible. The demand for
such a common culture rests either on an altogether over-optimistic belief
in die educability of the majority that is certainly not justified by experience
or on a willingness to surrender the highest standards of taste and judgment
to the incessant demands of mediocrity." Cited from E. James, Education for
224 Democracy in Cmnparative Perspective
In his discussion of the sources of stability of English democracy,
Harry Eckstein observes that authority patterns vary among the classes
authoritarian relations increase as one moves down the social ladder.
Within the British elite, he suggests, social relations
tend to be quite surprisingly democratic, or at least consultative and
comradely; here . . , we might note the ubiquity of committees at
every conceivable level in the higher civil service, the unusual use
of staff committees in the military services, and the easy relations
among officers of all ranks in military regiments, especially in elitist
regiments like the Guards . . . , while behavior among pupils [in
upper-class public schools] is modeled to a remarkable extent on the
political system.
[Conversely, where hierarchical relations are involved, as] between
members of the Administrative Class [of the Civil Service] and
their underlings, officers and their men, managers and their help,
relations are highly non-consultative and certainly not com-
radely. . . . 2
The United States and Great Britain differ, of course, not only in
these patterns, but in the extent to which the same value orientations
dominate the key status, economic, and political subsystems of the
society. Presumably, Eckstein would relate the stability of American
populist democracy to the fact that there are egalitarian social relations
within all levels. American society has more homogeneity of values than
the British. On the other hand, the particular distribution of different
value orientations in Britain would also seem to be congruent with the
stability of an industrialized democracy, since it legitimates open participa-
tion by all group in the economy and polity, while the diffuse elitism
rewards all with a claim to high position.
France and Germany
The values of France and Germany our politically unstable cases
resemble those of the United States and Britain in many respects. France,
through her Great Revolution of 1789, sought to adopt die same syn-
drome of values which the United States developed: achievement,
Leadership, in Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy (New York:
Random House, 1959), p. 40.
26 Hany Eckstein, A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Mono-
graph No. 10. Center for International Studies, Princeton University, 1961),
pp. 15-16.
Values and Democratic Stability 225
equaKtarianism, universalism, specificity. The Declaration of the Rights
of Man, like the Declaration of Independence, proclaims doctrines sub-
sumed by these concepts. Germany has resembled Britain in that the
pressures stemming from economic change and the rise of new social
groupings in the nineteenth century did not result in a political revolu-
tion which proclaimed a new value ethos. Rather, Germany seemingly
sought to modify existing institutions and to create diverse value patterns
in different hierarchical subsystems in ways very similar to those which
developed in Britain. The French failure stems from the fact that, in
contrast to America, the forces of the Revolution were not strong enough
to sustain value consensus among the key social groupings; in Germany
the new combinations of values, though powerful, were basically in-
compatible with the requirements for a stable non-authoritarian political
system.
French society is difficult to classify in terms of basic values. Its
internal political tensions flow in large measure from the fact that major
social groupings adhere to largely incompatible values. The French
sociologist Francois Bourricaud has pointed this out:
It is ... difficult to seize upon and isolate the unconscious or semi-
conscious motivations [basic values] which give French institutions
their tone and their specific color. They are more apparent in some
groups than in others. Certain themes of French culture are more
clearly discernible, more sharply outlined, among the bourgeois
than among the workers. All research of this nature begins by
determining what social groups are culturally dominant. America,
for example, has developed a culture of the middle classes. But in
France a group can be culturally dominant in one area and not at
all present in another. . . . For example, the tradition of the noble
life continues without doubt to be very influential in French society
even though the nobility as a social group does not amount to much.
... In brief, cultural themes are very far from being unified even
within the society, both by reason of the diversity of the groups
which make up this society and the diversity of activities by which
this culture is expressed. 27
These internal cleavages result from the fact that the French Revolu-
tion succeeded in eliminating neither the old set of ascriptive-particularis-
27 Francois Bourricaud, "France," in Arnold M. Rose, ed., The Institutions
of Advanced Societies, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958),
pp. 500-501.
226 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
tic values nor some of their key institutional supports, particularly the
Church. A large part of the French bourgeoisie, whose status and
economic objectives sustained the Revolution, never completely re-
jected the traditional value system. 28 And, as Frangois Goguel points
out, this traditional value system was directly hostile to democracy:
A pessimistic idea of human nature an idea of Catholic origin, and
directly opposed to the optimism of J. J. Rousseau is at the basis
of this conviction; man, being naturally evil, must have teachers, or
guides^ to direct him toward good. These guides are the traditional
institutions, the social authorities. The first is the authority of
monarchy, temporally the highest, and then the First Families, pre-
destined by birth and wealth to a leading role. Finally, above all,
there is the Catholic Church, charged with shaping conscience and
soul and conditioning them toward the social order and eternal
salvation. These theocratic ideas, expounded by Bonald at the time
of the Restoration, survived much longer than one would have
thought possible ^
France has maintained particularistic values in commerce and industry
more than any other industrial nation. The economic policies of many
French small businessmen emphasize the maintenance of the family
fortune and status. They refuse to tate economic risks or to enter into
serious competition with one another. 30 The politics of the petty
bourgeoisie has stressed the stability of existing business, even though
28 Tocqueville has argued that fear of social revolution led the bourgeoisie
to return to Catholicism. As he put it: "The Revolution of 1792, when
striking the upper classes, had cured them of their irreligiousness; it had
taught them, if not the truth, at least the social usefulness of belief. . . . The
Revolution of 1848 had just done on a small scale for our tradesmen what
that of 1792 had done for the nobility. . . . The clergy had facilitated this
conversion by [giving] ... to long established interests, the guarantees of its
traditions, its customs and its hierarchy." The Recollections of Alexis de
Tocqueville (London: The Harvill Press, 1948), p. 120.
29 Francois Goguel, "The Idea of Democracy and the Political Institutions,"
in Saul K. Padover, 'French Institutions, Values and Politics (Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1954), pp. 12-13.
30 See the articles by John E. Sawyer, "Strains in the Social Structure of
Modern France," and by David S. Landes, "French Business and the Business-
man: A Social and Cultural Analysis," in Edward M. Earle, ed., Modern
France (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 293-312; 334-
353. See also Roy Lewis and Rosemary Stewart, The Managers, pp. 182-187.
For a discussion of similar attitudes and consequences in Italy, see Maurice
F. Neufeld, Italy: School -for Awakening Countries (Ithaca: N.Y. State
School of Industrial and Labor Relations, 1961), pp. 36 and passim.
Values and Democratic Stability 227
this has limited the economy's potential for expansion. 31 French em-
ployers, particularly in small plants, have expected particularistic loyalties
from their employees. 32 All through its history, French industry has
attempted to deny representation rights to trade unions, and when
forced to grant them has undermined these concessions as soon as
possible. To permit the unions rights of representation and thereby
to acknowledge universalistic norms has been seen as morally offensive.
The behavior of the French businessman is, of course, more complicated
than this brief analysis suggests, since a capitalist system inevitably
dictates a considerable degree of universalism. 33 As Frangois Bourricaud
has pointed out: "Between the 'bourgeois' money criterion and more
aristocratic criteria antiquity of family and connection the bourgeois
hesitates. This ambiguity explains in part, perhaps, why his relations
with the workers have been so difficult " 34
31 Raymond Aron, who differs from most analysts of the French scene in
arguing that there has been a rapid rate of growth in the total French economy
in most of this century, agrees, however, that "the usual idea that France
is still the nation of small business is, then, not false. ... It is quite likely
that in many sectors there are still large numbers of firms which are too small
and more or less unproductive. Sometimes these marginal enterprises are
protected rather than opposed by the larger ones, which thus ensure extra
profits by maintaining prices at levels desired by the former.
"This relative slowness in concentration is attended by the survival of
precapitalist^ legal entities. . . .
"The French seem to attach importance to independence and at times to
prefer it to higher income. Resistance [to incorporation into larger units] . . .
expresses a characteristic of the national psychology just as it is a result of a
policy adopted by governments under pressure from the electorate or grouped
interests." France: Steadfast and Changing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1960), pp. 60-<52.
82 In discussing the French businessman, Roy Lewis and Rosemary Stewart
have pointed out these tendencies in detail: "The businessman is paternalistic
and autocratic, treating his employees as l mes erf ants, 9 as much a part of his
'maison' as his own children and domestics. In an age of rapid technological
change, this has led not only to discontent among the children, but also to a
failure to modernize. . . .
"Their labor relations are also prejudiced, and even French big business
lacks 'industrial-relations sense.' In France, the dogged anti-labor attitude of
the businessman has ended not only with businesses paying for social welfare
out of their own pockets directly, but also with an irreconcilably bitter
anticapitalist feeling among the workers, who vote Communist often for that
reason and no other." The Managers, pp. 186-187.
83 See Aron, France: Steadfast and Changing, pp. 45-77.
84 Bourricaud, "France," op. tit., p. 478.
228 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
The French working class, on the other hand, has supported in
ideology, if not always in action, the revolutionary values of achievement,
equalitarianism, universalism. However, it has been faced with a situation
in which individual and collective mobility are morally disapproved of
by the more privileged orders although, of course, as in other industrial
societies, considerable individual mobility does occur. 35 French workers'
efforts to improve their lot through collective action are bitterly resisted
by the bourgeoisie, and the emphasis on local particularism inhibits the
unions' efforts to form strong nation-wide organizations. 36 There is perhaps
no more impressive evidence of the deep moral hostility of many French
employers towards unions than the systematic effort to demolish all
union rights during the period of the "phony" war, from September
1939 to May 1940. Seemingly both employers and their political rep-
resentatives in the government put "teaching the workers and unions a
lesson" ahead of national unity and, in the last analysis, national survival. 87
The effort to sustain traditionalist norms within a growing economy
has inhibited the creation of a democratic parliamentary system based
on achievement and universalism. Every French republic has sought to
institutionalize these values, and has given the lower classes equal rights
of access to government. In most other countries such rights and norms
have led to the tempering of aggressive ideologies in the lower classes; in
France it has led to an intensification of these ideologies.
Thus the most disruptive element in French culture has been the
cleavage between pre-industrial values, supported by the upper classes and
the church, which have continued to affect the economic sector, and the
legitimacy of the Revolution, which has formally dominated the political
structure. The ascriptive, elitist, and particularistic aspects of French
values facilitated the emergence of politics along class lines, while the
emphasis on equalitarianism, universalism, and achievement has led the
less privileged strata to sharply resent their position. Tocqueville pointed
to this problem in an exaggerated form when he suggested: "To conceive
86 There is some evidence and opinion to sustain the belief that successfully
mobile French are more likely to hide this fact than would be true for
comparable individuals in other countries. See S. M. Lipset and R. Bendix,
Social Mobility in Industrial Society (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1959), pp. 19, 82-83.
S6 VaI Lorwin, The French Labor Movement (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1954), pp. 36-37.
37 See Herbert Luethy, The State of France (London: Seeker and Warburg,
1955), p. 87; Val Lorwin, The French Labor Movement, pp. 87-88; Henry W.
Ehrmann, French Labor, From Popular Front to Liberation (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1947), pp. 169-232.
Values and Democratic Stability 229
of men remaining forever unequal upon a single point, yet equal on all
others, is impossible; they must come in the end to be equal upon all." 38
The retention of pre-industrial values within French capitalism did
not mean, of course, that all of French industry adhered to them. Within
large-scale industry as within government, the corollaries of bureaucrati-
zation and rationalization emerged: stable definition of rights and duties,
systematic universalistic ordering of authority relationships, publicity of
decisions, the appearance of personnel experts or specialists in labor
relations as a consequence of the division of labor. And though one
generally expects workers to be more radical in large-scale industry than
in small, in those sections of France where industry was large and bureau-
cratic in general the North the business classes demonstrated a greater
willingness to accept trade unions as a legitimate and permanent part of
the industrial system; there, syndicalism and Communism were weakest.
Before 1914, the Socialists were strongest in the areas of the country with
large industry, while the anarcho-syndicalists had their greatest strength
in those parts of the nation where the particularistic values of small
business were dominant. These differences were paralleled between the
two great wars by the variations in support of the Socialists and Com-
munists. The Communists, in general, took over the centers of syndicalist
strength, though since World War II they have become the party of the
French industrial workers almost everywhere.
The picture of a relatively stagnant France with "stalemate" politics, a
reluctance to take advantage of economic opportunities, and a low birth-
rate, which was accurate enough before World War II, has changed
drastically since then. The European economic miracle great and rapid
economic growth and a sharp increase in the consumption of mass-
produced items has affected France as much as any country. The net
reproduction birth rate, which stood below 100 (the rate at which a
population reproduces itself) all during the inter-war years, has hovered
around 125 since 1946. 39 A number of observers of the French scene
have argued that "the combination of 'new men and new attitudes' in-
herited from the war period has made French society much less different
from the societies of other industrial nations."
88 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage
Books, 1956), Vol. I, p. 55. (Equality in this sense does not mean equality
of condition, but rather universalistic treatment in all sectors.)
3 * Charles P. Kindleberger, "The Postwar Resurgence of the French Econ-
omy," in Stanley Hoffman, Charles P. Kindleberger, Laurence Wylie, Jesse
R. Pitts, Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, and Fran$ois Goguel, In Search of France
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 133.
230 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
In the civil service, in business, in professional organizations, even in
the military forces, new groups of "technocrats" appear men
who specialize in the management of a highly industrialized and
bureaucratic society, men who earn high incomes without neces-
sarily owning much capital. . . .
Within the business world, a kind of managerial revolution has led
to a new conception of profits, in which management and owner-
ship are less tightly fused and in which the firm's power counts
more than the owner's fortune. 40
The emergence of a "modern" France would seem to be negated by
the continued strength of the Communists as a party and union move-
ment (CGT) among the industrial workers, and the highly unstable
political system. It may be argued, however, that the current instabilities
of the political system now reflect the tensions of rapid change super-
imposed on a polity whose political leadership has a traditional bent
toward uncompromising rhetoric. The Communists have retained most
of the working-class electoral following which they secured in the kte
1930's and the 1940's. They have not gained new votes, and they have
lost a large proportion of their party and trade-union membership. But if
the majority of French workers still vote Communist, various opinion
surveys suggest a relatively low level of class alienation among the
workers. On the "right," the principal version of anti-democratic ex-
tremism the Poujadist movement secured almost all of its backing from
the declining middle-class strata, often in regions that were being eco-
nomically impoverished That is, those who found their relative or
absolute economic and social position worsening as a result of changes
in French society were attracted to a politics that was "against the sys-
tem." The tensions over the Algerian War similarly involved efforts
to resist inherent "modernizing" tendencies. In a real sense, the Gaullist
fifth republic is engaged in an effort to bring France's polity and values
into line with the changing reality of its class and economic structures.
But political and organizational loyalties do not disappear quickly, and
consequently the political system, in which conflicts over these values
are acted out, seems much more resistant to change than are other in-
stitutions.
The way in which historic tensions are maintained may be seen most
clearly by examining the sources of the perpetuation of value differences
between those white-collar workers who are employed in the bureaucracy
40 Stanley Hoffman, "Paradoxes of the French Political Community," in
Hoffman, et /., In Search of France, p. 61.
Values and Democratic Stability 231
of industry and those employed by government. In France, it has not been
possible to speak of the * Vhke-colkr worker" as such; rather, there are
the sharply differing backgrounds of the employe (private employee)
and the -fonctionnaire (civil servant). As the French sociologist Michel
Crozier has described the situation in his country:
We meet two opposite types of participation and integration in
society; one type which can be described as paternalistic and which
is present among traditional white-collar workers (bank employees,
insurance employees, and those employed in industry), and an egali-
tarian type, present in the world of the lower civil servants. . . . The
same basic psychological situation has produced two role types, and
with these two roles, two different concepts of society, two sets of
religious attitudes, two approaches to politics. These differences
have tended to decline since the second World War, but there are
still two different worlds which are determined in one case by chan-
nels of social mobility through the lay and anti-clerical sector of
the society, and in the other through paternalistic and even confes-
sional methods of entrance. 41
These two non-manual strata are recruited from different sectors of
French society. Private industry tends to secure its employees from the
graduates of the Catholic schools, often on the basis of personal recom-
mendations, and "many private firms examine carefully the family origins
... of prospective employees." The Civil Service is recruited almost ex-
clusively from state schools whose faculties are overwhelmingly on the
political left. Its recruitment procedures and operation emphasize rigorous
selection criteria and formal academic achievement. These differences in
the recruitment and membership deeply affect French trade-union politi-
cal life, since the Catholic trade-union federation (CFTC) and the liberal
Catholic party (the MRP) have their principal base of support in the
white-collar workers employed in private industry, while the socialist-in-
fluenced union federation, Force Ouvrier (FO), and the socialist party
(SFIO), have their strongest supporters among the lower echelons of
civil service workers.
The political consequences of these differences are known; the in-
ability of the parties of the Center, of the Third Force, to overcome
their differences and to form any permanent unity. These differences
41 Michel Crozier, "Classes san conscience ou prefiguration de las societe sans
classes," European Journal of Sociology, 1 (1960), pp. 244-245.
232 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
support, and are in turn nourished by, the opposition of the socialist
FO and the Catholic CFTC unions, a conflict based in the last anal-
ysis on the essential incompatibility between the religious mentality
of the old Federation of White-Collar workers, the base of the
CFTC, and the lay mentality of the federations of Civil Servants in
theFO. 42
Thus France remains unstable politically. It may currently be in the
final process of cultural "modernization," but historic institutional com-
mitments still prevent the emergence of a fully modern domestic politics,
one in which the basic internal issues revolve around an interest struggle
for the division of national income within a welfare state. Rather, issues
concerning the legitimacy of various institutions, the role of the religious
and secular school, and the structure of authority still divide the nation.
Historically, the resistance of the French ascriptive and particularistic
"right" to accepting changes in power relations within industry, to legit-
imating (i.e., morally accepting) unions, was in large measure responsi-
ble for the fact that the French workers, though possessors of the suffrage
before workers elsewhere in Europe, remain alienated from the polity. 43
Conversely, to the extent that the workers have supported extremist tend-
encies, anarcho-syndicalism and Communism, the conservative strata have
been enabled to feel morally sustained in their refusal to share power. To
break through this vicious cycle of extremism and counter-extremism is
not an easy task, even though the cleavages in basic values may be ending.
The difficulties of the German polity stem from sources which are, in
one sense, the obverse of the French. Where France has encouraged polit-
ical participation by the lower classes but denied them rights in industry,
the German system has given the working class rights and protection
within industry while limiting their access to the polity. Until 1918 at
least, the German aristocratic classes successfully maintained ascriptive
and particularistic values in the non-economic areas of life, while en-
couraging achievement and universalism, but not equalitarianism, in the
economic order. That is, the old upper classes permitted, and sometimes
even encouraged, the working class to improve its economic position
**Loc cit.
48 It should also be noted that this alienation cannot be explained primarily
by low wages. "In comparison with European wages, they are not low.
Higher than in Italy or Holland, certainly not as high as in Sweden or
Switzerland, a little lower than in Great Britain, they have been somewhat
better in buying power than in Germany and are still at least equal in that
respect.'* Raymond Aron, France: Steadfast and Changing, p. 49.
Values and Democratic Stability 233
through social legislation and trade unions. They were not willing, how-
ever, to accede to achievement criteria in the status and political orders.
Individuals were still judged and rejected according to their social origins.
This meant that, as is usual in an ascriptively oriented status system,
political movements emerged based on distinct status or class lines which
were buttressed by the class organizations in industry. However, these
political groupings could never gain a secure foothold in the political
system.
Concretely, the Prussian aristocracy and the Wilhelmine monarchy,
while sympathetic to the objectives of the unions in industry, first at-
tempted to suppress the Socialists as a party between 1878 and 1891, and
then refused to accept a democratic electoral system in Prussia, the chief
state of the Reich, up to the overthrow of the monarchy in 1918. This re-
fusal to allow the workers' political representatives a share in political
power forced the Socialist movement to maintain a revolutionary ideo-
logical posture which was at complete variance with its social position
and aspirations. The workers' movement did not want to destroy the state,
but rather to be admitted to it. In southern Germany, where ascriptive
status lines were much less rigid than in Prussia, and where the conserva-
tive classes admitted the workers' political movements into the body pol-
itic, the Socialist parties quickly developed a moderate, reformist, and
pragmatic ideology. In these states, the revisionist doctrines of Eduard
Bernstein had their earliest and strongest advocates; in some, the Social-
Democrats supported cooperation with non-socialist parties, thereby re-
ducing the emphasis on class warfare. 44 In Weimar Germany, the Social
Democratic Party developed into a moderate organization, and, until the
outbreak of the Great Depression and the rise of Nazism, absorbed most
of the old socialist and Communist electoral strength.
Many conservative groups, particularly those which had been involved
in the status system of the old empire for example, the landed aristoc-
racy, the teachers, the professional officers, and much of the civil service
never accepted the Weimar Republic and its universalistic norms. 45 The
44 Peter Gay, The 'Dilemma of Democratic Socialism: Eduard Bernstein's
Challenge to Marx (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), pp. 254-
255 and passim. See also Arthur Rosenberg, The Birth of the German
Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1931), pp. 48 ff.
45 "From 1920 onwards the history of the Weimar Republic was only a rear-
guard action against the revitalized social forces on which the German state
structure had been built under Bismarck: Army, Junkers, big industrialists,
and the higher strata of the Civil Service." J. P. Mayer, Max Weber and
German Politics (London: Faber and Faber, 1956), p. 64.
234 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
middle classes wavered between embracing a political system which in-
corporated the universalistic values that they had long supported and re-
acting against the challenge to the privileges and the deferential norms
they retained as part of the socially privileged. The support which both
the old and new middle classes gave to Nazism in the early 1930's has
been linked by many observers to the strong German emphasis on ascrip-
tion and elitism. Faced with a dire economic threat to their status, the
middle classes turned to the Nazis, who promised a national socialism
which would restore prosperity and preserve the values of the Stande-
staat (strong respect for hierarchical rankings) .
In discussing the pattern variables, I have assumed that the industrial
economic order requires a greater application of universalistic, specific,
and achievement criteria than do the political and social orders. Employers
must deal with workers in terms of these values, and workers, in turn,
are constrained to secure a stable, universalistic definition of their rights
in industry. The demand for universalistic treatment in the factory is a
prime demand of workers in modern society. The demand for universal-
istic treatment in the political sphere occurs often as part of the struggle
in the economic order. On the other hand, the middle and upper classes
tend to be more oriented toward maintaining their privileged position in
terms of status rather than in economic terms that is, toward enforcing
the norms inherent in elitism. Hence, a working class which has made
gains in the economic order will be relatively satisfied, while a middle
and upper class which feels threatened in its position of status will react
aggressively. It may be contended that in Weimar Germany the major-
ity of the workers were relatively moderate politically because they had
secured access to the economic and political orders, while traditional con-
servative groupings and the middle classes were disposed to accept mili-
tant politics in a crisis because their value orientations of elitism and as-
cription led them to perceive such gains on the part of the workers as a
threat to their over-all status position and to their sense of "the way things
ought to be."
Harry Eckstein argues that the instability of the Weimar Republic was
a result of the strains between the authoritarian norms which character-
ized all non-governmental institutions and the democratic patterns of the
political system:
The German governmental pattern was . . . one-sidely democratic,
at any rate if we confine analysis to the level of parliamentary rep-
resentation and decision-making. . . . On the other hand, social life,
Values and Democratic Stability 235
including life in parties and political interest groups, was highly
authoritarian. . * . Not only were society and polity to some degree
incongruent; they existed in unprecedented contradiction with one
another. . . .
This unalleviated democracy (pure proportional representation,
strong detailed bill of rights) was superimposed upon a society per-
vaded by authoritarian relationships and obsessed with authoritarian-
ism. . . . German family life, German schools, and German business
firms were all exceedingly authoritarian, German families were dom-
inated, more often than not, by tyrannical husbands and fathers,
German schools by tyrannical teachers, German firms by tyrannical
bosses. 4
Eckstein does not contend that the Germans as individuals always pre-
ferred authoritarian politics. Rather, he points to the fact that from the
first universal suffrage elections in Imperial Germany down to 1928, lib-
eral, center, and socialist parties secured between 80 and 90 per cent of
the vote, and that anti-democratic pre-Nazi parties were always in a
small minority. He seems to suggest that a more authoritarian kind of
"democratic" regime, such as that of Imperial Germany, would have pro-
vided a "proper base" for a stable regime. It might be argued, in line with
the reasoning behind both my own and Eckstein's analyses, that Germany
could have best evolved into a stable constitutional democracy through
the gradual growth of a system which retained elitist and monarchical
forms and strong executive power in the hands of a powerful Chancellor.
The symbolic retention of legitimate power in the hands of a Kaiser con-
ceivably might have preserved the allegiance of the middle and upper
classes to a democratic political system.
Arguments such as these are impossible to prove, but it may be sug-
gested that the political history of Sweden illustrates tc what might have
been" in Germany. In many ways, pre-World War I Swedish social struc-
ture resembled that of Germany. The Swedish privileged classes strongly
resisted universal suffrage, and adult suffrage was adopted only in 1909
for the lower house and in 1921 for the upper one. 47 Swedish social life
contained many of the same authoritarian patterns that characterized
Germany's, and Sweden instinctively looked to Germany for intellectual
and cultural leadership. But Sweden was both small and geographically
isolated from European wars; it escaped the tensions resulting from the
46 Eckstein, A Theory of Stable Democracy, pp. 17-18.
4T Dankwart Rustow, The Politics of Compromise (Princeton, N J.: Princeton
University Press, 1955), pp. 65-85; Douglas Verney, Parliamentary Reform m
Sweden (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 159^173, 202-214.
236 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
overthrow of a monarchy after military defeat. Its radical Socialist party
became moderate and its extreme conservatives and upper class came to
accept the right of the workers to participate in, and ultimately to domi-
nate, the polity. But even today, the values of the Swedish status system
contain strong elements of ascription, elitism, particularism, and diffuse-
ness.
Much of the elitist quality of Swedish life has gradually declined under
the impact of thirty years of Socialist government. Successful political rule
by this party, many of whose leaders began life as workers, has undoubt-
edly weakened the value orientations which sustained elitism. Yet Swedish
politics remain highly particularistic. For example, Swedish telephone
books still list individuals alphabetically 'within occupational groups. So
to look up a Swede in the phone book, you must know his occupation.
He is still a doctor, printer, or carpenter before he is a person.
To a considerable extent the egalitarian changes reflect conscious poli-
cies of the governing Socialists. Thus the Swedish educational system has
been changing, from one similar to that of Britain and other parts of Eu-
rope with their class-stratified divisions of secondary schools modern,
technical, and grammar to "single-type comprehensive schools, into
which all the existing schools are to be incorporated. . . . The eventual
aim is a 9 year school, with differentiation beginning in a very mild
form in the 6th year, and only taking shape in 3 different 9th classes [at
age 16] (preparation for higher education; general finishing class with
mainly theoretical bent; and preparatory vocational training with some
theoretical courses)." 48
C. A. R. Crosland, who sees class values in his own England as little
changed in spite of the great structural reforms introduced by the Labour
government of 1945-1951, twenty years of full employment, and the wel-
fare state, has pointed to at least one of the major conditions required for
a political impact on class values in a democracy:
Political power can also have an influence on class attitudes, but in a
democracy only, I think, if one party remains in office -for a long
time, . . .
Thus in Britain, before the war, when Conservative Governments
seemed the natural thing, collective feelings of superiority and in-
48 Perry Anderson, "Sweden," New Left Review, No. 7, (1961) pp. 6-7. For
other objective factors which have served to reduce hierarchical differentiation
and class tension in Sweden, see the second part of Anderson's article, New
Left Review, No. 9 (1961), pp. 34-35.
Values and Democratic Stability 237
feriority were intensified by the belief that political power was an
additional, semi-permanent attribute of a class which already ap-
peared to possess all the other attributes of a ruling class. Conversely
in Sweden, the fact that a Socialist Government now seems the
natural order of things has a profound effect in weakening collective
class feelings, since at least the attribute of political power is differ-
ently located from the other attributes of the "upper class."
It creates, in other words, a definite "scatter," and prevents a con-
centration of "top-class attributes". . , . Thus political power coun-
terbalances the influence of other class determinants, and hence di-
minishes the likelihood of strong, coagulated class feelings. But this
will occur only if the period of one-party rule is sufficiently pro-
longed to cause a definite adjustment in psychological attitudes. 49
Evidence secured in a Swedish survey study confirms the thesis that
long tenure in office by a workers' party may modify the traditional as-
sumptions concerning the inter-relationship of different indicators of high
position. Those interviewed were asked, "Which class do you think is the
most influential in our society today?" The responses indicate that Swedes
who perceive their status as **working class" are most likely to believe that
their class is the most influential one than self-defined "middle-class" in-
dividuals believe is the case with the middle class. And to explain this phe-
nomenon of consensus across class lines concerning the greater power of
the working class, Torgny Segerstedt comments: "Perhaps I ought to re-
mind you that we have had a Labour government in office in Sweden for
more than 20 years." 50
To return to Germany briefly, major changes in its value system, which
weaken ascriptive values, appear to have been developing since the end
of the last war. Two of the major bulwarks of ascriptive and particular-
istic values in the society no longer exist or have been weakened: the
army and the Prussian aristocracy. The major regions of Germany pre-
viously dominated by these values (most of old Prussia) are now in Russia,
Poland, or Communist East Germany. What is now West Germany is
largely composed of areas which even before World War I were willing
to admit the working class into the political club. In addition, the upheav-
* 9 CrosIand, The Future of Socialism, pp. 181-182. (Emphasis mine.)
50 Torgny Segerstedt, "An Investigation of Class-Consciousness among Office
Employees and Workers in Swedish Factories," Transactions of the Second
World Congress of Sociology (London: International Sociological Association,
1954), VoL H, pp. 300-301, 305.
238 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
als of Nazism and World War II have upset the old German class struc-
ture and have reduced the significance of ascriptive elements. 51
Yet ascriptive, elitist values are far from dead in West Germany. To
some extent, the society still emphasizes social origins as a determinant of
status, and men are still reacted to in terms of status position professors,
engineers, industrialists, and others are members of an elite. While
workers are part of the body politic and not outside it, they have not
secured an end to a diffuse emphasis on class. The continued significance
of elitist values has been pointed up in a recent study of the German
entrepreneurial class. Heinz Hartmann suggests that this stratum has laid
claim to diffuse respect: "[Mjanagement does not claim elite status with
respect to a specific task, area, or group but rather in relation to the
total society." 52 In effect, the German Unternehmer (entrepreneurs)
have laid explicit claim to the deference and authority once received by
now decimated classes:
Management's drive toward ascendancy quite frequently is justified
by reference to the death or incapacitation of previous elite groups.
When Winschuh, for instance, addressed a conference of Young
Unternehmer in 1950, he pointed out that "due to the destruction of
old elites, the importance of the Unternehmer for the formation of
a new elite group has increased." He reminded his audience of the
"mass annihilation and expatriation of the Elbian feudatory" and
called the attention of his listeners to "the decimation of numerous
families of officers and civil service officials." . . . All of this led up to
the finding that "society needs more authority in leadership, more
determination and speed in administration" than it enjoys at the time
and that the Unternehmer were willing and able to provide all of
this. 53
51 There are relatively few men of aristocratic or Junker origin in the
various elites of contemporary Germany as contrasted with Weimar or
Imperial times. **In the German Federal Republic, the . . . barriers of class
have become greatly simplified, compared to the past. ... In terms of social
origins, all elites are now predominantly middle-class, with the exception
only of the SPD [Social Democrats] and trade union leaders. The aristocracy
has largely disappeared. . . . For the average of ... twelve elites, 70 per cent
are of middle-class background, while only 8 per cent bear aristocratic names
and 10 per cent indicate some working-class background. . . ." Karl W.
Deutsch and Lewis J. Edinger, Germany Rejoins the Powers (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959), p. 125; see also p. 139.
52 Heinz Hartmann, Authority and Organization in German Management
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 11.
Ibid., p. 242.
Values and Democratic Stability 239
The West German system is probably moving toward the British or the
Swedish model There is also much more authoritarianism or perhaps,
more accurately, executive power in Bonn than there was in Weimar.
Chancellor Adenauer has played a role much more comparable to that of
Bismarck in the Imperial system than to any of the Weimar chancellors,
and elections have been fought to a considerable degree as contests for
the Chancellorship. 54 Whether Germany will actually maintain itself as
a stable democracy, only time will tell. Particularly crucial will be the
resolution of the challenge to the values of the privileged classes when
the working-class-based Social Democrats actually move toward national
office. 55
Social Change and Political Stability
One problem faced by all developing societies is that the legitimacy of
the existing distribution of resources and privileges, and of the political
decision-making process itself, comes under severe tension. A new eco-
nomic class usually achieves high position by the use of methods which
have been traditionally defined as inappropriate or illegitimate. The so-
cial system, in turn, may adjust by incorporating the new class into the
ascriptive elites, or by insulating the old ascriptive elites from the new
ones (for example, by reserving for the old elite certain privileged
positions, often in government, the military, religion, and education).
The first course maintains the unity of high status strata, and augments
the tendency of the lowly to accept the existing structure of authority
as legitimate. The "insulative" course precipitates a reactionary-radical
polarization, quickly rationalized in uncompromisable, absolute value
terms.
The "incorporative" response and its effects are illustrated best in
54 See Eckstein, A Theory of Stable Democracy, p. 37.
55 Contemporary West Germany, of course, continues to differ from Britain
and Sweden, which retain deferential elements in their status system, by not
being a monarchy. This, as I have tried to demonstrate in Political Man (pp.
78-79) , is not an unimportant difference. To create legitimacy is much more
difficult than to transfer the symbolic legitimacy of the older political system
to a new one, as is done in monarchical democracies. I will discuss some of
the sharp differences between the Bonn Republic and its predecessors in
Chapter 9. It should be stressed, however, that a variety of public opinion
polls and studies of elite opinion indicate that attachment to democratic
values is extremely fragile in Germany. For detailed summaries and discussion
of such data, see Deutsch and Edinger, Germmy Rejoins the Powers.
240 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
British parliamentary history. 56 As we have already seen, the articulate
leadership of the bourgeoisie, and later of labor, were given access to
political decision making, and were then incorporated into the ranks of
the Whig party and the Liberal and Labour parties respectively. Not only
did the old ascriptive elites admit those of achieved position into the
formal institutional structure, but they acculturated the newcomers to
many ascriptive orientations. 67 Hence the House of Lords has been able to
86 The English sociologist A. H. Halsey has well described the "incorporative"
process in the class structure of Great Britain: "Perhaps the most outstanding
characteristic of the English class structure historically has been the remark-
able absorptive capacity, the judicious and un-Marxist Fabianism of the
upper classes. The culture of the gentry and of higher officialdom never
quite lost control of the rising provincial centers. If the successful northern
businessmen were themselves excluded from entry into 'the establishment,'
their sons could cross the social barrier by southward movement through
the public schools and Oxford, by movement of religious adherence from
Chapel to Church, and by occupational movement from trade to profession
or from a northern works to a London central office." "British Universities
and Intellectual Life," in A. H. Halsey, Jean Floud and C. A. Anderson, eds,
Education, Economy, and Society, pp. 506-507.
Philip Toynbee has suggested that the reason that the British " bourgeois
. . . never emerged as the ruling class was that each individual who had
risen high enough was immediately transformed into a member of the upper
class. Or at least he was put into a position from which he could transform
his son* The age-long operation was performed with a fantastic degree of
instinctive skill, which was exhibited quite as much by each successive
generation of qualifying New Men as by the ever-changing never-changing
class to which they had successfully aspired. What mattered to both was to
preserve the ethos, not the personnel If, at any point, the middle class had
simply become the ruling class, then a genuine social revolution would have
been achieved and a whole new set of values and behavior patterns would
have supplanted the old ones.'* Philip Toynbee, "The Governing Class," The
Twentieth Century, 162 (1957), p. 298,
57 Bagehot well recognized the importance of these processes for the polity:
"In all countries new wealth is ready to worship old wealth, if old wealth
will only let it, and I need not say that in England new wealth is eager in its
worship. . . . Rank probably in no country whatever has so much 'market'
value as it has in England just now. Of course there have been many countries
in which certain old families, whether rich or poor, were worshipped by
whole populations with a more intense and poetic homage; but I doubt if
there has ever been any in which all old families and all titled families received
more ready observance from those who were their equals, perhaps their
superiors, in wealth, their equals in culture, and their inferiors only in
descent and rank. The possessors of the 'material' distinctions of life . . .
rush to worship those who possess the ewzmaterial distinctions. Nothing can be
Values and Democratic Stability 241
withstand the influx of bourgeoisie and kbor into the political process,
and one is presented with the interesting phenomenon of the Labour peer.
France provides an example of the "insuktive" response and its effects.
The mcien regime provided virtually no institutional access for the rising
bourgeoisie to political decision making, much less incorporation into the
ranks of the decision makers. A potent, hostile counter-elite was thus
formed which, in collusion with disaffected elements of the nobility, pro-
vided the leadership for the Revolution of 1789. This carnage did not,
however, mark the end of the insulative response. Rather, the antagonis-
tic role into which the aristocracy was cast produced a new and durable
counter-elite of the right. Moreover, the bourgeoisie themselves adopted
an insulative attitude toward aspiring kbor elites. The rising bourgeoisie
did not absorb the noblesse oblige ethic of the traditional aristocracies.
They were thus prone not to feel responsible for the welfare of the lower
orders just at a time when those classes were undergoing severe material
deprivation and social dislocation; no particularistic protection was pro-
vided, but particularistic loyalty was demanded. The lower classes, in turn,
were increasingly alienated from the system. In this manner, France ar-
rived at the difficult position of having counter-elites of both the left and
the right, each with a considerable following in the electorate, and with
neither according legitimacy to the political process as such.
The German experience also failed to develop an "integrated" response;
it shared features of both the British and French experiences. A strong
business class arose, but it was unable to reach the pinnacle of a society in
which the monarchy and nobility resisted accepting it as a partner in
government or as an equal in status. As Roy Lewis and Rosemary Stewart
described the situation:
The growth of capitalism in Germany was affected, to a far greater
extent than in Britain or France, by a rigid structure of class and
status. . . .
Capitalism, technology and business came to Germany in various
ways. But the structure of a society based on status and still
divided between Catholic and Protestant states was so strong that
it had to shape itself largely to the form of the society. . . .
Bismarck made the mold into which German business was poured
in the last half of the nineteenth century. He broke the out-of-date
more politically useful than such homage, if it be skillfully used; no folly can
be idler than to repel and reject it." The English Constitution (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1952), pp. 277-278. (Emphasis in original.)
242 Democracy in Comparative
medievalism of the Junker (land-owning) squires, but maintained
the autocracy of their king (and later emperor). . . . However, top
businessmen did not find themselves, as in England, at the apex of
society. Status remained decisive, and the army retained its caste
privileges. The successful businessman might in time be allowed to
put "von" in front of his name, but he could not aspire to become
a full part of the nobility; and the purchase of a great estate did not
(as, again, it did in England) provide his children with a springboard
into die ruling circles. 68
The German upper class, as represented by Bismarck and the Kaiser,
sought to make the workers as a class loyal to the polity by "protecting"
them against the bourgeoisie through a variety of social welfare legislation*
The aristocracy, in fact, saw the workers as potential allies against the
power and status claims of the 'Vulgar" business classes, and perceived
their own actions on behalf of the workers as reflecting the morality of
noblesse oblige, of the responsibility toward their inferiors of those born
to rule. In a real sense, Bismarck and Disraeli reflected similar reactions by
the political spokesmen of comparable strata. The Germans differed from
the British, however, in that they refused to "incorporate" the leaders
of the new classes, in particular the workers, into the political process.
To give an adequate account of the differing ways in which nations
with ascriptive traditions met the tensions of entering a commercial and
industrial era requires reference to many unique factors. 59 Much of the
58 Lewis and Stewart, The Managers, pp. 166-168.
w Schumpeter explicitly addressed himself to this problem, but curiously
put the responsibility for the differences between British and German political
systems on the behavior of one man, Bismarck: "But, why was it that the
English methods and tactics did not prevail in Germany? . . . The fatal
mistake was really Bismarck's. It consisted in the attempt, explicable only on
the hypothesis that he completely misconceived the nature of the problem,
at suppressing socialist activities by coercion. . . .** Capitalism, Socialism, and
Democracy (New York: Harper & Bros^ 1950), pp. 341, 343.
Writing in 1917, Max Weber saw the failure of Bismarck to share political
power with the various opposition parties as a prime cause of the latter's
inability to function as a responsible and loyal opposition: "Bismarck left
behind as a political heritage a nation without any political education. . . .
Above all he left behind a nation without any political will, accustomed
to allow the great statesman at its head to look after its policy for it More-
over ... he left a nation accustomed to submit, under the label of con-
stitutional monarchy, to anything which was decided for it . . ." Cited in
Mayer, Max Weber and German Politics, p. 78; see also Edward Shils, "The
Values and Democratic Stability 243
difference between northern and southern Europe is related to the success
or failure of the Protestant Reformation. Britain's position as an island
was important because, among other things, it eased the problem of
national unification and national defense, and reduced the role of the
military as a major factor affecting the special course of its economic
and political development. Also the historic timing with which different
nations entered the industrial age or were unified politically cannot be
ignored. However, on the level of the specific variables with which this
book is concerned, one factor would seem to stand out, and that is the
cluster of variables which produced "open" or "closed" aristocracies.
In seeking to account for the differences in the political adaptation of
Britain and France to the tensions occasioned by modernization, Tocque-
ville found the key precisely in the variations between the British and
continental upper classes. As he put it:
I have always been surprised that a circumstance that renders Eng-
land so different from all other modern nations and which alone
explains the peculiarities of her laws, history, and traditions has not
received more attention.
. . . England was the only country in which the caste system had
been totally abolished, not merely modified. Nobility and com-
moners joined forces in business enterprises, entered the same pro-
fessions, and what is still more significant intermarried. The
daughter of the greatest lord in the land could marry a "new" man
without the least compunction. , . .
The reason why the English middle class, far from being actively
hostile to the aristocracy, inclined to fraternize with it, was not so
much that the aristocracy kept open house as that its barriers were
ill defined; not so much that entrance into it was easy as that you
never knew when you had got there. The result was that everyone
who hovered on its outskirts nursed the agreeable illusion that he
belonged to it and joined forces with it in the hope of acquiring
prestige or some practical advantage under its aegis. 60
Intellectuals in the Political Development of New States" (mimeographed,
1962), p. 45.
Addressing himself to the same problem in terms of why Britain suc-
ceeded in avoiding major class tension, a French historian also credits the
insight of individuals. G. E. Lavan urges that England avoided a revolutionary
working class because of **the practical intelligence at the right moment
of some Conservative [Disraeli, Randolph Churchill, Joseph Chamberlain]
and Liberal [Asquith, Lloyd George] leaders." Partis politiques et realties
sociales (Paris: Armand Colin, 1953), p. 95.
60 Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (New
York: Anchor Books, 1955), pp. 82, 8&-S9.
244 'Democracy in Comparative Perspective
The British aristocracy obviously was not inherently more sophisticated
than the French or German, but its structural position made it more
adaptive to a changing class structure. This situation has been well sum-
marized by Robert Ulich in a discussion of Britain as she entered the
modern age:
Despite terrific social contrasts between the upper and middle classes
on die one hand and the poor on the other, there was no exclusive
ruling caste as in France up to 1789 and again in the latter periods
of reaction, and as in Germany up to the twentieth century.
Greater mobility . . . was secured by the English custom of succes-
sion, or primogeniture, according to which the title of the parent is
transmitted only to the eldest son of a noble family, while die other
children become commoners. In contrast, in France and Germany
every descendant of a nobleman, whether male or female, inherits the
title. Until the modern democratic revolutions the mere name made
the bearer a privileged person. Intermarriage with commoners meant
degradation; even scholarship could only be a hobby. Only through
some middleman could the nobleman go into business. . . . [T]his
aloofness from modern occupations involved a kind of glorified
poverty. There remained nothing but to fight desperately for the
monopoly of officers' positions in the army and the higher offices
of the civil and diplomatic service. . . . 61
Unencumbered by a tide and seeking ways to regain a firm claim to
high status, the "younger sons" of British aristocracy entered the new
occupations and married with the new families much more rapidly than
their continental brothers. And since many of the "new men" and their
families often had family connections with the aristocracy, the problem
of "integrating" the new and old elites was nowhere near as difficult as in
countries where the aristocracy sought to differentiate itself as much as
possible from the corrupting contact with the 'Vulgar" moneymakers.
61 Robert Ulich, Education of Nations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1961), p. 95. "The great distinction between the English aristocracy
and any other has always been that, whereas abroad every member of a
noble family is noble, in England none are noble except the head of the
family. . . . The descendants of younger sons, who on the Continent would
all be counts or barons, in England have no tides and sit even below knights.
Furthermore, the younger sons and daughters of the very richest lords receive,
by English custom, but litde money from their families, barely enough to
live on. The sons are given the same education as their eldest brother and
then turned out." Nancy Mitford, "The English Aristocracy," in Nancy
Mitford, ed., Noblesse Oblige (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1959), pp.
36-37.
Values and Democratic Stability 245
Nor was it [in England], in contrast to Germany, considered a sort
of high treason at least after the middle of the nineteenth century
if a member of the privileged group joined the masses in their
struggle for better conditions. Leftists have come from all groups
of English society including graduates from Eton; they have pro-
vided an organic exchange of ideas, however controversial; and they
have supplied labor with men whose background and experience
gave them that sense of social security, grace, and freedom that
political leaders in other countries, having come from the working
class, so often lacked. 62
Up to this point the discussion has focused on the way in which
ascriptive values have been handled in establishing who should have the
right to rule in a political democracy. There is, however, an alternative
basis of gaining support for a new system: effectiveness, or demonstrated
and successful achievements. But as a sole foundation for legitimacy, it is
tenuous. Any government can become involved in crises; major group-
ings will oppose specific policies, sometimes to the point of alienation.
Consequently any government which persists must have ascriptive
grounds for support i.e., a sense of traditional legitimacy. Where a
polity does not have such legitimacy to begin with, as in the case of new
states or post-revolutionary governments, it is inherently unstable. If the
basic value pattern of the society includes a strong emphasis on ascription,
new governments will find it difficult to rule by any means except force.
Only where the value pattern stresses achievement will the political
system, like other institutions and positions, be evaluated by achieve-
ment criteria. Thus the success of the American Republic in establishing
a post-revolutionary democratic legitimacy may be related to the strength
of achievement values in the society.
These analyses suggest that the persistence of ascriptive and partic-
ularistic norms is compatible with democracy only in societies which
have retained ascriptive legitimacy for their polity, that is, in monarchies. 68
Where such a traditional support is missing, the only way to create a
legitimate regime is through long-term effectiveness, that is achievement.
62 Ulich, Education of Nations, p. 96.
63 For detailed analyses of these problems in the new states, see Edward
Shils, "Political Development in the New States," Comparative Studies in
Society and History, 2 (I960), pp. 265-292, 379-411; S. N. Eisenstadt,
"Soziale Entwicklung und Politische Stabilitat in Nichtwestlichen Gesell-
schaften," Koelner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 12 (1960),
pp. 189-203, and Essays on Sociological Aspects of Political and Economic
Development (The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1961).
246 Democracy m Comparative Perspective
This is a difficult method at best. To succeed, it requires rapid change in
fundamental values. A look at new societies which have attempted to
achieve political legitimacy while retaining strong ascriptive elements
indicates how problematic this is. (Such nations include most of Latin
America, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Turkey, and many others.)
A genuine problem for achievement or effectiveness as a basis for
legitimacy arises in the contemporary "new states," almost all of which,
like the Latin American republics in the early nineteenth century, lack
traditional legitimacy. The problem of ascriptive and particularistic
values apart, the need for effectiveness poses a real dilemma, because in
contemporary times "effectiveness" is apt to consist of a demand for the
equitable distribution of a rapidly increasing social product. But in the
developing areas there are formidable obstacles to such effectiveness: the
economy is primitive and unbalanced, the bulk of the population is
impoverished, capital is lacking, political experience and skills are rare,
and much of the available store of political and entrepreneurial experi-
ence is distributed among individuals associated with the former colonial
masters. And as Weber and others have pointed out, rapid economic
growth may often engender violent class and political conflict, rather
than faith in the social system. 64 To the extent, therefore, that democratic
rulers who kck legitimacy are responsible for a rapid increase in the pace
of economic transformation, to that extent they may also serve to under-
mine the capacity of the system to receive generalized support. By foster-
ing rapid transformation, the new political system provokes dislocations in
such basic social relationships as the extended kinship system, the emphasis
on mutual aid within pre-industrial communities, and traditional orienta-
tions to work and time.
In applying these considerations to the prospects for political and
economic development in the "new" and/or "underdeveloped" states, it
is important to recognize that the now economically developed, stable
democracies were able to develop either in societies which for the most
part possessed traditional legitimacy, or in an achievement oriented
society like the United States which also had widespread and relatively
equitable distribution of land ownership for much of its early history.
In addition, these societies did not have to counter a (partly artificially
that is, politically stimulated) rising "level of expectation" which was
beyond the capacity of the economy or polity. As it is clearly difficult to
generate support in the new states on grounds of either ascription or
64 H. H. Gerth and G W. Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 193-194.
Values and Democratic Stability 247
achievement, the chances for stable democracy in any Western sense
are slim. Communism and other forms of totalitarian rule apart, the
general alternatives available are either particularistic appeals to the
existing ascriptive solidarities family, village, tribe, religion, linguistic
unit, or caste an approach which is obviously dysfunctional from the
standpoint of developing a consensus in new territorial political systems,
or charismatic domination by party or leader, as pursued in such coun-
tries as Mexico, Ghana, or Tunisia.
Value Differences,
Absolute or Relative:
The English-Speaking
Democracies
7
As has been remarked, to compare nations or societies which are
highly similar in basic values may be even more fruitful analytically than
to contrast those which are very different As a final illustration of this
mode of inquiry, I will briefly expand the analysis of the stable democ-
racies to include Australia and Canada, nations which like the United
States are former colonies of Great Britain, which settled a relatively open
continental frontier, and are today continent-spanning federal states.
There is general agreement that, on a world-wide comparative scale, these
two large, predominantly English-speaking states resemble the United
States in stressing equalitarianism, achievement, universalism, and specific-
ity. 1 But if Canada and Australia share these basic values with the United
illustration of the relativity of such comparative statements may be
found in an interesting book on England by an Indian, Nirad C. Chaudhuri,
A Passage to England (London: Readers Union, 1960). Many of his com-
ments on England are similar to those made about the United States by
visiting Europeans. For Chaudhuri, England is the model of an achievement-
oriented and universalistic society. Elie Halevy was well aware of the prob-
lem which this posed for a foreign student of England: "[WJhatever the
differences between English and continental life, we must beware of exag-
gerating their importance. To be sure, the Frenchman feels himself in a
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 249
States, they differ with it also, and it is these differences which sharply
illustrate the way in which even relatively slight variations in value
patterns help account for important differences among the stable and
highly developed democracies.
The very tentative rankings which may be given to the positions of
the four major, predominantly English-speaking democracies on the four
pattern-variable dimensions are presented in Table V below. It is
obviously extremely difficult to be precise about such variations, and these
should be considered as at best an informed guess.
Table V
Tentative Estimates of Relative Rankings of the Four English-
Speaking Democracies According to Strength of Certain Pattern
Variables (Rankings according to First Term in Polarity)
United States Australia Canada Great Britain
Elitism Equalitarianism
3
4
2
1
Ascription-Achievement
4
2.5
2.5
1
Particularism^Universalism
4
2
3
1
Diffuseness-Specificity
4
2.5
2.5
1
According to my estimates, Australia differs from the United States
in being slighdy more equalitarian, but less achievement oriented, uni-
versalistic, and specific. It also seems less universalistic and more equali-
tarian than Canada, but it is difficult to estimate the differences on the
other two polarities. Canada differs somewhat from the United States on
all four dimensions of equalitarianism, achievement, universalism, and
specificity, while Britain in turn is less oriented toward these values than
Canada.
To demonstrate that such differences really exist would involve a
foreign land when he crosses from Calais to Dover, but how insignificant
the difference would seem to an Asiatic traveller from Calcutta or Pekin.
Between Latin Catholicism and Anglo-Saxon Protestantism the gulf seems
wide, but what is the distance which divides European Christianity as a
whole from Brahminism?" History of the English People in the Nineteenth
Century. (London: Ernest Benn Ltd., 1961), Vol. I, p. xiii. David Landes
reports that his as yet unfinished study of writings about England by eight-
eenth-century French travelers indicates that they viewed English customs
and values in much the same light as visiting Englishmen have regarded the
United States.
250 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
considerable research program. However, I have drawn on a considerable
number of writings which have argued and given some evidence that these
differences are as they are presented here and, for the time being, we must
depend on such impressionistic evidence to support the discussion to fol-
low. In this chapter, I will first seek to account for the differences by-
indicating variations in the social development of these countries which
presumably created and sustained structures carrying these values, and
then "derive" differences in their political systems which seem rekted to
value patterns.
The Canadian pattern, as has been noted earlier, seems to reflect the
fact that Canada always has been more conservative than the United
States, that its early political history from 1776 on involved the defeat
of radical reform, and that consequently some of the traditionalist "Tory"
values which declined in the United States continued in Canada. The
Canadian historian Frank Underbill has described the situation in the
following terms:
The mental climate of English Canada in its early formative years
was determined by men who were fleeing from the practical appli-
cation of the doctrines that all men are born equal and are endowed
by their creator with certain unalienable rights amongst which are
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ... In Canada we have
no revolutionary tradition; and our historians, political scientists,
and philosophers have assiduously tried to educate us to be proud
of this fact. . . ?
It is true, of course, that Canadian frontier conditions were just as
destructive of traditional social relations as were those on the American
frontier. <c Distinctions of social class found little recognition in the
pioneer communities where the demands of neighborhood association
pressed so heavily upon the inhabitants." 3 Pressures toward egalitarianism
2 Frank H. Underbill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto: The Mac-
nrillan Co. of Canada, 1960), p. 12. He goes on to point out that, while
Jacksonian Democracy triumphed in the United States in the 1830's and
"swept away most of the old aristocratic survivals and made a strong attack
on the new plutocratic forces," its equivalent in Canada, the movements of
Papineau in Quebec and Mackenzie in Ontario, were defeated and discredited.
Hence in Canada, unlike the United States, the "social pyramid . . . was not
upset." pp. 12-33.
S S. D. Clark, The Canadian Community (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1962), p. 65.
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 251
and individualism resulted; but there were counter forces which pre-
vented individualism of the American type from becoming the accepted
way of life on the Canadian frontier-
Canada had to be constantly on its guard against the expansionist
tendencies of the United States. It could not leave its frontier com-
munities unprotected, or autonomous. Law and order in the form of the
centrally controlled North West Mounted Police moved into frontier
settlements along with the settlers. This contributed to the establish-
ment of a greater tradition of respect for the mstituti&ns of kw and order
on the Canadian as compared to the American frontier. At the same
time, frontier egalitarianism and individualism were played down in
Canada because they were linked to American values and might con-
ceivably undermine national integrity:
Efforts to strengthen the political ties of Empire or of nation led
to deliberate attempts, through land grants and political preferments,
to create and strengthen an aristocracy in the colonies . . . and later
in a less obvious fashion, in the Canadian nation. The democratic
movement it was felt was liable to draw Canadian people closer to
their neighbors to the south; and a privileged upper class was a
bulwark of loyalty and conservatism. 4
One consequence of the value system which emerged is that Canadians
have always been less intolerant of economic inequality and social strati-
fication. 5 Horatio Alger has never been a Canadian hero. As the Canadian
sociologist Kaspar Naegele put it in his excellent discussion of his society:
[T]here is less emphasis in Canada on equality than there is in the
United States. ... In Canada there seems to be a greater acceptance
of limitation, of hierarchical patterns. There seems to be less opti-
mism, less faith in the future, less willingness to risk capital or
. 194.
6 A sociological study made in the mid-1930's in English-speaking Montreal
based on a small sample of "seventy people, who were thought to be rep-
resentative," reports that the "notion of a social elite, of a culture based upon
the traditions and ideals of aristocratic Britain, reappears over and over again
in the interviews." These attitudes, the authors note, are probably not charac-
teristic of Canadian opinion much west of Montreal. S. D. Clark, assisted by
C. A. Dawson and E. C. Hughes, "Opinions and Attitudes in English-Speaking
Quebec," in H. F. Angus, ed., Canada and Her Great Neighbor (Toronto:
Ryerson Press, 1938), pp. 383-389.
252 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
reputation. In contrast to America, Canada is a country of greater
caution, reserve, and restraint. 6
But if there is agreement that Canada lies somewhere between America
and Britain as concerns equalitarianism (although it is closer to America), 7
this is not the case with Australia. The scanty available evidence or,
more properly speaking, impressions would suggest that equalitarianism
is stronger in Australia than in Canada or the United States, but that
universaJism is weaker in Australia than in the United States, particularly
among the workers. The particularistic and equalitarian value of "mate-
ship,** the "uncritical acceptance of reciprocal obligations to provide
companionship and material or ego support as required," is viewed by
many Australians as contradictory to the value of "success-ship," (achieve-
ment) although many feel that the latter value is "gradually gaining
ascendency . . ," 8 A number of commentators have recently called
6 Kaspar Naegele, "Canadian Society: Some Reflections," in Bernard BUshen,
et al., eds M Canadian Society (Toronto: Macmillan, 1961), p. 27. (Emphases in
original.) This article is the best effort to sum up the general value system of
Canada. Naegele argues strongly for the thesis that Canada on many matters
lies "in the middle between America and England," and that it both accepts
and rejects various aspects of the English and American models.
7 Some of the flavor of the social differences between Canada and the United
States which reflect the greater strength of traditionalist and conservative val-
ues in the former country have been well summed up by an Australian histo-
rian who spent some time in Canada studying its values and attitudes: "I con-
sider it not unfair to suggest, however, that if some Canadians think some
Americans brash and loud, most Americans think Canadians generally are not
only quiet and standoffish on occasion but also let's be frank about it, rather
dull and often very drab. Even an overseas visitor to North America may detect
the contrast with the friendly, talkative habits of the curious American which
he finds among reserved Canadians in trains, in cafes, and even in some private
homes. American women, moreover, find a sharp contrast in the apparent
readiness of their Canadian sisters to leave public life in many forms to their
husbands and to their brothers." Fred Alexander, Canadians and Foreign Policy
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1960), p. 121.
8 Ronald Taft and Kenneth F. Walker, "Australia," in Arnold M. Rose, ed.,
The Institutions of Advanced Societies (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1958), pp. 144-145. These two Australian social psychologists sum up
Australian values as being militandy equalitarian, "set in the background of
politico-economic class consciousness. . . . These equalitarian attitudes have
taken the form of militant attempts to eliminate the material and prestige
liabilities of the working class. . . . Thus a high value is placed on activities
aimed at protecting and promoting the standing of the *underdog* by abusing
privileged or would-be privileged persons. Although, as we have seen, middle-
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 253
attention to what they describe as the "Americanization" of Australia, by
which they mean "the growth of competitiveness and the success ethic." 9
It may be, therefore, that Tocqueville's proposition that cqualitarianism
demands an emphasis on competition, that the absence of status barriers
presses men toward achievement, may turn out to be valid for Australia.
Certainly, the growth of facilities for higher education in Australia, dis-
cussed below, suggests that Australians may be losing their disdain for
"success-ship." But whatever the facts are concerning the relative em-
phasis on achievement in contemporary Australia, there still seems to be
general agreement that it stands out in its commitment to egalitarian
social relations. For example, a visiting Englishwoman observes:
The Australian concern, at least with the semblance of equality, is
deep rooted and probably accounts, for instance, for the fact that
it is the only western country which long resisted the noxious habit
of tipping. . . . [I]n 1884 Francis Adams whose book The Austra-
lians was movingly perceptive was emphasizing the same quality.
"This is a true republic," he said, "the truest, I take it, in the world
In England the average man feels he is an inferior; in America he
feels he is superior; in Australia he feels he is an equal. Here the
people is neither servile nor insolent, but only shows respect for
itself by its respect for others." 10
And she also points to the continued difference in attitudes toward
work and achievement in Australia and the United States:
In America there is a drive to work which exists quite apart from the
incentive of material comforts. Perhaps it is a legacy from the
Puritan heritage but, whatever the reason may be, the American
has a compulsive attitude to work itself. The powerful big business
executive in America does not relax even when he has reached the
top of his profession. . . .
class Australians avoid identifying themselves as workers, they nonetheless
typically share this militant equalitarianism against authority or prestige fig-
ures . . . Thus the middle class, by and large, supports the welfare state, main-
tains the right of workers to strike and to look after their own interests, and
eschews the servility associated with certain necessary occupational roles. Aus-
tralians are poor at providing personal service and are reluctant to demand it."
9 Jeanne Mackenzie, Australian Paradox (London: Macgibbon and Kee, 1962),
p. 8.
10 Ibid., p. 102.
254 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
An Australian is not concerned with work for its own sake. He
will fight on a union basis for shorter hours and more pay, but he
isn't interested in increasing his output in order to meet bigger
demands. He would prefer to reduce his needs in order that they
may be fulfilled. 11
Frederick Eggleston argues that "in Australia, there is little respect for
wealth as such. ... It is harder for an industrial magnate to enter politics
than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. . . . The wealthy
classes have never provided leaders or shown the community any guidance
in political matters. 12
A report by an Australian professor of education on the school system
of his country complains that the equalitarian values and behavior pat-
tern built into the school systems prevent the emergence of any concern
for leadership. Compare the comments on the British educational system
cited earlier with these statements about the Sydney school system:
The almost century-old tradition of equalitarianism militates against
class leadership of any kind. . . . Nowhere, thus, in his education
does he [the young Sydney citizen] receive inspiration and en-
couragement to strive for a position of leadership in the com-
munity. . . .
The general effect in secondary education here appears to have
been a blurring of distinctions between different secondary schools
[public and private], . . . The tendency of the system appears to be
towards the elimination of distinctions between schools and thus the
elimination of characteristics, in so far as schools can provide them,
distinctive of an upper class which has special knowledge, attitude,
or skills built into it by the schools. 13
Leslie Lipson accounts for the differences between Australia (and New
Zealand) and the mother country by the fact that nations which were
settled "in large part by representatives of the laboring and lower middle
11 Ibid., pp. 107-108.
12 Frederick W. Eggleston, "The Australian Nation," in George Caiger, ed.,
The Australian Way of Life (London: Heinemann, 1953), p. 11; see also A. P.
Rowe, If the Gown Fits (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1960), pp.
59-67; and J. D. B. Miller, Australian Government and Politics (London:
Duckworth, 1954), pp. 22-24.
18 W. F, Cornell, "Education and Social Mobility in Australia, Transactions of
the Third World Congress of Sociology (London: International Sociological
Association, 1954), VoL V, pp. 75-76.
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 255
classes could be expected to react instinctively against any whiff of the
mother country's social stratification." 14 Australia was originally founded
as a penal colony. As late as the 1850's, before its Gold Rush, the majority
of the population were convicts, ex-convicts, or the children of convicts.
Many of the later "free immigrants" were people who had been involved
in Chartist and similar movements in Britain. 15 It is also important to note
that "Australia is one of the very few countries whose whole develop-
ment has taken place since the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution,"
and consequently it developed its national ethos and class structure in a
period in which traditional and aristocratic values were under sharp
attack. 16 Unlike Canada, Australia did not emerge out of a vanquished
democratic revolution, and has no history of defeated nineteenth-cen-
tury reformist movements. 17 If anything, the reverse is true: the "left"
played the major role in defining political and social institutions in the
periods in which national identity was established.
The difference between the Australian focus on equality and the
American emphasis on individual achievement is also connected with the
fact that the Australian frontier experience was quite different from that
in both Canada and the United States. While its influence on Australian
values was not restrained and restricted as in Canada, it was conducive
to an equalitarianism from which the individualism produced on the
American frontier was absent. 18 In America, each individual attempted
14 Leslie Lipson, The Politics of Equality (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1948), pp. 487-488.
15 Russel Ward, The Australian Legend (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1959), pp. 14-16, 157-158.
ie /&<*., p. 18.
17 Canadian unification in 1867 is associated with the Conservative Party, while
the federating of Australia around the turn of the century was pressed by the
Labour Party, which existed in most states. It is noteworthy that the "conserv-
ative" party in Australia has constantly changed its name to avoid association
with traditional and privileged elements. "Not by accident but by design the
term conservative early in the twentieth century disappeared from the nomen-
clature of parties in Australia and New Zealand, It could not obviously win
enough varied backing among the surviving elements of conservative opin-
ion. ... In Canada a conservative outlook in many respects found great favor."
Alexander Brady, Democracy in the Dominions (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1958), p* 528.
18 Carter Goodrich has suggested that "the United States owes its individualism
largely to its small man's frontier; I think it not fanciful to suggest that Aus-
tralia owes much of its collectivism [particularism] to the fact that its frontier
was hospitable to large men instead.** See "The Australian and American La-
256 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
to find his own plot of land. The Australian pioneer, on the other hand,
faced a foreboding climate. Many of the frontier enterprises involved
large-scale cattle and sheep grazing, both of which required consider-
able capital if the enterprise was to be worthwhile:
Big men came to control the Australian frontier development while
in America the westward drive consisted of ordinary individuals,
men "on the make," where there was sufficient room for manoeuvre
to support a pro-capitalist oudook. . . . But, in Australia, it left the
man still a wage earner. . . . Thus, Australia did not develop a large
middle class of small property owners. Rather was there a nomad
tribe of pastoral workers, who retained their working class at-
titudes. 19
In a certain sense, the differences in outlook between Canada and
Australia may be seen as reflections of the need of each country to dis-
sociate itself from that major power which has had the most direct
cultural and economic influence on it. Canadians as Frank Underbill,
the eminent elder statesman of Canadian historians, put it recently in a
public lecture are the world's oldest and continuing "anti-Americans."
The Canadian sense of nationality has always felt itself threatened by the
United States, physically in earlier days, and culturally and economically
in more recent years. Not only have Canadians found it necessary to
protect themselves against American expansion, they have also found it
necessary to define why they are not and should not become Americans,
and they have done so by disparaging various elements in American
life, mainly those which seemingly are an outgrowth of mass democracy
and an excessive emphasis on equalitarianism. 20 For example, the president
bour Movements," The Economic Record, 4 (1928), pp. 206-207. In Australia,
unlike the United States and Canada, frontier farms were immensely large, and
employed large numbers of workers. This pattern to a considerable degree
reflected the difficulties of desert farming and ranching: "The typical Aus-
tralian frontiersman in the last century was a wage-worker who did not, usu-
ally, expect to become anything else." Ward, The Australian Legend p. 226.
Large groups of land laborers developed a sense of group consciousness, and
very early formed a major trade union, now the largest in the country, the
Australian Workers Union. See also Fred Alexander, Moving Frontiers (Mel-
bourne: Melbourne University Press, 1947).
19 Mackenzie, Australian Paradox, p. 106.
20 Frank H. Underbill, "The Image of Canada," address given at the Univer-
sity of New Brunswick Founders' Day, March 8, 1962. In an earlier book
Underbill pointed to "the effect of British influences in slowing down all move-
ments throughout the nineteenth century in the direction of the democratiza-
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 257
of the University of Toronto, Claude T. Bissell, has attempted to explain
why the image of America has generally had a negative impact on
Canadian writers in this way:
[T]he Canadian political heritage and development created an at-
mosphere that was inimical to much of American literature. There
was no revolutionary tradition in Canada, no glorification of force
as a means of winning freedom and release. Moreover, the Canadian
nation had been fashioned in a spirit of cautious def ensiveness as a
means of preserving what might at any moment be snatched away.
All of this led to an innate suspicion of violence, and a tendency to
equate the exuberant and the expansive with the empty and the
vulgar. Here, I think, we have the source of the assumption on the
part of Canadians of a quiet moral superiority to their more splendid
and affluent neighbors. 21
The "assumption of a quiet moral superiority" as a means of distinguish-
ing Canada from the United States may be seen in the first literary at-
tempts to comment upon the Canadian scene. John Pengwerne Matthews
points out that Thomas Chandler Haliburton, an eighteenth-century
Canadian writer, created a "figure of the irrepressible Yankee [peddler],
Sam Slick," as a "goad he could apply to the inert elements of Nova
Scotia life": "Sam Slick represented all those traits of bumptiousness
which Haliburton so detested, and while his self confidence and ingenuity
are characteristics that Nova Sections would do well to copy, he is the
caricature of a national prototype that Haliburton did not admire." 22
Haliburton was using Sam Slick as a moral lesson to make Nova Scotians
better Canadians, but this was largely ignored, because in their distaste
for the American emphasis upon equality and achievement, Canadian
writers could not see the difference between "the synthesis that Hali-
burton had created and the unadulterated American slick humor south
of the border. As a result, Canadian writers and critics drew back in
well-bred horror from the distasteful crudities of the frontier, and looked,
tion of politics and society. Inevitably, . . . the urge towards greater democracy
was likely to appear in Canada as an American influence; and since the survival
of Canada as a separate entity depended on her not being submerged under an
American flood, such influences were fought as dangerous to our Canadian
ethos." Underbill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism, p. 15.
21 Claude T. Bissell, "The Image of America in Canada," Address delivered
at the Canadian Studies Seminar, University of Rochester, March 16, 1962.
22 John Pengwerne Matthews, Tradition m Exile (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1962), p. 38.
258 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
more resolutely than ever, eastward across the Atlantic to the source of
all good things." 23
Insofar as elements that distinguished it from Britain, such as a
frontier experience and virgin land, were also shared by the United
States, Canadians turned away from them as a source of defining them-
selves. As a result, whereas the frontier experience in both Australia
and the United States, though quite different, brought equalitarian values
into the nation's image of itself, it did not do so in Canada.
ranqHfcn intellectuals attempted to overcome their sense of colonial
inferiority by trying to be as good as the British in their own medium
rather than, trying to find a medium that suited the attributes of their
native land. Thus, whereas Canadian critics praised the poet Charles
Songster because "he may be regarded as the Canadian Wordsworth,"
Australian critics praised Charles Harpur for those poems in which he
"was not the Australian Wordsworth." 24 Such attitudes kept Canadian
intellectuals from supporting the populist doctrines espoused by many
intellectuals in both Australia and the United States.
Australian nationalism, in contrast, inspired efforts to dissociate Aus-
tralia from Britain, first politically, and kter in terms of social values. 25
Britain was perceived antagonistically as the stronghold of rigid in-
equality. Australian writers romanticized the virtues of the gold rush
experience or the nomadic life of the sheep-shearers. R. M. Crawford has
pointed out that the self-image forged for the nation by Australian
writers drawing on this local heritage was always more radical than
actual social conditions, precisely because of these' writers* efforts to
differentiate Australia from Britain. 26 Thus where Canada retained a
more elitist attitude in reaction to American equalitarianism, Australia
emulated various American equalitarian patterns in reaction to British
elitism. 27
p. 40.
, pp. 5&-59.
25 James Bryce was struck by these attitudes before World War L Thus he
reports, "I was amazed to find in 1912 how many Australians believed Britain
to be a declining and almost decadent country." Modern Democracies (Lon-
don: Macmfflan, 1921), Vol. I, p. 268.
^R M. Crawford, "The Australian National Character: Myth and Reality,"
Cahiers d*histoire mondiale, 2 ( 1955), p. 715.
27 See Robin Gollan, Radical and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern
Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1960), especially pp. 113-
115. In drawing up their constitution, the Australians consciously modeled it
**upon the American rather than the Canadian modeL" See Brady, Democracy
m the Dommtonsy p. 153.
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 259
American literature, particularly that growing out of a vaguely populist
intellectual tradition, has found resonance among Australian writers but
has been largely ignored by Canadian writers:
[I]n the field of literature, one could argue that Canadian writers
have been less responsive than the Australian to American influences.
As between English and American influences, they have preferred
the English. . . . Canadian writers found it more difficult than the
Australian to absorb the exuberant realism that went with the ex-
pansion of American democracy. Whitman excited only feeblest
discipleship in Canada but he was a political bible and a literary
inspiration to Bernard O'Dowd, perhaps the best of pre-modern
Australian poets. American Utopian and protest literature found
eager readers in Australia, comparatively few in Canada. 28
Some quantitative indicators for the value differences among the four
major English-speaking nations, particularly as they pertain to achieve-
ment, may be deduced from variations in the numbers securing higher
education. Perhaps the most striking evidence of the difference between
American and British values is the variation in such opportunities. In the
United States, the strong and successful efforts to extend the opportunities
to attend colleges and universities have, to some considerable degree,
reflected both pressures by those in lower status positions to secure the
means to succeed, and recognition on the part of the privileged that
American values of equality and achievement require giving the means
to take part in the "race for success" to all those who are qualified.
Thus if we relate the number enrolled in institutions of higher learning
to the size of the age cohort 20 to 24, we find that almost seven times as
large a group was attending such schools in 1956-1957 in the United
States as in England and Wales. 29 Some proof that these differences
reflect variation in values, and not simply differences in wealth or oc-
28 Claude T. Bissell, "A Common Ancestry: Literature in Australia and Can-
ada," University of Toronto Quarterly, 25 (1955-56), pp. 133-134.
29 The number attending institutions of higher learning (post-high school) has
been related to the four year age category 20-24, since in most countries the
bulk of such students are in this age group. The best category for such anal-
ysis would probably be 18-21, but the more or less standardized census cate-
gories are 15-19, and 20-24. Since these two groups are about the same size,
using the category 20-24 probably gives as good an estimate as is needed of
the national variations in die proportion of die relevant age cohort attending
schools of higher education.
260 Democracy in Comparative
Table VI
Students Enrolled in Institutions of Higher Learning as Per Cent
of Age Group 20-24, by Country, about 1956
COUNTRY
United States 27.2
Australia 12.05*
Canada 8.0
England and Wales 3.7*
Scotland 5.1*
Philippines 14.5
Jamaica .7
Puerto Rico 11.9
Western Europe 4.5
Denmark 6.6
France 5.8
Germany (West) 4.1
U.S.S.R. 11.1
Source: The educational data for the first eight countries and the USSJR.. are
calculated from materials in UNESCO, Basic Facts and Figures, 1958 (Paris:
1959), and the Demographic Yearbook 1960, (New York: Statistical Office of the
United Nations, 1960). The data for the Western European countries other than
Britain are taken from J. F. Dewhurst, et aL, Europe's Needs and Resources (New
York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1961), p. 315.
* The proportion of Britons and Australians attending institutions of higher
education is somewhat higher than the figures given in the table proper,
which include those in universities and teachers' colleges only. Both coun-
tries have a system of technical colleges, most of which are designed for
vocational training in technical subjects for students who have not com-
pleted high schools. However, some of these "colleges" do give university
level education in engineering and scientific subjects. No precise estimate
of the size of this group has been located, but one report indicates that as of
1957, approximately 20,000 students were taking work comparable to that
in universities in British technical colleges. See E. J. King, Other Schools and
Ours (London: Methuen and Co., 1958), p. 98. If this group is added to the
English total, then it would indicate about 4 per cent of the age cohort in
higher education. Since there are over 200,000 students in Australian technical
colleges, the "true" Australian figure may also be somewhat higher than the
one presented in the table. On the other hand, it should be noted also that
a higher proportion of students in English universities are foreigners (over
10 per cent) than is true in most other countries. The Russian figure is
probably a low estimate since it is based on educational enrollment for 1956,
but on a population cohort taken from 1959 census data.
Since definitions of higher education and methods of training for different
professions vary so much from country to country, it is necessary to stress
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 261
cupational structures, may be deduced from the fact that the one major
former American colony, the Philippines, has a much larger proportion
enrolled in colleges and universities than any country in Europe or the
British Commonwealth, a phenomenon which seemingly reflects the suc-
cessful effort of Americans to export their belief that "everyone" should
be given a chance at college education. A comparison of the variation in
enrollment in such institutions in the two major Caribbean nations long
under the hegemony of Britain and the United States, Jamaica and
Puerto Rico, is also instructive. Thus Jamaica, like many other former
British colonies in Africa and Asia, has a higher education system which
seems premised on the belief that only a tiny elite should receive such
training; while the system in Puerto Rico, like the one in the Philippines,
clearly reflects the continued impact of American assumptions concerning
widespread educational opportunity. Canada, though it appears to many
American tourists to be so similar to the United States, has apparently
not accepted its commitments to spreading educational advantages as
much; it has less than one-third the United States' proportion in colleges
and universities, twice that of the English but amazingly less than the
Filipinos or Puerto Ricans. 30 Australia is closer to the United States in
this respect, particularly since the percentage reported for it is probably
not based on as complete an estimate of those in higher education as the
North American data. The assumptions made by various observers of the
Australian scene that achievement values are gaining there would seem to
be congruent with the evidence that a much larger proportion of Austra-
lians than Canadians are enrolled in institutions of higher learning. 31
the fact that statistics such as these, though derived from, official national
bodies and censuses, are subject to considerable error, particularly when used
comparatively.
30 The assumption is often made that Quebec, which is a more traditionalist
and Catholic area, shows lower proportions on statistics such as these. This
assumption is not valid in the case of university education. In the academic
year 1959-1960, the proportion of the population aged 18-21 attending univer-
sities was higher in Quebec than in Canada as a whole, or than in the neighbor-
ing predominantly English-speaking province of Ontario. See Dominion
Bureau of Statistics, Fall Enrollment of Universities and Colleges, 1959
(Ottawa: Queen's Printer, I960), p. 9.
31 Some indication that these differences operate within the United Kingdom
itself may be seen in the fact that the Scots, whose society is both more equal-
itarian and achievement oriented than the English, though much poorer eco-
nomically, have many more students enrolled in universities than the English,
holding population size constant.
262 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
American and Australian egalitarianism is perhaps most clearly reflected
politically in the relative strength of "populist" movements through which
popular passions wreak their aggression against the structure of the polity.
Most recently Australia and the United States both sustained large-scale,
popularly based efforts to drive suspected Communists out of key posi-
tions in unions and politics. 82 J. B. Priestley has in fact argued that "Aus-
tralia's attitude to men of independent thought was the same as that of
America when McCarthy was at his peak. 33 Conversely in Canada, as in
Britain, such problems have been handled in a much more discreet fashion,
reflecting in some part the ability of a more unified and powerful political
elite to control the system. The Canadian sociologist S. D. Clark has ex-
plained these differences as due to variations in patterns of political inte-
gration:
[In the nineteenth century] Canada maintained her separate political
existence . , only by resisting any movement on the part of her
population which had the effects of weakening the controls of cen-
tral political authority [and thus encouraging the possibility of
American take-over]. The claims to the interior of the continent
were staked not by advancing frontiersmen, acting on their own,
but by advancing armies and police forces, large corporate economic
enterprises and ecclesiastical organizations supported by the state.
The Canadian political temper, as a result, has run sharply counter
to the American. Those creeds of American political life individual
rights, local autonomy, and limitation of executive power . . .
have found less strong support within the Canadian political system.
32 There have been a number of cases in recent Australian history of restric-
tions on academic freedom and outside political interference in the life of uni-
versities. Perhaps the most scandalous involved the refusal of the University
of New South Wales to appoint an important scholar to its faculty because
of objections by government security officers. He had apparently belonged to
the Communist Party in the 1940's. See ''Security in the Quad," Nation (Aus-
tralia), December 3, 1960, p. 7; see also W. M. Bell, "Secure No More," Nation
(Australia), October 8, 1960, pp. 6-8.
38 Cited in Mackenzie, Australian Paradox, p. 155. Mrs. Mackenzie agrees that
the pressures toward intolerance and conformity in Australia are great, but she
feels that Australia has not been as bad as the United States during the height
of the McCarthy era. Rather, she seems to agree with a statement that she
quotes from the Sydney Morning Herald, which commented in February,
1955, that, "While there is nothing that can properly be called McCarthyism
in Australia, there is a discouragement of free and unpopular or politically un-
conventional thinking.'*
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 263
. . . [the] conditions of rule in Canada required the maintenance of
a highly centralized political community.
. . . Critics outside [the United States] might well pause to con-
sider not the intolerance which finds expression in McCarthyism but
the tolerance which makes it possible for McCarthyism to develop.
In Canada it would be hard to conceive of a state of political free-
dom great enough to permit the kind of attacks upon responsible
leaders of the government which have been carried out in the United
States. More careful examination of the American community . . .
would probably reveal that, in spite of the witch hunts in that coun-
try, the people of the United States enjoy in fact a much greater
degree of freedom than do the people of Canada. 34
Forty years earlier, James Bryce also called attention to these aspects
of Canadian life:
Demagogism is supposed to be a malady incident to democracies.
Canada has suffered from it less than any other modern free coun-
try except Switzerland. . . . The spirit of licence, a contempt of
authority, a negligence in enforcing the laws, have been so often
dwelt upon as characteristic of democracies that their absence from
Canada is a thing of which she may well be proud. To what shall we
ascribe the strength of the Executive, the efficiency of the police,
the strict application of criminal justice, the habit of obedience to
the kw? . . . The habit was formed under governments that were
in those days monarchical in fact as well as in name and it has per-
sisted. 35
The greater similarity between Australia and the United States, as con-
trasted with Canada (and to a much greater degree with Britain), in the
extent to which populist explosions and threats to systematic due process
occur, is reflected to some degree in their attitudes toward kw and order.
Again a reading of largely impressionistic literature suggests that the first
two seemingly more equalitarian nations are more willing to tolerate law-
lessness. The reason for this may be that the absence of traditional mech-
anisms of social control in these societies has weakened the pressure to
34 S. D. Clark, "The Frontier and Democratic Theory," Transactions of the
Royal Society of Canada, 48 (1954), Series III, Section Two, pp. 71-72; see
also S. D. dark, Movements of Political Protest in Canada (Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, 1959), pp. 3-10.
35 Bryce, Modem Democracies, Vol. I, pp. 559-560.
264 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
conform without coercion. As the Australian historian Russel Ward has
well put it, the deferential "respect for the squire" which underlies the ac-
ceptance of authority and informal social controls in Britain is "based on
traditional obligations which were, or had been, to some extent mutual."
This was not easily transferred to new equalitarian societies which em-
phasized the universalistic cash nexus as a source of social relations. 36 The
complaints found in the United States that corrupt means of achieving
success are socially accepted have also been expressed by Australians. 37
"They will put up with boss-rule and corruption in trade unions; they
are not greatly concerned about gerrymandering at elections." 38 Neither
union corruption, as we have seen, nor gerrymandering are so prevalent
in Britain or Canada.
One indicator of the relative strength of the informal normative mech-
anisms of social control as compared with the restrictive emphases of le-
gal sanctions seems to be the extent to which given nations need lawyers.
Among the English-speaking democracies, the United States and Britain
stand at polar extremes. As of 1955, the United States had 241,514 law-
yers "of whom approximately 190,000 were engaged in private practice.
This means there was one lawyer in private practice per 868 of popula-
tion. . . . [T]he total English legal profession seems to number about
25,000, and those in private practice can hardly be more than 20,000, or
one lawyer per 2,222 population." 39 The comparable ratio for Australia,
considering all men reported as employed in private practice in the legal
profession as practicing lawyers, is one for every 1,210 persons, while in
Canada the figure is about one for every 1,630. 40
The emphasis on populist values derivative from equalitarianism in the
United States as contrasted with the very different value emphases in Brit-
ain is reflected in the differential status and role of judge and jury in the
two countries. The American system has stressed the notion of the judge
as a neutral "umpire," in a contest which is decided by a jury drawn from
36 Ward, The Australian Legend, p. 27.
37 Bryce > Modern Democracies, Vol. II, pp. 276-277; MacKenzie, Australian
Paradox, pp. 154, 220-222.
38 Mackenzie, Australian Paradox, p. 154.
39 L. C. B. Gower and Leolin Price, "The Profession and Practice of Law in
England and America," Modern Law Review, 20 (1957), p. 317.
40 The Canadian estimate of about 11,000 practicing lawyers (and notaries) in
Quebec is from a study of the Taxation Division of the Department of Na-
tional Revenue reported in a letter from the Information Officer of the Ca-
nadian Embassy in Washington; the Australian data were supplied by the
Australian Reference Library in New York City.
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 265
the population, while the British have placed more stress on the positive
role of the judge and less on the role of the jury. In a detailed study of
changes in the British conception of the jury, Joseph Hamburger points
out the relationship between these differences and the larger social sys-
tems:
The main difference between England and America that led to the
different status of the jury system in the estimate of public opinion
arises from the differences in social and political backgrounds. Amer-
ica, a new country in which people had a greater freedom to form
their opinions without the restraints of tradition or the influences
of an established class system, allowed wider range for populistic
fantasies. There were, particularly in the frontier communities, few
ancient traditions or vested interests of an established society to
keep people from modelling their institutions on the popular demo-
cratic beliefs that seemed to emerge almost naturally in such an at-
mosphere. It is not surprising, therefore, that the jury was seen, not
in its English historical context, but as a microcosm of the popular
will, a positive instrument of democracy. Accompanying such an
image, there were hostilities to any ideas or practices that spoiled
the pure, democratic character of this picture; thus, the impatience
with judges who asserted more authority than an umpire needed or
who insisted on the authority of a law that was not only complex
but also foreign. The jury appeared to be an ideal instrument for
allowing the sovereign people to form and interpret the laws that
regulated their conduct. 41
The contempt for law in Australia is expressed by the behavior of
their trade unions, which "can reduce the law, or parts of the law to
impotence. Practically every strike of any size in Australia is illegal, yet
the Australian record of man-days lost per head since the war is chal-
lenged only by the United States." 42 Lack of respect for the police and
for law enforcement in general, an attitude linked not only to equali-
tarian attitudes toward authority but also perhaps to the country's penal-
colony origins, is evident in the many press reports and editorials which
report incidents and complaints that bystanders "refuse to help, in fact
41 See his chapter, "Trial by Jury and Liberty of the Press," in Harry Kalven,
ed., The Public Image of the Jury System (Boston: Little, Brown, forthcom-
ing); see also Hamburger's chapter, "Decline of the Jury Trial in England," in
the same volume.
42 Hugh Clegg, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy (London: Basil
BlackweU, 1960), p. 22.
266 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
their inclination [is] to hinder a policeman in trouble." 43 A study of
Australian national character states unequivocally that "dislike and dis-
trust of policemen . . . has sunk deeply into the national consciousness. 44
This judgment may be contrasted with the emphasis placed, in a re-
port of a detailed questionnaire-based study of English national character,
on the great respect for the police in that country. Geoffrey Gorer
describes "the enthusiastic appreciation of the police, disclosed by this
study" and comments that he does "not think the English police have
ever been felt to be the enemy of sizeable non-criminal sections of the
population. . . ," 45 Similarly in Canada, the respect given the national
police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, far exceeds that ever
given the police in the United States, and crime statistics for English
Canada indicate a much lower rate of law violation than occurs south
of the border.
But if the differences among the English-speaking nations discussed so
far reflect their variations on a scale of elitism-equalitarianisrn, the
strength and policies of their labor movements would seem to be linked
to alternative attitudes toward particularism. As was noted earlier, most
commentators agree that Australia differs from the United States and also,
to a somewhat lesser degree, from Canada in the extent to which its so-
cial structure is tied to strong particularistic sentiments, especially the
emphasis on "mateship." And the same strong emphasis on "mateship"
has been suggested as a major cause of the fact that Australia shows a
much lower wage differential for skill as compared with the United
States. However, it should be noted that this egalitarian wage tendency
is not limited only to manual workers: "The differential between the low-
43 Ward, op. cit., p. 6. Jeanne Mackenzie has commented: "While I was in
Australia a young man, Kevin John Simmonds, escaped from gaol; 38 days
later he was captured and brought into court. The newspaper report read:
'More than 500 people lined Central Lane today to cheer the shoeless Simmonds
as he appeared in die courtyard. Simmonds, still unshaven, limped across the
courtyard and waved to the crowd.' It would seem that he was a national
hero but then the report went on to list the charges against him. They were:
'The murder of Emu Plains training centre warder Cecil Mills on 11 October;
escape from custody; one robbery while armed; seven breaking and entering
and stealing charges; six charges of car stealing; one charge of stealing from
a dwelling/ " Op. tit., p. 154.
"Ibid., p. 149.
45 Geoffrey Gorer, Exploring English Character, "A Study of the Morals and
Behavior of the English People" (New York: Criterion Books, 1955), p. 295.
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 267
est and highest incomes is low in Australia. Within any commercial or
industrial organization the salary of the second-highest level executives
is usually not more than three times that of the lowest paid adult male
employee (before income tax, which levels the incomes considerably
more)." 46 Thus the lower wage differentials in Australia must also be
linked to its emphasis upon equaUtarianism. However, Australian equali-
tarianism has a somewhat different emphasis than it does in the United
States:
[The Australian] is indifferent to the fact that some can be educated
privately and some simply acquire a state education, that some go to
a university and others have neither the money nor inclination to do
so. But he is concerned that those who are educationally privileged
should not thereby stand on the shoulders of others and be blessed
by a social cachet because of it. 47
The Australians' instinctive desire to "cut down the tall poppies" perhaps
results from the fact that equalitarianism grew out of a tradition that
stressed common lower-class origins, as expressed in mateship, whereas
equalitarianism in the United States was reenf orced by an emphasis upon
all individuals having equal potentiality. The Australian pattern thus
emerges in a culture where equalitarianism is combined with somewhat
less emphasis upon achievement and somewhat greater emphasis on par-
ticularism than it is in the United States.
Canada is seemingly less particularistic than Australia and Britain, but
more so than the United States. Quantitative evidence of the greater em-
, phasis on particularism in Australian and British politics as contrasted
with the two North American democracies may be found in a detailed
comparative analysis of the factors associated with electoral support for
different parties in these four countries. Although there is a clear correla-
tion between class and voting in each country (the poorer a group or
the lower its status, the more likely it is to be "leftist" in its vot-
ing behavior), the relationship is "consistently higher in Australia and
Great Britain than in Canada and the United States." 44
46 Kenneth F. Walker, Industrial Relations in Australia (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1956), pp. 329-330.
47 MacKenzie, Australian Paradox, p. 129.
48 Robert Alf ord, Social Class and Voting in Four Anglo-American Democ-
racies (Berkeley: Survey Research Center, University of California, dittoed,
1961), p. 89.
268 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
Similarities in basic values derived from comparable institutionalized
historical experiences in Australia and the United States have made each
more like the other than either is to Canada or Britain. 49 These compar-
able value patterns over-ride the influences flowing from the fact that
Australia is in closer cultural contact with Britain than with the United
States, or from the fact that Canada is in relatively intimate contact with
the United States and has much less direct stimulation from Britain. 50
Values and the Democratic Process
While the stability of a democracy demands that the values of univer-
salism and achievement be dominant in both the economic and political
spheres, it does not require them to be dominant in the status hierarchies.
That is, the status hierarchy may lean toward elitism, as it does in Britain,
or toward equalitarianism, as in the United States, yet both of these na-
tions are stable democracies.
However, these differences do have their effects on the ways in which
the political system functions, particularly in the viability of the "rules
of the game," and in such matters as the tolerance of opposition and non-
conformity and in the respect shown for the due process of the law.
Although popular agreement about the importance of such rules would
seem an important requisite for their effectiveness, the empirical data do
not clearly sustain this expectation. The less educated and the lower strata
in most countries do not accept the need for tolerance of what they con-
sider to be "error" or "wickedness," that is, opposition to what is "clearly
right." Conversely, the "rules of the game" are most respected where
they are most significant, that is, among the various politically relevant
49 It has been suggested by some that these similarities and differences in val-
ues showed up in vivid form in reactions to the demands that military life
has made on civilian conscripts in the four countries. The British and, to a
lesser degree, the Canadians accepted the need to conform to the rigid hier-
archical structure of the military; while Australians and Americans showed
deep resentment at having to exhibit deference to superiors. I have been told
by nationals of different countries that in London bars during both world wars
Americans and Australians tended to associate with each other, while Canadians
were more likely than the Australians to prefer British companions to Amer-
icans. I am indebted to Professor Frank Underbill for first calling my attention
to such behavior patterns.
50 As the Australian writer J. D. Pringle has put it: "Australia is less English
than it appears and more American than it looks." Cited in Mackenzie,
Australian Paradox, p. 28.
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 269
and involved elites. 51 Perhaps the highest degree of tolerance for polit-
ical deviance is found, therefore, in democratic systems which are most
strongly characterized by the values of elitism and diffuseness. Diffuse
elitism of the variety which exists in most of the democratic monarchies
of Europe tends to place a buffer between the elites and the population.
The generalized deference which the latter give to the former means that
even if the bulk of the electorate do not understand or support the "rules,"
they accept the leadership of those who do. It is deferential respect for
the elite rather than tolerant popular opinion which underlies the vaunted
freedom of dissent in countries like Britain and Sweden. The ability of
countries to operate with an unwritten constitution which places no for-
mal restrictions on parliamentary violations of civil liberties is in some
considerable measure made possible by the emphasis on diffuseness and
elitism in the system, 52 In these societies, the elites, whether those of the
51 See S. M. Lipset, Political Mem: The Social Eases of Politics (Garden City,
N. Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 101-105, 109-114, for a summary of studies
bearing on this problem. The reverse proposition will be true in countries in
which democratic "rules of the game" have not been institutionalized. Where
privileged classes are fighting to retain their traditional oligarchic rights and
powers, they will strongly resist the claims for participation in the polity of
groups based on the lower strata.
52 In an extremely interesting paper comparing life and social organization on
ships in the American and British merchant marines, Stephen Richardson in-
dicates that variations in basic national values deeply affect authority relation-
ships within identical economic institutions: "Comparison of British and Amer-
ican crews suggests that the British realize and accept the authority of com-
petent persons and are not as fearful of the misuse of authority as Americans.
This acceptance of authority is closely related to acceptance of social strati-
fication and the symbols of these differences. Status symbols function as cues
for self -regulation, in conformity with the status and role requirements of the
ship. British seamen are conditioned before coming to sea to accept authority,
and consequently the change in attitudes required when a man becomes a
seaman is slight. . . .
"Among American crews a far greater fear and suspicion of author-
ity appears to exist. Social stratification is not widely accepted and is
often denied. Many symbols of social stratification have been removed, and,
because they are suspect, the remaining symbols do little to enhance self-
regulation of the man in conformity with die status and role demands of the
ship's social organization." Since the norms of the social structure undermine
authority on American ships, there is a necessity for a "far greater formaliza-
tion of die social system than [on] the British," and American ships have many
more explicit rules and regulations. Richardson, "Organizational Contrasts on
British and American Ships," Administration Science Quarterly, 1 (1956), pp.
206-207.
270 Democracy In Comparative Perspective
intellect, of business, of politics, or of mass organizations, are both pro-
tected and controlled by their membership in the "club."
The seemingly lesser respect for civil liberties and minority rights in
the more equalitarian democracies such as the United States and Aus-
tralia may be viewed as a consequence of a social system in which elite
status is more specific, so that contending elites do not receive diffuse
respect and feel less acutely the need to conform to an appropriate set of
rules when in conflict with one another. They do not see themselves as part
of the same club, as members of "an establishment." Hence disagreement
about the rules, as well as over policies, are thrown to the broader public
for settlement. And this entails appealing in some degree to a mass elec-
torate to adjudicate on rules whose utility, in some measure, they cannot
be expected to understand; appreciation of the necessity for such rules
often involves a long-term socialization to the nature of the political and
juridical process, secured primarily through education and/or participa-
tion. Thus, though civil liberties will be stronger in elitist democracies
than in equalitarian ones, the latter may be regarded as more "democratic"
in the sense that the electorate has more access to or power over the elite.
Another of Parsons* pattern variables not discussed earlier suggests
specific sources of political strain in contemporary American society. His
distinction between self-orientation and collectivity-orientation stresses
the extent to which values emphasize that a collectivity has a claim on
the individual units within it to conform to the defined interests of the
larger group, as contrasted to a stress on actions predominantly reflecting
the perceived needs of the units. An emphasis on particularism tends to
be linked to collectivity-orientation. Moreover, the noblesse oblige
morality inherent in aristocracy is an aspect of collectivity-orientation.
Traditionally, Britain and Australia appear to have stressed collectivity
obligations more than have Canada and the United States. Consequently,
the rise of socialist and welfare-state concepts have placed less of a strain
on British and Australian values than on American. Canada, with its
greater stress on elitism and particularism than the United States, would
be somewhat more collectivity-oriented than this country. Although
modern industrial society, including the United States, appears to be
moving generally toward a greater acceptance of collectivity-orientations,
the American values' emphasis on self-orientation results in a stronger re-
sistance to accepting the new community welfare concepts than occurs
elsewhere. In discussing the rise of right-wing extremism in American
society, Parsons has argued that they are the most self-oriented segments
of the American population which currently find the greatest need for
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 271
political scapegoats and which strongly resist political changes which are
accepted by the upper classes in such countries as Britain and Sweden. 53
Thus, the values of elitism and ascription may protect an operating
democracy from the excesses of populism and may facilitate the ac-
ceptance by the privileged strata of the welfare planning state, whereas
emphases on self-orientation and anti-elitism may be conducive to right-
wing populism.
Elitism in the status hierarchy has major dysfunctions which should
be noted here. 54 A system of differential status rankings requires that
a large proportion of the population accept a negative conception of
their own worth as compared with others in more privileged positions.
To be socially defined as being low according to a system of values which
one respects, must mean that, to some unspecified degree, such low status
is experienced as "punishment" in a psychological sense. This felt sense
of deprivation or punishment is often manifested in "self-hatred," a phe-
nomenon which, when perceived as characteristic of inferior ascriptive
racial or ethnic status, has often been deplored. The features of such
self-hatred are: rejection of behavior patterns associated with one's own
group as uncouth, negative judgments concerning the value of occupa-
tional roles characteristic of one's own group, and the desire to leave one's
own group and "pass" into a dominant group. It is universally recognized
that such feelings on the part of a Negro or a Jew are indicators of psy-
chic punishment; yet the same reactions among the lower class are often
not perceived in the same way.
To a considerable degree, the social mechanisms which operate to
legitimate an existing distribution of status inequalities succeed in repress-
ing such discontent, sometimes by structuring perceptions so that even
low status individuals may view themselves as higher and therefore "bet-
ter" than some others, or by creating bonds of vicarious identification
with those in higher positions. The latter mechanism is particularly prev-
alent in systems which emphasize ascriptive and elitist values. However,
it is doubtful that such mechanisms alone are a sufficient solution for the
problem of social rejection and psychological self-punishment inherent
in low status.
There are different adaptive mechanism which have emerged to rec-
53 See Talcott Parsons, "Social Strains in America," in Daniel Bell, ed., The
Radical Right (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963), pp. 183-184.
64 For a good discussion of the dysfunctions inherent in an elitist society see
C. A. R. Crosland, The Future of Socialism (London: Jonathan Cape, 1956),
pp. 227-237.
272 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
oncile low status individuals to their position and thus contribute to the
stability and legitimacy of the larger system. The three most common ap-
pear to be:
1. Religion Belief in a religion with a transvaluational theology, one
which emphasizes the possibility or even the probability that the poor on
earth will enjoy higher status in heaven or in a reincarnation, operates to
adjust them to their station, and motivates those in low positions to carry
out their role requirements. 55
2. Social Mobility The belief that achievement is possible and that
virtue will be rewarded by success for one's self or one's children provides
stabilizing functions comparable to those suggested for religion.
3. Political Action Participation in or support for political movements
which aim to raise the position of depressed groups, and which in their
ideology contain transvaluational elements the assumption that the lower
strata are morally better than the upper classes also helps to adjust the
deprived groups to their situation.
Since the three mechanisms may be regarded as functional alterna-
tives to one another, that is, as satisfying similar needs, it may be posited
that where one or more is weakly present, the other (s) will be strongly
in evidence. Specifically, for example, where belief in religion or social
mobility is weak, the lower strata should be especially receptive to radi-
cal transvaluational political or economic appeals. 66 Social systems under-
going major institutional changes, which weaken faith in traditional reli-
gion and which do not replace this lost faith by the value system of an
open, achievement-oriented society, have experienced major extremist
political movements. It has been argued by some that one of the factors
sustaining the bases for Communist and anarchist movements in countries
like Spain, France, and Italy has been the perpetuation in society of
55 Religious movements may also, of course, constitute a major element in sec-
ular political protest. This is the case today among American Negroes. Lower-
class churches and their ministers may directly or indirectly help form class-
based political movements. And, of course, sectarian groupings have often
expressed the hostility of the depressed strata to the privileged order and their
religion. But such forms of institutionalized protest, like radical political move-
ments, themselves serve as means of defining lower status in forms which are
palatable to those occupying lower status positions.
56 The thesis that revolutionary socialism and transvaluational religion have
served similar functions for oppressed groups was elaborated by Friedrich
Engels, "On the Early History of Christianity," in K. Marx and F. Engels,
On Religion (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1957), pp. 312-
320.
Value Differences, Absolute or Relative 273
strong ascriptive and elitist value elements together with a "dechristian-
ized" lower stratum. 57
A strong societal emphasis on achievement and equalitarianism (which
in part may be perceived as a secular transvaluational ideology) combined
with strong religious belief, particularly among the lower strata, should
maximize the legitimacy of the existing distribution of privilege and thus
minimize the conditions for extremist protest. This is, of course, the sit-
uation in the United States. The strong emphasis in American culture on
the need to "get ahead," to be successful, seems to be accompanied by
powerful transvaluational religions among those who have the least access
to the approved means of success.
57 In France, for example, ecological studies which contrast degree of religious
practice with Communist strength show that the Communists are most suc-
cessful in regions in which the "anti-clerical" wave had previously suppressed
much of the traditional fidelity to Catholicism. See G. LeBras, "Geographic
electorate et geographic religieuse," in Etudes de sociologie electorate, Cahiers
de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, n. 1 (Paris: Armand Colin,
1949); and Francois Goguel, Geographic des elections Frangtdses de 1870 A
1951, Cahiers de la fondation nationale des sciences politiques, n. 27 (Paris:
Armand Colin, 1951), pp. 134-135.
Values, Social
Character, and the
Democratic Polity
8
**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA*AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The relationship between the value patterns and the political process of
a society may be considered on another level than has been discussed so
far that of the effect of these patterns on the social character of the
citizen. As pointed out in Chapter 3, European travelers to America have
remarked over the course of American history that, compared to parents
in their own countries, American parents were much more permissive with
their children. This they perceived as related to the general emphasis on
equalitarianism. Anthropologists and psychologists, in their recent work
on "national character," would agree that there is a relationship between
such differences in child-rearing practices and the modal personalities of
the members of various societies. The character of the citizens may in
turn affect the functioning of the society's political system.
There is ample evidence that the differences in early socialization and
training reported in the nineteenth century between American and Euro-
pean countries have persisted to this day. American children are much
more likely than their European counterparts to feel free to "talk back"
to their parents or their teachers, to have their wishes respected, to be
paid attention, and to perform duties in the family which would in other
countries be restricted to adults. The retention of more ascriptive values
in European societies may account for such differences in child-rearing
practices. 1 British middle-class respondents are somewhat more likely than
a See Max Horkheimer, ed., Studien liber Attthoritat und Familie (Paris:
Alcan, 1936).
Values, Social Character, and the Democratic Polity 275
their American counterparts to stress obedience as something to be culti-
vated in the child. 2 And the feature that stands out most prominently in
French socialization practices is the separation between the world of
adults and the child's world. 3 It may also be suggested that, in many ways,
Swedish and German family systems and socialization patterns are highly
similar, because both cultures only a short time ago placed a high emphasis
on ascriptive authority.
A very provocative study comparing American and German socializa-
tion practices suggests the ways that differences in values between the
two nations affect their socialization practices and the ways these in turn
may affect children's behavior. The authors report that, in general, Ger-
man parents are much more likely to assume "parenting" behavior than
American parents, both in the form of "direct punishment and control"
and in the form of "affection and companionship." 4 As a counter to their
lesser control over their children, and in congruence with the other major
themes in American culture, American parents, particularly American
mothers, are more likely than German parents to put pressure on their
children to achieve.
These differences in the relationship between parents and children are
in turn reflected in differences in the way parents reward and punish their
children. American parents are more likely than German parents to show
their disapproval of a child's actions by rejecting him or depriving him of
his privileges; German parents are somewhat more likely than American
parents to use "principled discipline" and "physical punishment." The
American type of discipline combined with the greater pressure on the
American child to achieve seems to stimulate him to assume responsibility
for himself at an earlier age than a comparable German child. The re-
searchers conclude that "German children are exposed to appreciably
more affection and control than their American age-mates. This, in turn,
implies a prolongation of dependency, postponement of participation in
semi-autonomous peer-group activity, and delay in the development of
motives for self-directed achievement." 5
We have seen how Americans' orientation toward individuality and
2 Maurice L. Farber, "English and American Values in the Socialization
Process," Journal of Psychology, 36 (1953), p. 245.
3 Rhoda Metraux and Margaret Mead, Themes in French Culture (Stanford,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1954), pp. 27-34.
4 Edward C. Devereux, Jr., Urie Bronfenbrenner, and George Suci, "Patterns
of Parent Behavior in the United States of America and the Federal Re-
public of Germany: A Cross-national Comparison," International Social
Science Journal, 14 (1962), p. 496.
* Ibid., p. 505.
276 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
achievement, and their tendency to choose reference groups outside the
family, have affected their reaction to stratification. Their characteris-
tically universalistic, self-interested approach has influenced the character
of the institutions, such as trade unions, that are associated with it. A
psychiatric study comparing American and German reactions to military
life suggests that Americans approach the military hierarchy also in terms
of a need for individual achievement which has been fostered by Ameri-
can socialization practices. It concludes:
The abuse of the privileges accorded status by the officers, the wide-
spread black-market and looting activities of all lower ranks, the re-
jection of authoritarian and disciplinary demands that tend to over-
whelm and subordinate the self, the reluctance to expose ego to
damage until machine power has done all it can, and the relatively
speedy withdrawal from the group when under stress, are all very
positive indications . . . [that] the central orientation of the Ameri-
can character is self interest. It is the dynamic force that binds all the
traits together, that gives the type its Gestalt. e
Thus the value system of a society influences the character of its insti-
tutions and these shape the character of its citizens as they grow up. The
character of a society's members in turn reacts upon the character of its
institutions. Several versions of such an argument have been proposed
specifically with regard to the political system. 7 Alex Inkeles reports
generally that:
There is substantial and rather compelling evidence of a regular and
intimate connection between personality and the mode of political
participation by individuals and groups within any one political sys-
tem. In many different institutional settings and in many parts of
the world, those who adhere to the more extreme political positions
have distinctive personality traits separating them from those taking
more moderate positions in the same setting. 8
6 G. Dearborn Spindler, "American Character as Revealed by the Military,"
Psychiatry, II (1948), p. 279.
T The effort of Harry Eckstein to relate the stability of democratic systems
to the type of authority relations in different societies is closely related to the
attempts to link political systems to modal personal character in given cultures.
A Theory of Stable Democracy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Center
of International Studies, 1961).
8 Alex Inkeles, ''National Character and Modern Political Systems," in Francis
Hsu, ed., Psychological Anthropology (Homewood, 111.: Dorset Press, 1961),
p. 193.
Values, Social Character, and the Democratic Polity 277
Unfortunately, systematic comparative studies relating personality
characteristics to political behavior are scarce. But since the main purpose
of this book is to suggest the utility of relating value orientations to struc-
tural correlates of behavior, I will briefly indicate possible links with
character analysis as well.
The Authoritarian versus the Democratic Personality
One of the personality distinctions on which there is a fair amount of
data is that developed by Horkheimer and his associates in Germany in
the 1930's and elaborated by Adorno and his associates in the United
States in the 1950's. This is the distinction between the authoritarian and
the democratic personality. 9 On the basis of these writings and others in
this field, Inkeles has summarized this distinction as follows:
The . . . [democratic person] should be accepting of others rather
than alienated and harshly rejecting; open to new experiences, to
ideas and impulses rather than excessively timid, fearful, or extremely
conventional with regard to new ideas and ways of acting; able to
be responsible with constituted authority even though always watch-
ful, rather than blindly submissive to or hostilely rejecting of all
authority; tolerant of differences and of ambiguity, rather than rigid
and inflexible; able to recognize, control and channel his emotions,
rather than immaturely projecting hostility and other impulses on to
others. 10
Inkeles cites, among other studies, one by D. V. McGranahan which
secured attitude responses from comparable groups of German and
American boys. 11 The Germans were much more likely to favor obedi-
ence to authority, to admire people with power, and to have less faith
in the common man. Another comparative study of college students in a
number of countries reported that the Japanese were high among various
nationals in their sense of obligation to the group, and in feeling that
children should learn the need for service to society. Conversely, Ameri-
d See Horkheimer, ed., Studien ilber Authoritat und Familie; and T. W.
Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford,
The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper & Bros., 1950)
10 Inkeles, "National Character and Modern Political Systems," op. cit., p. 198.
11 Donald V. McGranahan, "A Comparison of Social Attitudes among Ameri-
can and German Youth," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 41
(1946), pp. 245-257.
278 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
cans and New Zealanders emphasized "rights rather than duties," and
stressed individuality and privacy. 12
A comparison of German and English boys' answers to a projective
test also suggests differences between the two national characters along the
lines outlined by Inkeles' definition of the democratic as opposed to the
authoritarian person. The German boys were most likely to dislike
cowards, whereas English boys were most likely to dislike bullies, ruf-
fians, and girls. The German boys were in almost complete agreement in
seeing corporal punishment as the only sequence to an offense, whereas
English boys showed greater flexibility, sometimes trying "to fit the
punishment to the crime." In general, there was a marked tendency
toward conventionalism and rigidity in the German boys' answers,
whereas the English boys seemed to "allow more free play to their
imaginations." 18
A comparison between German and American popular plays also sug-
gests that "the needs, assumptions and values" expressed in the drama of
the two nations differ along these same dimensions. Thus the greatest per-
centage of German plays analyzed are concerned with idealism and
power whereas the greatest percentage of American plays are concerned
with love and morality. As the authors point out:
. . . the German pkys are strikingly more preoccupied with social
and political problems than are the American plays. Their level of
action is primarily ideological. . . . The problems portrayed in the
American plays, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly personal.
. . The German ideological emphasis is obviously tied up closely
with the emphasis on the idealism theme. 14
As a result, the American hero is seen as struggling against immoral or
anti-social tendencies in himself, whereas the German hero rises above
the masses in pursuit of an ideal goal. American plays are often climaxed
by a marshaling of evidence that causes the hero to change his attitude;
12 James M. Gillespie and Gordon W. Allport, Youth's Outlook on the Future:
A Cross-National Study (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), p. 29.
13 A. Kaldegg, "Responses of German and English Secondary School Boys to
a Projective Test," British Journal of Psychology, 39 (1948), p. 51. (Emphasis
in original.)
14 Donald V. McGranahan and Ivor Wayne, "A Comparative Study of Na-
tional Characteristics," in James Grier Miller, ed., Experiments in Social
Process (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950), p. 112.
Values, Social Character, and the Democratic Polity 279
German plays are often resolved through an exercise of power, since the
characters are usually portrayed as inflexible and uncompromising.
But if these and other studies are suggestive of a relationship between
the social requirements of political systems and the model, if not the
dominant, cluster of personal traits of its citizens, the evidence to justify
this conclusion is far from in.
If we assume with Inkeles that what he calls the democratic personality
facilitates the stabilization of democratic institutions and reduces the
potential appeal which extremist tendencies may have, then it is necessary
to posit the aspects of the social structure which are conducive to the
predominance of such traits. Psychological analysis confirms that in large
measure such traits are derivative from childhood experiences, particu-
larly parent-child relationships. 15 In its extreme form we have tie con-
clusion of Ralph Linton that "nations with authoritarian family structure
inevitably seem to develop authoritarian governments, no matter what
their official government forms may be." 16 Such conclusions are clearly
unwarranted by any substantial body of data. They do point, however, to
the need to relate the types of family structures and child-rearing ex-
periences found under different systems of stratification and value orienta-
tions to the ability of people to adapt to the operation of a democratic
polity, with its inherent need for the toleration of differences.
It would be in line with the general approach being discussed here to
argue that American children have more "democratic" characters in the
sense that they have a greater independence of mind and tolerance for
ambiguity than do the children in Europe, since there is less stress on
home discipline in the United States. 17 Some of the direct evidence avail-
able would seem to support this contention. For instance, Maurice Farber's
study comparing British and American attitudes toward socialization
16 A questionnaire study based on a Swedish sample reports that "significant
positive correlations were also found between authoritarianism of upbringing
and authoritarianism of both political and child-rearing attitudes." R. H. Willis,
"Political and Child-Rearing Attitudes in Sweden," Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 53 (1956), p. 77.
16 Ralph Linton, "The Concept of National Character," in Alfred H. Stanton
and Stewart E. Perry, eds., Personality and Political Crisis (Glencoe, 111.: The
Free Press, 1951), p. 146.
1T Ralph Linton argues: "It seems highly improbable that any totalitarian type
of organization could be made to operate in the United States for any length
of time. The average American is reared with little respect for his parents'
authority and finds this attitude reinforced by a general indifference or
hostility toward government." Loc> cit.
280 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
(cited earlier), shows that in bringing up children the British try to "sup-
press those impulses which are socially disturbing," whereas the American
pattern aims at developing the skills required to succeed. 18 It could be
argued that this difference reflects national personality differences as
demonstrated in the variations in the mosaics that British and American
children construct when subjected to psychological tests. British children
are much more likely than American children to construct "abstract, sym-
metrical, balanced, conventional patterns/' whereas even when American
children construct this type of pattern "it is much more apt to show a
color or piece variant which breaks its symmetrical perfection." 19 And
British youth, in turn, are seemingly less rigid than German youth.
These variations among the psychological responses of American,
British, and German young people would appear to agree with the
hypothesis that national personality traits and political systems are closely
related. Such a conclusion would be unwarranted, however. British
values, for example, emphasize more rigid family authority relations
than do American but, as we have seen, the greater British acceptance
of elitism also fosters a viable parliamentary democracy!
Could we say, however, that there is some minimum level of so-called
democratic traits that are requisite in "national character" for a nation
successfully to develop a democratic polity? The French case suggests
that even this relating of the degree to which "democratic" traits are
prevalent to a polity's democratic potential is too simple. French youth
fall somewhere between British and American personality responses
along a continuum between individual free expression and traditional ways
of thinking. While insisting that the child copy pre-existing models in
order to train his mind, the French school also encourages individual
thinking and the development of F esprit critique. 20 The object is not so
much to suppress impulses as to train them. And although discipline is
strict in the French family, the father takes more of a supervising than a
strictly authoritarian role. 21 "Democratic" traits do show up in tests of
French national character; but France has not been able to develop a
viable democracy. Thus, simply ranking polities according to the degree
to which "democratic" traits are prevalent does not tell us much about
the necessary conditions for successful democratic institutions.
18 Farber, "English and American Values . . . ," op. cit., pp. 245-246.
19 U. Steward and L. Leland, "American versus English Mosaics," Journal of
Projective Techniques, 16 (1952), pp. 246-248.
20 Metraux and Mead, Themes in French Culture, pp. 32-35.
21 Ibid., pp. 16-18.
Values, Social Character, and the Democratic Polity 281
Since similar family and educational structures are to be found in both
stable and unstable democracies, the question clearly arises whether a
democratic system requires "democratic personalities." If we recognize,
as the previous chapters have argued, that stable democracy is possible
under varying value systems and kinds of hierarchical relationships, it is
probable that the kind of personality most congruent with any given
political structure varies, not with the political structure itself, but rather
with the value system of that political structure. The modal personality
response which encourages democratic stability in a society emphasizing
the values of achievement and equality may be very different from the
one best related to a social system organized around ascriptive and elitist
norms. 22 For instance, an emphasis on respect for authority and the need
for discipline can conceivably be linked to the absence of organized ex-
pressions of populist intolerance, as in Sweden or Switzerland. But similar
emphases on home discipline in the German context are frequently cited
as being causally related to the supposed propensity for political authori-
tarianism of many Germans.
Research in this as yet underdeveloped area of political inquiry will be
considerably strengthened if it continues with the recognition that highly
different social structures and value systems are congruent with stable
democracy or authoritarianism, and that varying ways of organizing social
systems around different value patterns may each be related to different
modal personality characteristics.
The Inner-directed versus the Other-directed Personality
There has also been considerable discussion in the last decade on the
way in which value patterns affect the propensity of citizens of various
societies to exhibit "inner" or "other" directed behavioral or personality
traits. These distinctions of David Riesman, discussed in Chapter 3, refer
to the sources of individual goals. As we have seen, Riesman suggests that
the inner-directed individual has his goals implanted in him from strict
disciplinary parents, has internalized these goals, and works toward them
relatively protected from the "bufferings of his external environment."
In contrast, the other-directed person has been led by different socializa-
tion processes to find his source of direction from his contemporaries; as
22 Eckstein, A Theory of Stable Democracy, suggests, in effect, that societies
with more authoritarian social relations require a more "authoritarian" form of
democracy than those with more equalitarian patterns of behavior.
282 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
their "signals" shift, so do his goals. 23 (For purposes of this discussion, the
issue of whether or not the reactions subsumed under these headings are
deeply rooted in personality is irrelevant.)
Earlier I attempted to demonstrate that there is a causal relationship
between an emphasis on achievement and equalitarianism and other-
directedness, together with the converse proposition, that inner-directed
behavior is more prevalent in ascriptive and elitist oriented societies. Spe-
cifically, I argued that the achievement-equalitarian pattern results in a
stratification system which denies stable status, and that the consequent
acute status anxiety presses people to behave in an other-directed manner.
Conversely, ascription and elitism reduce the need to propitiate others in
order to establish or perpetuate a claim to high esteem.
These behavioral or personality constructs may be linked to a specifica-
tion of the functional requisites for democracy, since democracy obvi-
ously entails a great deal of bargaining and compromise, behavior which
seems more in line with other-directedness than with inner-directedness.
Hence, the effect of a stress on achievement and equalitarianism, to-
gether with the growth of bureaucracy and urbanism factors which
Reisman suggests increase other-directedness would seem to strengthen
the conditions for democracy. However, this conclusion seems less ob-
vious when we consider the implications of a purely other-directed popu-
lace attempting to function in a consensual-decision process. Such a
populace would be engaged in an endless search for approval and for
direction, a situation conducive to high anxiety and great anomic poten-
tialities on the level of the total population, and to weak leadership on the
elite level. It is this supposed emphasis in American society on other-
directedness that leads Riesman to suggest that power in America is frag-
mented and is characterized by interaction among various "veto-groups."
He argues that the American elites are so concerned with the need for
approval that they are inhibited from acting in ways that will be opposed
by a significant segment of the polity. Democracy requires conflict as well
as consensus, and other-directed man is incapable of participating in sus-
tained real conflict, in taking positions that will make him unpopular.
Ralf Dahrendorf, in a perceptive essay on this very problem of the
28 See The Lonely Crowd (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1950).
An excellent experimental study which indicates that these concepts actually
correspond to deep-rooted personality traits is reported by Elaine Graham
Sofer, "Inner-Direction, Other-Direction, and Autonomy: A Study of College
Students," in S. M. Lipset and Leo Lowenthal, eds., Culture and Social Char-
acter (New York: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 316-348.
Values, Social Character, and the Democratic Polity 283
viability of democracy in a country of other-directed citizens, puts the
matter even more strongly. 24 He points out that in modern democracies
a considerable amount of political power is lodged in the governmental
bureaucracy. This bureaucracy, which maintains itself through the vicis-
situdes of changing political parties and leaderships, structurally requires
someone to provide it with policies which it can then administer. If , as is
likely in an other-directed society, such a leader, or group of leaders, can-
not be found in the prevailing political parties, they will be found else-
where, possibly in totalitarian parties.
The inner-directed man, if he is sufficiently aware of his own long-run
interests, and if he has internalized the rules of the game, would seem
better able to fulfill the role requirements for democratic citizens and
leaders. Inner-direction, however, also posits some problems for democ-
racy. Decision-making within a group or society predominantly composed
of such types is apt to be a painfully slow process. Perhaps even more
significant, the purely inner-directed type, if he existed, would have diffi-
culty in adjusting his values to encompass the span between the situation
in which he internalized them and that in which he is called upon to apply
them.
Indeed, one could argue that the French electorate find the pragmatic
compromises necessary to maintain a populist democracy difficult pre-
cisely because they are more inner-directed than Americans. The sociali-
zation of the French child, in comparison to that of the American child,
seems conducive to greater inner direction. As a French child analyst has
put it: "The French child must constantly 'prepare his future'; he must
not have fun because he must learn how to live." 25 French parents mediate
the child's contact with the world outside the family and discourage
those contacts with his peers that the child seeks out on his own. 26 This
practice is justified by the argument that before setting out on his own a
child must be taught "good habits (les bonnes habitudes) and given edu-
cation (education, formation) and training (instruction) in the specific
24 Ralf Dahrendorf, "Democracy without Liberty: An Essay on the Politics
of Other-directed Man," in S. M. Lipset and Leo Lowenthal, eds., Culture and
Social Character (New York: The Free Press, 1961), pp. 175-206.
^Francoise Dolto, "French and American Children as Seen by a French
Child Analyst," in Margaret Mead and Martha Wolfenstein, eds., Childhood
in Contemporary Cultures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp.
408-423.
26 Martha Wolfenstein, "French Parents Take Their Children to the Park,"
in M. Mead and M. Wolfenstein, eds., Childhood in Contemporary Cultures
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), pp. 300-305.
284 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
skills on which the achievement of individuality and adulthood depend.
Thereafter they are able to make reasonable choices, to elaborate in their
own way upon what they already are; they are formed." 27
However, the difference between the fostering of inner direction in
French and American socialization practices can be only a matter of
degree. As in the case of the pattern variables, the personality or behav-
ioral constructs of inner- and other-directed men cannot and do not in-
volve any assumption that men or groups are entirely one or the other.
Clearly, noone who reacted wholly in the way assumed by one or the
other type could function. The matter at issue at any time is the extent to
which the socialization process or structural conditions press men to be-
have more like one polar type than the other. Requisite to the functioning
of a political democracy are citizens (and especially political leaders) who
are sufficiently inner-directed to sustain a desired policy direction, and to
have internalized a strong valuation of certain rules of the game. How-
ever, they should be sufficiently other-directed to be willing to re-examine
their premises when faced with the disapproval of others, to perceive
needed adjustments and compromises, and to make these without experi-
encing traumatic psychological disturbances. 28
To prescribe the type of social structure which would produce the
optimum ratio between "inner" and "other" directedness is clearly im-
possible. The very notion of optimum ratio is itself merely an analytic
construct: every social and political system will be somewhat different.
If we assume, however, the need to "protect" individuals from constant
concern with what others think of them, then a certain degree of
ascription-particularism-diffuseness-elitism is necessary. This conclusion
rektes back to the previous discussion of the conditions which would in-
hibit the destructive tendencies of populist contempt for due process. To
27 Metraux and Mead, Themes in French Culture, p. 27.
28 In a perceptive essay which attempts to find implications of personal-
ity typologies for political and social science, Robert Lane suggests that
"other-direction" is functional in a pluralist society such as the contem-
porary United States, while "inner-direction" best fits the political needs of a
non-pluralistic democracy, that is, one in which the citizenry is relatively
"atomized" and not linked to the polity by identification with various sec-
ondary, mediating institutions. In the latter situation, supposedly characteristic
of the early days of the American Republic, strong moral attitudes dictated
political participation and concern; pluralism, however, has too many sources
of conflict among the various organizations and interest groups to operate
well if those involved in such groups all feel they must win or else. See
"Political Character and Political Analysis," Psychiatry, 16 (1953), pp. 387-398.
Values, Social Character, and the Democratic Polity 285
avoid the excesses which may be perceived as inherent in populism and in
other-direction, mechanisms are necessary which will limit the depend-
ence of the politically relevant elites upon the day-to-day fluctuations in
mass opinion. And in addition to such mechanisms the normative processes
required seem derivative from the same value patterns.
But while efforts to relate national character to the characteristics of
the polity such as those discussed here should be encouraged, it must
be noted that any attempt closely to link personality and child-rearing
patterns to the political or other macroscopic structures of so complex
and differentiated a unit as a nation, must fail. Talcott Parsons has well
stressed the point that "no social system is really well integrated or fully
integrated. There is no neat one-to-one correspondence between social
structure and personality; the social system has to be seen as a function-
ing system . . . dynamically changing and dynamically interacting with
its individual members, not only in an early child-training period but
throughout their lives." 29
29 Talcott Parsons, "Personality and Social Structure," in Alfred H. Stanton
and Stewart E. Perry, eds., Personality and Political Crisis (Glencoe, DL: The
Free Press, 1951), p. 65.
Party Systems and
the Representation
of Social Groups
9
Thus far in this book, I have largely stressed the influence of national
value systems on specific institutions. This form of "sociological deter-
minism" is properly subject to the criticism that it ignores ways in which
men may change their society and its values by changing its structure.
We know that men may modify their conditions of existence by chang-
ing the laws which govern them, a process which may be the first step
on the road to changing values. So I would like to bring to a close this
analysis of the relation of values to the stability of American and other
polities by pointing out ways in which the governmental institutions of
the polity itself may affect stability. The conclusion of this discussion
returns to some of the issues raised in the first section of the book, the
factors which affect the polity formed in new nations.
We have had major extremist social movements in this country, of
which the Know Nothing Party and the Ku Klux Klan are perhaps the
most extreme, but among which must be included Abolitionism, Populism,
Prohibitionism, and the like. Although some of these movements have be-
come organized into political parties, they have never been able to sustain
themselves, and their programs have been dependent upon endorsement by
one of the major political parties for influence in the national power arena.
To a considerable degree one must recognize that the failure of these and
other movements, such as the Socialist, to create viable third parties which
would change the political system is as much a consequence of the legal
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 287
structure of the polity as it is of elements in the value system or of the
distribution of wealth.
In order to generalize about the significance of a nation's constitutional
system in stabilizing its polity, we need concepts which permit us to dis-
tinguish the role played by the legal structure from the effect of various
social forces within the polity. A step in this direction has been taken by
Talcott Parsons. 1 He has argued that the polity can be seen as providing
generalized leadership for the larger social system in setting and attaining
collective goals, and that this is acknowledged by interested social groups
who supply generalized support in the expectation of "a good life," as
they understand it. Within this polity, a variety of social groups form and
advocate the particular policies that eventually result in the specific deci-
sions of public officers, which then become binding on all citizens. The
competitive struggle within the elite, sometimes for generalized but
usually for specific support, gives those outside the authority structure
access to political power.
This process works through the representation system. 2 It is given shape
by those institutional practices which have been developed in democratic
societies notably party systems and interest organizations to facilitate
interchange between authority and the spontaneous groupings of society.
This internal differentiation produces its own power structure and its own
problems of integration, which within limits may also affect the stability
of the polity.
Within the representative system, some of the aspirations of the sub-
groups in the society are transformed into demands; these demands are
then killed, compromised, or magnified into issues that are fed into the
authority system as party policies or as the detailed recommendations of
interest groups. Inchoate loyalties are turned into organized support.
Thus the system provides grist for the political mill and also some of the
power that drives it, depending upon how far the polity derives its effec-
tiveness and legitimacy from organized support.
1 Talcott Parsons, "Voting and the Equilibrium of the American Political
System," in Eugene Burdick and Arthur Brodbeck, eds., American Voting
Behavior (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 80-120; see also William
Mitchell, The American Polity (New York: The Free Press, 1963).
2 For a comprehensive summary of definitions, see John A. Fairlie, "The
Nature of Political Representation," The American Political Science Review,
34 (1940), pp. 236-248, 456-466; for articles dealing with various aspects of
the system, see Harry Eckstein and David E. Apter, eds., Comparative
Politic? (New York: The Free Press, 1963), pp. 97-132.
288 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
On the other hand, the representative system also receives information
and public policy commitments from the authority structure wherein
decisions are reached and implemented. These in turn shape the demands
within the system, and legitimate the leadership and domination. This
"input" from the side of authority may be general (political leadership at
various levels, party discipline) or specific (electoral laws, regulation of
the lobby), suppressing some demands, raising others into issues, and en-
forcing compromise. Into the social base the political system puts the
political education of citizens and the political consciousness of groups.
Whether or not these have consequences that are functional for the
polity as a whole depends largely upon the form and working of the
representative structure.
Viewed in this way, representation is neither simply a means of politi-
cal adjustment to social pressures nor an instrument of manipulation. It
may contribute to the maintenance or dissolution of primary ties, to the
perception of common or diverse interests, to the socialization or aliena-
tion of elites, to the effectiveness or feebleness of the polity in attaining
societal goals, and to the political unity or incoherence of society as a
whole. This chapter will consider some aspects of the behavior of social
groups in politics, taking into account the political alternatives which face
the electorates of different countries, with special reference to the ways
in which various party systems organize and affect their social bases. It is
not primarily concerned with the differentials between power wielded by
various social groups, nor will economic variables be given much promi-
nence. Its aim is to show how certain combinations of relationships be-
tween parties and social bases contribute to the possibility of stable and
efficient government.
Parties are by far the most important part of the representative struc-
ture in complex democratic societies. Such societies show some variation
in the salience of particular solidary groupings as the source of demands
and support; but generally, under contemporary industrial conditions, the
stratification system has been the prime source of sustained internal cleav-
age classes have been the most important bases of political diversity. 8
The character and number of the political parties in a country are
3 They, of course, are far from being the only important such bases. Others,
such as religious, ethnic, or linguistic groups, regions, and rural-urban
groupings, have formed the basis for separate parties or differential backings
for particular parties. For a detailed discussion of the way in which different
groups have varied in support for parties in different democratic countries,
see S. M. Lipset, Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp. 228-282.
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 289
perhaps the chief determinants of the extent to which the government acts
through a stable system of interchanges between the key solidary groups
and tie political elite. Discussions of the causes and consequences of
diverse party systems often turn upon the question of whether it is social
structure or electoral arrangements that mainly determine the different
types. Some argue that the character and number of parties flow almost
directly from the social cleavages in a country; others have claimed that
the electoral system in use proportional representation or the single-
member district plurality method has been the main source of stability or
instability in democracies. On the whole, this is a sham dispute. There is
no reason to believe either that social cleavage creates political cleavage,
or that political cleavage will give rise to social controversies. As Maurice
Duverger has said: "The party system and the electoral system are two
realities that are indissolubly linked, and even difficult sometimes to
separate by analysis." 4
Social Structure and the Character of the Party System
The representative system may be said to have a singular influence on
the stability of the polity only when the economic and social conditions
for stable democracy that I have described in the previous chapters (and
in my Political Man) have been taken into account. Yet, paradoxically,
these conditions affect the workings of the democracy precisely through
their influence on the representative system. The ability of a democratic
political system to win or retain the support of different solidary group-
ings depends largely on whether all the major parties already accept
democratic principles. If some parties reject the system, it may break
down even if democracy is favored by a substantial majority.
4 Maurice Duverger, Political Parties (London: Methuen, 1954), p. 204. Du-
verger's book, however, is the best recent effort to demonstrate the causal
effect of electoral systems. A sophisticated critique of Duverger and the
general emphasis on electoral systems may be found in G. E. Lavau, Partis
politiques et realites societies (Paris: Armand Colin, 1953); see also Aaron
Wildavsky, "A Methodological Critique of Duverger's Political Parties? in
Eckstein and Apter, Comparative Politics, pp. 368-375. There is a com-
prehensive statement of all the arguments for and against proportional repre-
sentation in Alfred De Grazia, Public and Republic (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 1951). A good general discussion of the theory of electoral systems
is D. Hogan, Election and Representation (Cork: Cork University Press,
1945). Differing analyses and points of view are reprinted in Eckstein and
Apter, eds., Comparative Politics, pp. 247-324.
290 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
The evidence seems quite clear that stable democracies are largely to
be found in more well-to-do nations, where greater wealth is associated
with patterns which reduce internal tension f or example, more equal dis-
tribution of income and of education, less emphasis on barriers between
classes, and the existence of a relatively large middle class. In addition, the
stability of democratic systems depends upon the extent to which they
have retained or developed legitimacy, a "believed-in tide to rule," for
the political elite. Such legitimacy, as we have seen, has been most secure
where the society could admit the lower strata to full citizenship and to
the rights of participation in the economic and political systems, and
could at the same time allow the traditionally privileged strata to keep
their high status while yielding their power.
But if legitimacy and economic development define the boundaries
within which political conflict occurs, there nevertheless remains great
variation in the nature of party systems. Why do they take so many
different forms? I have suggested that to some extent this depends upon
the ways in which varying combinations of value orientations have per-
meated the attitudes toward stratification in a nation. The basic (and
obvious) fact is that the more clear-cut the status demarcation lines in a
country, the more likely there exist explicitly strata-oriented parties. The
failure of Canada and the United States to develop a major working-class
party, and the relative stability of their democratic systems, may be par-
tially explained by the difficulty of developing a working-class political
consciousness where no rigid status groups already existed to create a
perception of common interests. On the European continent, workers
were placed in a common class by the value system of the society, and
they absorbed a political "consciousness of kind" from the social struc-
ture. Marxists did not have to teach European workers that they formed
a class; the ascriptive values of the society did it for them.
In the English-speaking parts of the Commonwealth, Labour parties have
been class oriented and class based, yet much less imbued with class feel-
ing than those of continental Europe, as is shown by their early willing-
ness to cooperate with bourgeois parties, and their consistent opposition
to Marxist and revolutionary ideology. The absence of a base for intense
class conflict is also afHrmed by the bent toward a two-party system
which has characterized their politics, since inherent in a two-party sys-
tem is the need for cooperation among diverse strata. In Australia and
New Zealand, this pattern may be explained, as it can in Canada and the
United States, by the absence of feudal tradition. In Britain, the weakness
of working-class extremism is often attributed to the country having
borne the early tensions of industrialization before the rise of modern
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 291
socialism, and, after the working-class movement had appeared, to its
prosperity. On the other hand, as I have argued in Chapter 6, the uniquely
"open" and "responsible" character of the British aristocracy enabled it to
retain power and influence late into the capitalist period, thus helping to
soften the antagonism of the working classes to the state and to society. 5
The great emphasis on status differentiation in Germany may also have
been responsible for the large number of middle- and upper-class parties,
each representing a distinct status group on a national or regional basis
and each possessing its own ideology, which existed in pre-Nazi Ger-
many, 6 Similarly, it has been suggested that the relative failure of the
German Socialists to gain rural backing, and their weakness among
the poorer urban working class, reflected the hostility of the better
paid and more skilled workers, who dominated the movement, toward
other depressed segments of the population such as the so-called Lwnpen-
proletariat a hostility which has not existed in other countries. 7 The
split within the working class between Socialists and Communists in
Weimar Germany was also partly due to this status consciousness of the
skilled workers in the Social-Democratic Party, who left the more de-
pressed sector to be recruited by the Communists. Robert Michels has
pointed out how their sense of superiority was reflected in party litera-
ture, which attacked the Communists by arguing that their supporters
were largely the shiftless Lumpenproletariat. s
The failure of the multi-party system based on distinct and rigid status
groups to revive in the Federal Republic is due to a number of causes. 9
Fundamentally, it reflects the weakening of the old status structure during
5 Joseph Schnmpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York:
Harper & Bros., 1947), pp. 134-139.
6 Sigmund Neumann, Die deutschen Parteien: Wesen und Wandel nach dem
Kriege (Berlin: Junder und Dunnhaupt, 1932); Theodor Geiger, Die soziale
Schichtung des deutschen Volkes (Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1932), p. 79.
7 See Robert Michels, "Die deutschen Sozialdemokratie, I: Parteimitgliedschaft
und soziale Zusammensetzung," Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozial-
politik, 26 (1906), pp. 512-513; Robert Lowie, Toward Understanding Ger-
many (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 138. For detailed evi-
dence that the contemporary German Social-Democratic Party remains weak
among the less skilled, a pattern which remains almost unique among left
parties, see Lipset, Political Man, pp. 240-241.
8 Robert Michels, Sozialismus und Fascismus I (Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1925),
pp. 78-79.
9 It is interesting to note that in 1918 Max Weber believed that there were
four parties "structurally inherent within German Society: a conservative,
a democratic [liberal], a socialist, and a Catholic party." J. P. Mayer, Max
Weber and German Politics (London: Faber and Faber, 1956), p. 101.
292 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
the Nazi and wartime upheavals and the final blow delivered by the end
of Prussian domination. Partition removed from view the glaring inequali-
ties of the east and destroyed the stronghold from which the Junkers had
dominated the army and defied the Weimar Republic; simultaneously, the
greater homogeneity of western Germany now became a national homo-
geneity, reinforced by the economic growth which strengthened the
achievement values of a profoundly bourgeois culture. 10 This homogene-
ity seems to be expressed in a genuine, if rather skeptical, consensus, re-
jecting both the Nazi past and the Communist alternative, and more easily
accepted by a generation maturing in an era of expansion when the old
ruling groups play little part either as authority or model. Its political
manifestation is an interest-group structure much like that of Britain,
thoroughly interlaced with the party system, and bringing with it an
increasing political professionalism. The former bearers of ideology the
intellectuals, the jurists, and the bureaucrats have largely abdicated their
special role under the Rechtsstaat, and a pragmatic approach has replaced
die old emphasis upon the objective rationality of the expert. The Social-
Democratic Party has more and more disowned its Marxist heritage, and
the interdenominational Christianity of the Christian Democratic Union
is more a catch-all than an ideology. The accompanying bureaucratiza-
tion of the two major parties had led to a pattern of occasional, mediated
participation by the ordinary citizen in politics, which is generally re-
garded as a major source of both stability and flexibility in modern
democratic electorates.
These general causes were supplemented by the circumstances attend-
ing the birth of the present parties. The power to make certain major de-
cisions was retained by the occupying forces until the early 1950's, which
restricted the scope of political contention. The parties called into exist-
ence by the Allies in 1946 to fill the political vacuum became, as Dolf
Sternberger has put it, like "stakes rammed into a swamp," and were able
to give shape to most of the emerging tendencies. This position was con-
solidated by the subsequent modifications of proportional representation,
by the legal restrictions upon extremist parties, and by the statesmanship
of Adenauer. In particular, the stability of the parties has been aided by
their ascendancy over the bureaucracy. The acceptance by civil servants
of the constitution and the parties as legitimate is largely a product of the
social changes mentioned above and the political stability resulting from
them; it is symbolized, and also advanced, by the practice of staffing top
10 See Karl W. Deutsch and Lewis J. Edinger, Germany Rejoins the Powers
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959), pp. 35-47.
"Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 293
civil service positions below the ministerial level with political ap-
pointees. 11
The discussion so far has sketched some of the conditions under which
support will be available for different kinds of political leadership. But the
number and nature of political parties, the claims they stake out, and the
policies they advocate, do not result automatically from underlying social
cleavages. Political systems possess a certain (varying) autonomy within
the larger social system, and it is appropriate to ask how the restraints im-
posed by the political order itself affect the capacity of parties to provide
generalized leadership in different countries.
Social Structure and Electoral Systems
Concern with formal constitutional provisions has generally been out-
side the province of political sociology. Sociologists tend to see party
cleavages as reflections of an underlying structure, and hence, wittingly
or not, frown on efforts to present the enacted rules of the game as key
causal elements of a social structure. The sociologist's image of a social
system, all of whose parts are interdependent, is at odds with the view of
many political scientists, who believe that such seemingly minor differ-
ences in systems as variations in the way in which officials are elected can
lead to stability or instability. An examination of comparative politics sug-
gests that the political scientists are right, in that electoral laws determine
the nature of the party system as much as any other structural variable.
The available evidence gathered together by political scientists such as
E. E. Schattschneider, F. A. Hermens, Maurice Duverger, and many others
indicates that proportional representation encourages the appearance or
continuance of more relatively large parties than does the plurality
system, in which the candidate receiving the most votes in an electoral
unit is elected. Wherever we find a two-party system working (wherever
the usual situation is the alternating control of government by one of two
parties, with an over-all majority of representatives) we find also an
electoral system which debars from representation in government those
parties which cannot win a plurality of votes in a geographical election
district. On the other hand, every country which uses proportional repre-
sentation has four or more parties represented in the legislature and, ex-
cept in Norway, Sweden, and Ireland in recent decades, absolute parlia-
mentary majorities of one party have been extremely rare.
11 See Otto Kirchheimer, "The Political Scene in West Germany," World
Politics, 9 (1957), pp. 433-445, and the sources cited there.
294 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
If enough cases existed for analysis, the following rank-order correla-
tion might be found between electoral systems and the number of political
parties: presidential system with single-member districts and one plurality
election two parties; parliamentary system with single-member districts
and one plurality election tendency to two parties; parliamentary system
with single-member districts and alternative ballot or run-off (second)
election tendency to many parties; proportional representation many
parties.
The thesis that the plurality system tends to produce or maintain a two-
party system needs some qualification. Groups centered in distinct regions
or political units may gain representation, and may sometimes influence
policy, within such systems, even where cabinet government is conducted
by means of a parliamentary majority. In Great Britain, ParnelTs Irish
party was able to hold its own in the House of Commons during the latter
part of the nineteenth century through solid regional support. The initial
growth of socialist parties in European countries with single-member dis-
tricts depended on their winning in solidly working-class constituencies,
just as various ethnic parties have achieved regional support in India, and
from time to time agrarian "third parties" have won considerable backing
in the more rural provinces of Canada.
But the requirement of ecological isolation limits the type of third party
which can succeed in a two-party system with single-member districts. It
must possess a strong appeal to a homogeneous part of the population
whose residential areas correspond to electoral units. The problem which
this poses is illustrated by the British Liberal Party, which, according to
some public opinion studies, would secure as much as 25 per cent of the
national vote in a parliamentary election under proportional representa-
tion, where every vote counted. The existing single-member districts re-
duce the Liberals to impotence, since their appeal is not to groups which
dominate electoral districts but to a large middle-class sector which is usu-
ally in a minority in every constituency. This not only keeps the Liberals
out of Parliament but deprives them of most of their votes, since many
prospective Liberals prefer to vote for the lesser of two electable evils.
To take another case, all efforts to form third parties in the United States
have proved futile because the effective constituency in national elections
is really the entire country, and in state elections the entire state is the
effective constituency. The emphasis on presidential or gubernatorial elec-
tions has prevented American third parties from building up local con-
stituency strength as labor, agrarian, religious, or ethnic parties have done
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 295
in some other single-member constituency systems. 12 As evidence for this
view, third parties have gained their greatest strength in municipal or
occasionally state elections, and have almost invariably lost strength in
subsequent presidential elections. The American Socialist Party attained
its greatest electoral success in municipal elections and actually captured
the government of a number of cities. Its high point as an electoral force
was in the municipal elections of 1917, in which it attained an average
vote of 20 per cent in a number of major cities. 13 In general, American
third parties have been much more successful in Congressional elections
conducted in non-presidential election years than in those in which a
president was also being elected.
Recognition of the inability to create a new national party has led many
American leftists, who would have preferred a new radical party, to
operate as factions within one of the old parties, and at different times
since 1920 socialist or near-socialist groups have either controlled or
greatly influenced one of the two major parties in a large number of
states.
The motives underlying the electorate's refusal to sustain third parties,
in systems where the candidate with the most votes is elected and where
third parties are effectively barred from representation, have been ana-
lyzed in detail in the numerous studies of electoral systems, and I will not
discuss them here. Essentially, polarization between two parties is main-
tained by those factors which lead people to see a third party vote as a
"wasted vote." 14
Party Systems and the Eases of Social Cleavage
The interrelated effects of electoral systems and social cleavages may
be seen in a comparison of the party systems in different parts of the
British Commonwealth, in the United States, and in France.
There is general recognition that stable two-party government works
12 The argument and best evidence for this thesis may be found in E. E.
Schattschneider, Party Government (New York: Rinehart and Co., 1942),
especially pp. 65-98.
13 James Weinstein, "Anti-war Sentiment and the Socialist Party, 1917-1918,"
Political Science Quarterly, 74 (1959), pp. 223-239; Paul H. Douglas, "The
Socialist Vote in the 1917 Municipal Elections," National Municipal Review,
7 (1918), pp. 131-139.
14 See Duverger, Political Parties, pp. 224-228, 246-250; and E. E. Schatt-
schneider, Party Government, pp. 80-84.
296 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
best in Great Britain. Members of Parliament are elected in single-member
constituencies in which one factor class position is the basic source of
political difference. 15 Differences based on regions, religious or ethnic
allegiances, urban-rural conflicts, or past historical feuds are unimportant
or affect groups too small to organize on their own behalf. But if two-
party government presents its best and simplest face in Britain, multi-party
government has created the most difficult and complicated conditions in
France. Until the Gaullist presidential system began to press the French
parties together, France had at least six important political groupings, in
addition to some minor ones. For many decades it has been divided be-
tween clericals and anti-clericals, supporters and opponents of a planned
economy, and supporters and opponents of parliamentary government,
with a few rural-urban and regional cleavages as well. Table VII shows
the ways these differences have been reflected in French party life during
the period from 1955 to 1963. 16
Before De Gaulle created a presidency directly elected by the people,
France appeared to be a country whose social fragmentation dictated
the need for a multi-party system, whatever electoral laws were in force.
The fact remains, however, that the various parliamentary electoral sys-
tems in use throughout most of the history of the Third, Fourth, and
Fifth republics encouraged the creation or perpetuation of small parties.
The experiences of Britain and France, standing near the extremes of
stable and unstable government, might suggest that the nature of group
differences is the key to the number of parties in a system; yet even for
these nations this conclusion may be questioned. Since the development
of adult suffrage, Britain has never had a pure two-party system. In the
late nineteenth century there was a strong Irish third party; before World
War I, four parties were represented in the Commons: the Liberals, the
15 "British politics are almost wholly innocent of those issues which cross the
social lines in other lands, for example, race, nationality, religion, town and
country interests, regional interest, or the conflict between authoritarian and
parliamentary methods." See John Bonham, The Middle Class Vote (London:
Faber and Faber, 1954), pp. 194-195; and Leslie Lipson, "The Two-Party
System in British Politics," American Political Science Review, 47 (1953),
pp. 337-358.
16 The table, of course, oversimplifies present divisions. Almost no political
group in France is actually for a "free economy." The Gaullist government
has continued and even extended the comprehensive system of planning begun
under the Fourth Republic. This system, however, is a voluntary one; private
industry need not conform, though the state has extensive powers through its
ownership of banks, insurance companies, and many industries. Communist
and Gaullist "anti-parliamentary" positions are quite different. The first
favors a dictator; the second, an "American-type" president.
Party Systems and the 'Representation of Social Groups 297
Table VII
Overlapping of Qeavages in France*
CLERICAL
PLANNED ECONOMY
FREE ECONOMY
Parliamentary
M.R.P.
(Catholics)
Anti-Parliamentary
(left Gaullists)
ANTI-
Parliamentary
Independents
(conservatives)
CLERICAL
Anti-Parliamentary
U.N.R.
(Gaullists)
PLANNED ECONOMY FREE ECONOMY
Parliamentary Anti-Parliamentary Parliamentary Anti-Parliamentary
Socialists Communists Radicals Poujadistsf
* Adapted -from a somewhat similar diagram in Duverger, Political Parties
(London: Methuen, 1954), p. 232.
practically dead.
Conservatives, the Irish, and Labour; between 1918 and 1931 three major
parties were represented; and since then the Liberal Party has remained a
serious electoral force even though the plurality system minimizes its
strength in Parliament. 17
1T For a detailed report on the issues and facts involved, see D. E. Butler, The
Electoral System in Britain 191S-1951 (New York: Oxford University Press,
1953). Though many argue from historical evidence that the British two-party
system derives from particular national characteristics, since two parties or
tendencies preceded the introduction of the present single-member constitu-
ency in the mid-nineteenth century, this argument also may be questioned.
G. E. Lavau, Partis politiques et realties sociales, has pointed out that the
House of Commons had unstable majorities, with members shifting their
support from government to opposition throughout much of the nineteenth
century. Duverger contends that in France itself the contemporary complex
political substructure was built "upon the fundamental conflict which domi-
nated the nineteenth century, that between conservatives and liberals. . . .
The principal actors were a landowning aristocracy, bound to monarchical
principles . . . and, opposed to this aristocracy, an industrial, commercial and
intellectual bourgeoisie, attracted to the principles of political liberty. . . . The
first phase in the moulding of the prevailing spirit in modern Europe ended
wth the appearance and development of the socialist parties. . . . Between 1900
and 1914, the bipartisan tendency which had dominated the preceding century
was replaced everywhere by a swing towards tripartisanslup; the 'conserva-
tive-liberal' duo now changed to a 'conservative-liberal-socialist' trio." Maurice
Duverger, "Public Opinion and Political Parties in France," American Political
Science Review, 46 (1952), p. 1070. See also Club Jean Moulin, Vttat et le
citoyen (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1961), pp. 249-253, 325-343.
298 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
French political history offers striking examples of the ways in which
formal political institutions may decisively affect political cleavage, and
therefore the stability of the democratic system. Despite deep-rooted
social tensions and lack of consensus on fundamental political, religious,
and economic issues, the Third Republic's electoral system diverted con-
siderable support from the anti-democratic extremists. Its double ballot
effectively stopped the French Communist Party from becoming a major
force during this period. For after an auspicious start in 192 1, supported by
a majority of the former Socialist Party and controlling its principal news-
paper, UHwnanite, it lost ground seemingly because it was unable to
elect members to the Chamber. As a revolutionary party opposed to
constitutional government, it could not combine with other parties for
the decisive second ballot, so that many of its potential voters obviously
returned to the Socialist fold. Thus in 1928, the Communists secured 11
per cent of the vote in the first ballot, but only 14 out of 600 seats. In the
following election of 1932, held in the depths of the depression, the
Communist first-ballot vote dropped to 8 per cent, and it elected less than
2 per cent of the representatives. Almost half the Communist first-ballot
supporters backed candidates of other parties on the second ballot, though
the Communists did not withdraw any candidates. Even Communist party
discipline and the worst depression in history could not induce many
voters to "waste" their ballots. Similarly, Maurice Duverger notes "the
complete impossibility" for fascist and right-wing extremist movements
"to obtain any representation in parliament," although there were many
strong fascist groups during the 1930's. 18
The Communists became a major force in French politics only after
they pretended to give up their opposition to parliamentary government,
and formed the Popular Front coalition with the Radicals and Socialists
in 1936. This enabled them to increase their first-ballot percentage to 15*6,
and their representation in the Chamber from 1 1 to 72. 19
But if the Third Republic demonstrated how electoral rules may punish
and inhibit parties which oppose the system, the Fourth Republic showed
how different rules may facilitate the ruin of democracy by nourishing
i* Political Parties, pp. 319-320; see also F. A. Hermens, Europe between
Democracy and Anarchy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1951), pp. 41-44, and Club Jean Moulin, Utat et le citoyen, pp. 349-
350.
19 For a detailed account of the events leading up to this election as well as
an analysis of the vote, see Georges Dupeux, Le Front populaire et les
elections de 1936 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1959).
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 299
such parties. 20 Throughout its history, the Fourth Republic employed
different versions of proportional representation. Its last Parliament,
elected in 1956, was hampered by the presence of 150 Communists and
50 Poujadists. The latter, who secured about 10 per cent of the vote,
could probably have elected no candidates under the double ballot with
single-member constituencies. The Fifth Republic, having returned to
that system, elected only ten Communists and one Poujadist to its first
Chamber and 40 Communists to its second* The Communist gains be-
tween 1958 and 1962 were largely a result of an informal electoral alliance
with the Socialists. And for the first time in French history, the combina-
tion of a strong presidential system and the absence of proportional
representation has given one tendency, the Gaullists, a parliamentary
majority.
The United States and Canada offer a still more complex picture of the
way in which party systems can be affected by the interrelationship be-
tween social cleavages and methods of election. For though two-party
politics have predominated at the national level in both countries, it is
clear that their solidarity structure is in some ways more like that of
France than that of Britain. Both are divided along class, ethnic, religious,
and regional lines, and while the chief issues for groups like the southern
whites or the French Canadians tend to separate them from the rest of
the nation, internally they remain sharply divided over non-ethnic ques-
tions.
It seems likely that if the United States had ever adopted proportional
representation or even the second ballot run-off, it would have developed
several main parties, such as the following: 1) a labor party, based on
urban workers and perhaps on ethnic minorities outside the South; 2) a
northern conservative party, based on the urban middle class and the
higher-status ethnic and religious groups; 3) a southern conservative party,
20 "It is especially important, in order to understand what the fundamental
political problems of France actually are, to investigate why the state for too
many years has seemed so completely powerless to hold the antagonisms and
the divisions between the parties within reasonable bounds and to make the
divergent forces act in concert for the general welfare. This raises the ques-
tion of political institutions, the most important problem facing France. The
present difficulties in this sphere stem from the fact that the political institu-
tions that 'were adopted in 1946 in no way satisfy the requirements of the
economic, social, and political situation. . . ." Francois Goguel, France under
the fourth Republic (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1952), p. 146.
(Emphasis mine.)
300 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
comparable in support to the ante-bellum southern Whigs and Constitu-
tional Unionists, i.e., the urban middle classes, and the more well-to-do
rural whites; 4) a southern populist party, based on the lower white strata
comparable to those who backed the Jacksonian Democrats in the 1830's
and 1840's, Breckenridge and the secessionist Democrats in the election of
1860, and various "populist" parties and agrarian factions of the Demo-
crats in the late nineteenth century; and 5) a farmer's party, based on
rural elements outside the South. There would probably also have been a
number of smaller parties from time to time.
Such differentiation has been prevented, not only by the disadvantages
which the American presidential system lays on small parties, as discussed
above, but also by the peculiar device of the party primary. This arrange-
ment, by which different factions within the party may compete in state-
conducted, intra-party contests to determine party candidates and offi-
cials, permits the interests and values of different groups, which elsewhere
would give rise to separate parties, to be expressed within the major
parties. First, the various groups have been forced by the electoral system
to identify with one or the other of the two major blocs on whatever
basis of division matters most to them; 21 then their differences are fought
out within each party in the primaries, although they may often still lead
to cross-party alliances in Congress afterward.
Few observers have been willing to recognize how comparable are the
social bases for multiple parties in France and the United States, and how
far the difference between them in political stability has been due to vary-
ing constitutional structures. The French two-ballot system may be re-
garded as a functional equivalent to the American primary elections. In
both cases, different tendencies may compete in various ways up to the
decisive final election. Thus, in most elections of the Third Republic, "at
the first ballot few candidates could obtain an absolute majority, so that at
this stage there was no fear of splitting the vote and no deterrent to 'splin-
ter parties'; but at the second this fear became as effective as in Britain.
21 The one other country which I know of that has a system akin to the
American primaries is Uruguay, the most stable democracy in Latin America.
In Uruguay, the various factions within the two major parties may each
nominate a presidential candidate. On election day, the voters choose the
man they prefer. When votes are counted, the party which has a majority,
counting the votes of all its presidential candidates, wins the election, and
the candidate of that party who received more votes than any other one of
the party is elected president. In other words, Uruguay combines the primary
and the final election on the same ballot
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 301
Most constituencies then had a straight fight between a candidate of the
Right and one of the Left. 22
Under the Third Republic, the electoral alliances which gave decisive
majorities to the Left or Right would always break down in parliament,
hence the constant reshuffling of cabinets. The common assumption that
these coalitions were so fragile because they tried to harmonize incom-
patible views and interests such as those of the Radicals, as the party of
small business, with those of the Socialists, as the workers' party over-
looks the fact that these differences have been no sharper than some
within the American parties. The divergencies on domestic issues between
conservative southern Democrats and left-liberal northern Democrats, or
on foreign affairs between Republicans from the provincial Midwest and
Republicans from the metropolitan centers of the East, with their close
ties to international big business, are fully as great. The American party
factions have been held together largely by the presidential system. Thus,
the changing congressional majorities on questions which cut across party
lines are comparable to the shifts in the Chamber as new issues were taken
up. Since in America this cannot change the party in control of the execu-
tive, however, there has been continuity of executive action and also a
substantial amount of party loyalty in important congressional votes, as
David Truman has demonstrated. 23 And the "American" elements intro-
duced into the French constitution by General De Gaulle seem to be hav-
ing comparable effects on the party system there.
Canada is perhaps an even more interesting case of interaction of the
various elements which have been discussed. Its social structure and bases
for political division are complex and comparable to the American and
French. It retains, however, die British electoral and parliamentary sys-
tem, which requires disciplined parliamentary action and does not permit
the American practices of cross-party alignments in the House, of ideo-
22 Philip Williams, Politics in Post-War France (New York: Longmans,
Green and Co., 1954), p. 310. (Emphasis mine.) This book contains an excel-
lent discussion of the nature and effects of the French electoral systems. For
a detailed description of the way in which the double ballot worked in the
first elections of the Fifth Republic in 1958, see Philip Williams and Martin
Harrison, "France 1958," in D. E. Butler, ed., Elections Abroad (New York:
St. Martins, 1960), pp. 13-90.
23 David Truman, The Congressional Party: A Case Study (New York: John
Wiley, 1959); see also Duncan MacRae, Jr., Dimensions of Congressional Vot-
ing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958); and V. O. Key, Jr.,
Politics) Parties and Pressure Groups (New York: Thos. Y. Crowell, 1958),
p. 729.
302 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
logical divergencies between local party machines, or the resolution by
public primary elections of differences within the parties. Whenever a
Canadian region, class, ethnic group, or province comes into serious con-
flict with its party of traditional allegiance, it must either change over
to the other party, with which it may be in even greater disagreement
on other issues, or form a new "third" party. The result of combining
this social diversity with a rigid constitutional structure has been the
regular rise and fall of relatively powerful "third" parties. Every single
Canadian province, except Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick,
has been governed for some time since World War I by a "third" party.
At least three such parties, the Progressives in the 1920's and, since 1933,
Social Credit (monetary reformers supported by fanners and small
businessmen) and the socialist Cooperative Commonwealth Federation
(CCF), renamed in 1961 the New Democratic Party, have had significant
strength in a number of provinces. Nationalist parties, often at odds
with one another, have arisen in Quebec; one of them, the Union
NatioTiale, governed the province almost unbrokenly from 1936 to 1957.
Most recently, in 1962, Social Credit, which was almost non-existent in
Quebec in the 1958 election, won twenty-six constituencies in the national
election in that province, and it retained most of this strength in the
1963 election. The rise and fall of these parties, mainly at the provincial
level, are not the result of any general discontent in Canada, but largely
of the interaction between constitutional arrangements and social and
economic divisions. 24
Although the Canadian two-party system has repeatedly broken down,
it has been able, especially on the national level, to reabsorb most of the
rebellious elements, since the single-member plurality method of election
necessarily represses minorities. At the provincial level, however, it has
been much easier for them to survive by becoming one of the two major
local parties. Unlike the situation in the United States, in which state and
presidential elections are often on the same ballot, in Canada this never
occurs. Hence, voters are not pressed to bring their national and pro-
vincial party preferences into line.
South Africa, which also combines British constitutional procedure with
24 See S. M. Lipset, "Democracy in Alberta," Canadian Forum, 34 (1954), pp.
175-177 and 196-198. For British Columbia, where Social Credit rose from no
seats to the provincial government in one election, see H. F. Angus, "The
British Columbia Election, 1952," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political
Science, 18 (1952), pp. 518-525; and Margaret Ormsby, British Columbia: A
History (Vancouver: Macmiflan, 1958), pp. 477-489.
Party Sy sterns and the Representation of Social Groups 303
complex internal bases of cleavage, has exhibited the same rapid rise and
fall of minor parties as Canada. Within the limits of the dominant ethnic
divisions, other sources of conflict still exist. Thus for long periods the
Afrikaners were divided into two parties; today they are united in the
National Party, but the English are split. In addition to the old but sharply
declining Labour party, a number of parties, mainly English, have come
into being in the last decade as splinters from the United Party. All these
minor parties have met, in an aggravated form, the same difficulties as the
Canadian. 25
In New Zealand, the two non-socialist parties merged after Labour had
risen to a position in which it seemed able to win a three-cornered fight.
Social Credit has shown on at least two occasions that it could get the
support of about 10 per cent of the New Zealand electorate, but, being
unable to win seats, it has failed to sustain any permanent strength. 26 In
Australia, the two major non-socialist parties the Country and Liberal
parties have not merged, but generally follow a policy of exchanging
seats and refraining from competition. 27 Similar electoral alliances took
place in some of the Scandinavian countries before the introduction of
proportional representation.
Conversely, in one former dominion of the British Crown, Eire, which
25 See Gwendolen M. Carter, The Politics of Inequality, South Africa Since
1948 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958); for a further report see R. R.
Farquharson, "South Africa 1958", in D. E. Butler, ed., Elections Abroad
(New York: St. Martins, 1960), pp. 229-275.
26 Peter Campbell, "Politicians, Public Servants, and the People in New Zea-
land, I," Political Studies, 3 (1955), pp. 196-197.
27 Although the Country and Liberal parties usually do not run against each
other and act, in effect, electorally as the rural and urban wing of the non-
socialist party, the continued existence of two such parties is facilitated by
the fact that Australia has adopted the preferential ballot system with the
single-member constituency. Under this system voters list the order of
preference for all candidates on the ballot. Thus when there are Liberal and
Country candidates in the same constituency, a Liberal voter will mark the
Country candidate as his number two choice, and Country party supporters
will do the same for the Liberals. This system has also encouraged occasional
splits from the Labour Party, since minority party candidates can pick up
first votes without these votes being permanently lost to the major party
backed by such protest voters. The Democratic Labor Party, a right-wing
split from Labour, has urged its followers to vote Liberal as thek second
preference as a means of pressing the Labour Party to accept thek terms.
See J. D. B. Miller, Australian Government and Politics (London: Duck-
worth, 1954), pp. 85-86.
304 'Democracy In Comparative Perspective
has a relatively simple basis for political cleavage, the perpetuation of
proportional representation ever since the birth of the Irish Republic in
1922 has meant the continued existence of at least five parties. Only one
party, Fianna Fail, has been able to govern without a coalition under these
conditions. The second largest party, Fine Gael, which is somewhat more
conservative, can hope to form a government only with the help of minor
and often more leftist parties, such as Labour and the Republicans. 28
Had Eire adopted the British election system, it would now no doubt
have a stable two-party system and cabinets as responsible as the United
Kingdom. This failure, like some other Irish difficulties, must be attrib-
uted to the English, because when yielding power in southern Ireland, they
insisted on a system of proportional representation to ensure representa-
tion of Protestant and other more pro-Commonwealth minorities. Fianna
Fail, as the dominant party, has tried hard to change the electoral system,
but as in other countries the smaller parties oppose such changes for fear
that the single-member plurality district system would weaken their
electoral position. The result is that the need for "inter-party" govern-
ments has led to periodic breakdowns in the traditional pattern of respon-
sible cabinet government. 29
Similarly, in Israel, another state once governed by Great Britain, in-
dependence was followed by the continuance of the system of propor-
tional representation previously used in elections to the council of the
Jewish Agency, the dominant pre-independence organ of the Zionist com-
munity. Hence, in this immigrant society formed by men from many
states and cultures, over thirty different parties have taken part in the
elections. There have been at least five different socialist parties, excluding
the Communists, represented in the Knesset, and some half dozen religious
parties. Basically, however, the Israeli political structure consists of three
groups: the socialist parties, the largest of which, the Mapai, has about 40
per cent of the vote, while the others have between 10 and 15 per cent;
the non-socialist secular parties, which range from liberal to conservative
(in the American sense of the terms), and which poll about 30 to 35 per
cent of the vote; and the religious parties, which poll from 10 to 15 per
cent and are divided fairly equally between pro- and anti-socialist groups.
A single-member district plurality system would probably create a two-
party system, socialist versus conservative, with each party bidding for the
25 See Enid Lakeman and James D. Lambert, Voting in Democracies (London:
Faber and Faber, 1955), pp. 223-230.
29 Basil Chubb, "Cabinet Government in Ireland," Political Studies, 3 (1955),
p. 272.
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 305
support of the religious. This solution is favored by Mapai, the largest
party in the country; but, as in Ireland, it is opposed by the others, since
none of them feels certain of survival without proportional representation.
An Israeli social research institute, in a study of the effects of electoral
systems on national life, has strongly urged a change in the Israeli system.
In sum: while the present system of proportional representation
aggravates existing social evils in the Israeli society, i.e., absolute
rule of central party machines, deepening social divisions and the
perpetuation of factional fanaticism, the system of constituency
election is designed to counteract and finally to eliminate them, by
weakening party power at the centre, placing emphasis on common,
integrative, cohesive elements in our society and encouraging the
growth of tolerance, fellow-feeling and social compromise. . . .
The condition for constructive democratic life in the country
becomes largely a function of the development of social forces which
can combat and counteract these negative features [toward in-
tense destructive conflict]. And the web of social institutions is
the most potent powerful instrument at our disposal to accomplish
this end. 30
Maurice Duverger has described the conscious and successful effort
made in Belgium to prevent a two-party system reasserting itself when
the Socialists rose to second place, displacing the anti-clerical Liberal
opposition, after the adoption of universal manhood suffrage in 1893. By
the next election in 1898, the Liberals had declined to parliamentary
insignificance with only thirteen seats. Rather than see the Liberals
disappear, which would have meant, eventually, a Socialist government,
the Catholics, who were then in power, introduced proportional rep-
resentation and thus preserved the Liberals as a major third party. 31 The
anti-clerical vote has almost always been above 50 per cent, but the
Socialists have never reached 40 per cent, while the Liberals have
constantly secured between 10 and 15 per cent. 32
The strain between the institutionalization of specific social cleavages
30 Beth Hillel (Society for Social Research in Israel), Electoral Reform in
Israel (Tel Aviv: Beth Hfflel Publications, 1953), pp. 24, 26.
31 Duverger, Political Parties, pp. 246-247.
32 Felix E. Oppenheim, "Belgium: Party Cleavage and Compromise," in
Sigmund Neumann, ed., Modern Political Parties (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1958), p. 167.
306 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
in a multi-party structure and a plurality electoral system is aggravated
by the distorted representation which usually results. The major party
whose support is most evenly distributed throughout the country tends
to be over-represented, and sometimes the largest single party does not
win the most seats. In Canada between 1935 and 1957 the Liberal party
dominated Parliament with overbearing majorities, though it had a
majority of the electorate on only one occasion. 33 Similarly, in India the
Congress Party has over 75 per cent of the seats in the House with less
than 50 per cent of the vote, while the Communist Party ruled the
Indian state of Kerala for one term with a legislative majority based
on 35 per cent of the electorate. 34 In 1945, the British Labour Party took
over with an overwhelming majority of 146 seats in the House of Com-
mons, and nationalized a number of industries, despite the fact that over
half of the electorate had voted for non-socialist candidates. Conversely,
the three British Conservative governments since 1951 have governed
with parliamentary majorities although the country had given a majority
of its votes to Labour and the Liberals. 35
Essentially, the evidence suggests that whatever potential cleavages
exist in the social structure, there is a fundamental incompatibility be-
tween a multi-party system and a plurality method of election; where the
two co-exist, the instability is ultimately resolved by a change to one of
the following situations: 1) a change in the electoral system to pro-
portional representation, which preserves declining parties and facilitates
the growth of new ones; 2) an arrangement by which different parties
continue to exist, but support each other in more or less permanent
alliances; 3) mergers between parties which re-create a two-party situa-
tion, as has occurred a number of times with American third parties; or
4) the elimination over time of the weaker parties and a return to a
two-party system, as has occurred in various countries of the Com-
monwealth and in the United States.
33 Gwendolen M. Carter, "The Commonwealth Overseas: Variations on a
British Theme," ibid., p. 104.
84 Avery Leiserson, Parties and Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958),
p. 286,
35 Detailed discussion of the relation between votes and seats in the British
system can be found in R. B, McCallum, The British General Election of 1945
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), pp. 277-292; for a table giving
votes and seats in British elections since 1900, see Samuel Beer, "Great Britain:
From Governing Elite to Organized Mass Parties," in Sigmund Neumann, ed.,
Modern Political Parties (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 57.
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 307
Consequences of the Different Systems
A number of consequences for the nature of representation and the
stability of democracy have been attributed to the two-party and the
multi-party systems.
In a two-party system, both parties aim at securing a majority. Hence,
they must seek support among groups which may be preponderantly
loyal to their opponents and must avoid accentuating too heavily the
interests of their customary supporters. Elections become occasions for
seeking the broadest possible base of support by convincing divergent
groups of their common interests. The system thus encourages com-
promise and the incorporation into party values of those general elements
of consensus upon which the polity rests. For similar reasons the system
encourages emphasis by both parties upon material interests (concessions
and patronage) as against a stress upon ideal interests, thus reducing
ideological conflict. 36 The "out" party can always realistically aspire to
gain office within a few years, and this has the effect of stifling exag-
gerated commitments on its part to ideal or ideological goals which may
gain votes but embarrass office holders, and it also reinforces the
adherence of the opposition to the "rules of the game." The weakness
of ideology that is inherent in two-party systems has the further con-
sequences of reducing intense concern with particular issues dividing
the parties, and sharpening the focus on party leaders. The plebiscitary
nature of electoral struggles in two-party systems is largely an effect of
the system itself.
In a multi-party system, where parties do not hope to gain a majority,
they usually seek to win the greatest possible electoral support from a
limited base. They therefore stress the interests of that base and the
cleavages which set it apart from other groups in society. The party's
function as a representative of a group is separated from the function of
integrating the group in the body politic, which requires a stress on
similarities with others and commitments to them. 37 The multi-party
system with proportional representation in fact substitutes the interest
group (or group of common believers) for the territorial unit as the
36 See Carl Friedrich, Constitutional Government and Democracy (Boston:
Ginn and Co., 1950), pp. 416-417; Parsons, "Voting and the Equilibrium of
the American Political System," op. cit.
37 See F. A. Hermens, The Representative Republic (Notre Dame, Ind.; Uni-
versity of Notre Dame Press, 1958), p. 201.
308 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
basis of representation. 38 The small size of many parties and the absence
of a need in most multi-party systems for compromise at the electoral
level enhances the ideological content of the conflict. This divisiveness
encouraged by a multi-party system is perpetuated by the tendency of
most parties to attack most virulently those with whom they have most
in common and with whom they thus compete for a similar vote; this
magnifies the differences between them.
The two-party system helps to maintain the commitment of the entire
electorate to the system itself, rather than to the regime, and encourages
the elector to devote his efforts to the quite clear-cut task of replacing
the incumbents with their traditional opponents. The necessity for coali-
tion government in most multi-party systems where the lesser parties
wield so disproportionate an influence that election results may scarcely
affect the composition of the government deprives the elector of the
feeling that he is able to turn out leaders who have forfeited his con-
fidence, and weakens his commitment to the system as a whole.
There are, however, conditions under which a two-party system is
less conducive to the preservation of democratic order than is a multi-
party system. The two-party system works best where it is based on an
elaborate, cross-cutting solidarity structure, in which men and groups are
pulled in different directions only by their diverse roles and interests.
Wherever the solidarity structure is polarized by class, race, or religion,
and the political lines follow those of social cleavage, a two-party system
may intensify internal conflict rather than help to integrate the society.
For example, the first Austrian republic (1919-1934) was largely a two-
party system, but one which was divided along the interrelated lines of
religion, class, and region. The parties represented two almost completely
separate cultural units, and the civil war which followed was a nearly
inevitable consequence of the system. 39 Similarly, in Italy today the lines
38 "Electoral procedures based on territorial ... [as distinct from 'representa-
tion through interest-groups'] is [sic"] precisely the technique for the organic
integration of the whole. As a matter of principle the individual delegate repre-
sents the entire area. The ensuing separation into parties according to political
tendencies implies then only differences of belief concerning the means by
which the welfare of the nation is to be achieved." Georg Simmel, The Web
of Group Affiliation (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1955), p. 194.
39 For a detailed description of the system and an analysis of the events lead-
ing to the downfall of the first Austrian republic, see Charles Gulick, Austria:
from Hapsburg to Hitler (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press,
1948). A recent study of elections in the first and second republics demon-
strates that the second one is genuinely different from the first in that the
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 309
of division between the Christian Democrats and the Communist op-
position are such as to reduce consensus rather than increase it. In South
Africa, a division into two parties largely based on two ethnic groups,
the Afrikaner Nationalists and English United Party, is destructive of
national unity and democratic norms. 40
In general, where the class struggle is superimposed upon a conflict
between religion and irreligion, or between different ethnic groups
wherever opposing groups see elections as a fight between good and evil,
so that conversion from one political faith to another is almost impos-
sible a two-party system is more destructive of political stability than is
one which center parties can mediate between extreme opponents. Con-
sequently, though it may be validly argued that a two-party system makes
for a more stable and effective democratic polity than a multi-party one,
this is true only if both actors in the system accord a certain degree of
legitimacy to each other; each party must be willing to view the other
as an acceptable alternative government.
Considerations such as these have led many to suggest that a system of
proportional representation, though making for more parties, may help
to unify a nation of low consensus by forcing all parties to look for votes
in every major group and region in the country. A committee of the
United States Senate urged this view as early as 1869, arguing that the
Civil War might have been avoided if the electoral system had permitted
minorities in the North and South who agreed with dominant opinion in
the other regions to elect representatives. The committee argued that the
absence of minority representation "in the states of the South when
rebellion was plotted, and when open steps were taken to break the
Union, was unfortunate, for it would have held the Union men of these
two major parties, though based on the same groups as before 1934, have
much more support today within "opposition strata" than their predecessors
did. Thus the conservative People's party is much stronger today among
workers, residents of Vienna, Protestants, and irreligious people, than was
the pre-1934 Christian Social party. Conversely, the Socialists, though weaker
in Vienna, are much stronger in die outlying provinces than earlier, and they
have considerably increased their vote among peasants. Paralleling the growth
of the two parties within segments once overwhelmingly opposed to them has
been a sharp decline in ideological cleavage. The conservative party is no
longer a Christian or Catholic party, and the Socialists have dropped their
adherence to Marxist doctrine. See Walter B. Simon, "Politische Ethik und
Politische Struktur," Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie,
11 (1959), pp. 445-459.
40 Carter, op. en.
310 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
states together and have given them a voice. . . . Dispersed, unorganized,
unrepresented, without due voice and power, they could interpose no
effectual resistance to secession and to civil war." 41 John Humphreys sug-
gested that the same system of proportional representation, which is some-
times thought to have prevented stable two-party government in Belgium,
has actually reduced the conflict between the Flemish and Walloon
groups. Since all parties seek votes in both ethnic groups, the South
African pattern of parties representing distinct ethnic and language groups
is avoided. 42
The Swedish political scientist Herbert Tingsten has suggested, from
the experience of his own country, that a multi-party system rooted in
proportional representation lowers the vitality of political life by eliminat-
ing the slightly spurious dramatics which two-party elections can call
forth even among rather homogeneous and satisfied electorates. 43 This is
not incompatible with the supposed tendency of the multi-party system
to increase the purely numerical participation of the electorate. Thus,
when Switzerland changed in 1919 from a plurality system of elections
to proportional representation within cantons, not only did the number
of significant parties increase, but the average percentage of the eligible
electorate who voted jumped from 50 per cent to nearly 80 per cent.
The Swiss changeover was extremely revealing, as there were a number
of variations among the cantons which permitted some controlled com-
parisons. For example, in those cantons which had previously been "safe
seats" for one party under the plurality system, only 30 to 40 per cent
of the eligible electorate had voted before proportional representation.
The vote in these previously "safe" cantons doubled after the change in
the system. However, in comparable safe cantons which elected only one
member to the national parliament, so that proportional representation
could not alter the result, participation did not increase and remained at
about 40 per cent. A somewhat similar situation occurred with comparable
41 Cited in John H. Humphreys, Proportional Representation, A Study in
Methods of Election (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 58.
42 Ibid., p. 57. A similar point is made by Maurice Duverger in Uinfluence
des systemes electoraux sur la vie politique (Paris: Armand Colin, 1950),
pp. 39-40; see also Lakeman and Lambert, Voting in Democracies, pp. 63-64.
The latter contend also that "an instance of the unifying effect of proportional
representation is Czechoslovakia after the first world war, where representation
of their respective minorities prevented what might have been a sharp cleavage
between Bohemia and Slovakia." Loc cit.
43 Herbert Tingsten, "Stability and Vitality in Swedish Democracy," The
Political Quarterly, 26 (1955), pp. 140-151.
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 311
results in Norway in 192 1. 44 A situation in which every vote "counts"
seems to increase both the concern of the voter with the need to partici-
pate and the concern of the parties with the reactions of all voters.
The differences between the two types of party system must be tested
also for their capacity to provide generalized leadership in return for
generalized support, to serve as the interchange mechanism between the
solidary groups of society and the wielders of political power. The experi-
ences of Western industrial society suggest that, in general, a two-party
system is much the better adapted to these needs.
The ability of the two-party system to provide for generalized leader-
ship is closely linked to the fact that one party always represents the
government and actually rules the country, so that the party in power
temporarily becomes identical with the State. Both parties are organized
to be able to take full responsibility, at home and abroad, for the conduct
of the nation's affairs; the opposition is always conscious of its role as the
government of tomorrow, and in order to be able to govern it must look
beyond electoral victory to its chance of inspiring at least some confidence
among the supporters of the other party. Insofar as the party itself
overtly represents interests, these are represented within the party and
disciplined by the necessity of being able to govern in the national
interest; the same applies to the party's relationship with pressure groups.
A party, in these circumstances, is above all a way of organizing citizens
to take part in public affairs. It is clearly damaging to a party, especially
to the party in power, if it appears in a light where its opponents can
accuse it of obvious favoritism to a group of party supporters. Further,
since the legitimacy of a party rests ultimately upon its actual or potential
effectiveness as a national government, there is strong pressure on both
parties in a two-party system to reduce or eliminate ideology as a basis for
political decision. The access of a given party to the full power of the
state is quite straightforward so long as almost everyone is convinced that
it will use that power to solve problems from a national standpoint.
In contrast to the two-party system, where each party tries to appear
as a plausible representative of the whole society, multi-party systems
have been mainly based upon the premise that a party should consciously
represent the private interests of a section of the population. Only the
State, and no one party, can claim to represent the interests of the whole.
Thus individuals are citizens, and enjoy public roles, in relation only
to the State, not to the party; and patriotism tends to be found only in
44 Herbert Tingsten, Political Behaviour (London: P. S. King, 1937), pp.
219-220, 224-225.
312 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
action which "transcends" party, rather than as a value which can infuse
party action as such. As a result, bourgeois and peasant parties have tended
to reflect rather than sublimate the incivisme of their constituents. Minor-
ity working-class parties have often regarded constitutionalism the basis
of any notion of public interest as a matter of socially irrelevant techni-
calities, and parties of the right have been tempted to aspire to a position
"above parties."
But while almost all minority parties in a multi-party system could
ideologically reject responsibility for the political community at large,
many have in fact found themselves wielding State power in coalition
governments. The consequent divorce between party symbols and party
actions for all who participate in coalitions, and the bargaining necessary
to 1511 public offices and obtain parliamentary support, may lead to
cynicism or to attitudes resembling that unmediated attachment to abstrac-
tions which, as Philip Selznick argues, is a source of irresponsibility,
extremism, and manipulability in mass society. 45 These extreme mani-
festations have, of course, appeared in some multi-party systems only
under conditions of stress. It seems likely, however, that multi-party
systems accentuate the development of such dangerous traits, while two-
party systems are better able to resist political and civic irresponsibility
on the part of different solidary groups and their representatives.
While the two-party system has these great advantages, under certain
conditions a multi-party system may produce a relatively permanent
coalition cabinet which adequately reflects the main groupings of
society and can effectively interchange leadership and support. In such
systems all parties become, in a sense, "State parties." This development
seems to have occurred in Switzerland and, to a lesser degree, in Austria,
Uruguay, Benelux, and the Scandinavian countries. There is some reason
to anticipate that the Swiss "solution" to the problem of multi-party
government the inclusion of all democratic parties in the cabinet, so that
issues are fought out there as well as in the parliament may spread to
other countries as well.
Conclusion
Political sociologists tend to regard formal political devices as peripheral
items, having little effect upon the main features of societies. One purpose
of this chapter has been to distinguish between the more "natural"
45 Philip Selznick, The Organizational Weapon (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1952), pp. 276-291.
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 313
elements in the social structure, derivative from the value system discussed
in the earlier parts of this book, which influence the political process and
the enacted rules which help determine the nature of parties and of rep-
resentation. As we have seen in the American example, constitutions and
electoral systems are the outcome of particular decisions which may
permanently affect the type of social system which a country develops.
It is especially important to emphasize this at a time when men in various""
new nations are trying to set up democratic procedures and to foster an
open society. For sociologists to treat formal political structures as
epiphenomena is not only wrong from a theoretical point of view, but
may also reinforce the appeal of a vulgar Marxism which would have
democracy wait solely upon economic development.
On the other side, it is fairly obvious that a simple change in electoral
laws cannot guarantee the transformation of a multi-party system into
a two-party one. In unstable multi-party countries, the alternative to
numerous, rather rigid parties has been the rassemblement (rally) type
of organization, which, while possessing a loose structure, has also just
those authoritarian traits which its purpose demands. Movements of
this type arise because parliamentary democracy has failed to produce
effective leadership, and since their purpose is to establish a new source
of authority in their leader's charisma, they are often opposed to democ-
racy itself.
This brings us back to a consideration of the problem of authority in
relation to party systems. Democratic stability, as I noted in the Intro-
duction, requires that the source of authority be out of reach of any of
the .contending. parties, which should aspire to become the agents of
authority, not its creators? In all stable democracies we do in fact find
an insritutJQnalized separation of the source from the agencies of au-
. thority. In the stable parliamentary monarchies~~of "Northern Europe
and die Commonwealth, the monarchy remains the latent source of
authority, effectively divorced from its exercise. 46 In the United States
and Switzerland, since their systems acquired a traditional legitimacy
46 See Lipset, Political Man, pp. 77-96. As Walter Bagehot put it almost a
century ago: "The functions of royalty are for the most part latent. It seems
to order, but it never seems to struggle. . . . The nation is divided into parties,
but the crown is of no party. Its apparent separation from business is that
which removes it both from enmities and from desecration, which preserves
its mystery, which enables it to combine the affection of conflicting parties
to a visible symbol of unity." The English Constitution (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1958), p. 40. Bagehot's use of the distinction between mani-
fest and latent activities and functions is, I think, one of the first uses of these
concepts in social science.
314 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
through prolonged effectiveness, it was the constitution that became the
supreme symbol of authority. And in contrast to France and many other
countries, the American and Swiss constitutions are beyond the direct
reach of the elected representatives and are not easily amended. It is
unthinkable that they can be abolished or fundamentally revised.
Two-party democracy, therefore, in addition to an electoral system
which tends to polarize the electorate, requires that: 1) the groups
composing the two potentially dominant parties not be committed to
incompatible ideologies; and 2) the source and agents of authority be
institutionally and legitimately separated, so that neither major party
can aspire to become the source of authority.
It would therefore appear that those countries with multi-party systems,
in which the possibility of change to a two-party system exists, are in
fact those which already have fairly efficient ways of exchanging leader-
ship and support. In none of the chronically unstable democracies are the
source and agencies of authority sufficiently separate to insure against
a sudden authoritarian turn.
But although too great a faith in the manipulation of electoral laws
cannot be justified, some conclusions for action may be drawn: to create
democracy it may be necessary to use the legal system to exclude those
who would destroy it Thus the French double ballot, in which the
democratic parties could unite for the second ballot against an opponent
of the system, limited both the participation and the strength of the
Communists and Fascists in the 1930's. 47 Such a system in Weimar
Germany would obviously have kept the Nazis out of the Reichstag in
the 1920's and reduced the parliamentary strength of the Communists to
insignificance. It would have guaranteed a large democratic majority in
the election of 1930, and even in 1932. 48
The question is most urgent in the new states of Africa and Asia.
There, tie source and agencies of authority are not separated. In none
of these countries do the underlying structural conditions exist for a
stable democratic party system, either two-party or multi-party. 49 Lack
47 Michel Debre, the first prime minister of the Fifth Republic, argued in
1947 that the Fourth Republic would inevitably collapse because it used pro-
portional representation. See his La mort de Vetat republicain (Paris: Galli-
mard, 1947).
48 Dankwart Rustow, "Some Observations on Proportional Representation,"
The Journal of Politics, 12 (1950), pp. 107-127.
49 For a general theoretical discussion of how to deal with these problems
comparatively, see Francis X. Sutton, "Representation and the Nature of
Political Systems," Contemporary Studies in Society and History, 2 (1959),
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 315
of experience and leadership, illiteracy, poverty, traditional cultures and
status structures, dependence upon primary products which often pro-
vide insufficient resources for expensive government all militate against
parliamentary rule. These strains are frequently intensified by the lack of
any sense of historical unity, and by the conjunction of all the tensions
of rapid industrialization with the opportunities for demagogic license
afforded by universal suffrage. A further major factor is the differential
impact of Communism, Russian or Chinese, upon these emerging polities.
Whether it appears as an imperialistic threat, as a tempting solution to
urgent and overwhelming problems, or as a source of irresponsible
exploitation of discontent, it adds to the already formidable obstacles to
peaceful democratic growth. Under these conditions, the form of one-
party "democratic" government which is emerging in many of these
countries may hold some hope for the future. Such parties tend to be
loosely structured, more like a rassemblement than a party of ideology or
interest. They combine a number of interests and strata, either through"
the charisma of the leader or through the original need for unity in the
struggle for independence. Charisma, as has been noted, is necessary if the
system is to survive in its early stages, and the absence of opposition may
prove beneficial if it preserves the often frail mystique upon which au-
thority depends. Such opposition as does exist must remain factional, even
where it has a nominal right of appeal to the electorate. Other parties may
be permitted, as in Ghana, Tunisia, and Mexico (the model in this pattern
for other underdeveloped societies), but they cannot be allowed a chance
of electoral victory. Any failure in effectiveness and there are bound
to be many may become grounds for challenging the entire system if an
opposition can hope to gain mass support and power.
Ever since the rise of Sun Yat-sen in China, many leaders of such
states have spoken of their particular type of government as a "guided"
or a "tutelary" democracy. Unlike Communists or other totalitarians,
these leaders have as their point of reference, and their image of the good
society, not a one-party state or a society without internal conflict, but
rather the existing stable Western democracies. They regard the existence
of opposition, free elections, and public criticism as ideals to be attained.
Turkey, for example, has already developed from a one-party into a two-
party state, and Mexico seems to be moving gradually in the same
pp. 1-10. For a detailed description of the party systems and elections in
various African states, see W. J. M. Mackenzie and K. E. Robinson, eds.,
Five Elections in Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960).
316 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
direction. 50 The dominant parties in both states have tolerated much
internal diversity, and acknowledged their opponents' rights to discussion
and organization while at the same time denying them a chance of
electoral victory.
Democracy cannot be created by fiat. It grew through many centuries
in the West, during which time the concept of representation changed
greatly, and the norms regulating the access of different groups to govern-
mental power were slowly modified in the course of great social and
political upheavals. As Max Weber pointed out, democracy must be
regarded as a process rather than as an attribute which a system does or
does not possess. In his view, democratization involves two traits: 1)
"prevention of the development of a closed status group of officials in
the interest of a universal accessibility of office, and 2) minimization of
the authority of officialdom in the interest of expanding the sphere of
influence of 'public opinion' as far as practicable." 51
In Western societies the absolute power and charismatic authority of
the monarch were gradually eroded, mainly through pressure from groups
who were consciously loyal to the monarchy. The title of His Majesty's
Loyal Opposition echoes this development. Similarly, in some of the
dominant charismatic parties of the underdeveloped states, the growth
of politically significant solidary groups and of restrictions on the author-
ity of officials has been taking place 'within the ruling party, much as in
an earlier age it took place under the shadow of the monarchy. In
Mexico, to take the most developed case of this phenomenon, these
groups have been brought into the Partido, often as formally affiliated
groupings for example, trade unions and professional associations. As
was true in the monarchies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
which were in transition from absolutism to constitutionalism, consider-
able factionalism exists in many of these parties, which gives the different
groups within them access to power. "Insofar as factions develop freely
inside a single party this becomes simply a framework which limits"
political rivalries without destroying them; prohibited outside the single
50 See Duverger, Political Parties, pp. 275-280; Robert E. Scott, Mexican
Government in Transition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1959), espe-
cially pp. 145-243; and Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey's Politics: The Transition
to a Multi-Party System (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959).
51 H. H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, eds., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), p. 226. These concepts are
elaborated in an unpublished seminar paper by Patricia Richmond, "Democ-
racy and Party: The Problem of Political Stability in the Mexican 'One-Party'
System," which has influenced my thinking on these issues.
Party Systems and the Representation of Social Groups 317
party, pluralism is reborn within the party, and there it can play the
same part." 52 An analysis of the political changes in Mexico over the past
three decades concludes:
Intra-party pluralism has produced the following stabilizing conse-
quences in present-day industrial Mexico . . . : an increase in the
organizational strength of significant secondary groupings; an in-
crease in the legitimacy of the system and of the incumbents; an
increase in the representation of all the significant segments in society
with a corresponding decrease in the arbitrary power of the presi-
dent as well as an increase in his resourcefulness; and an increase in
the legitimacy and tolerance of opposition groups. 53
To justify the manipulation of political systems so as to limit the
rights of opposition in underdeveloped states, or to deny the rights of
anti-democratic forces to equal representation, may seem itself to be a
basic denial of democracy. But as the Founding Fathers of the American
Republic well recognized, the problem of democracy is not simply to
maximize popular influence on government policy; it also involves find-
ing the best way to protect the stability of the political systemt^fhey
sought to safeguard the infant republic by framing a constitution which
would favorably "prejudice the outcome of democracy," and which
would reduce "the likelihood that the majority would decide certain
political issues in bad ways." 54
Wherever democracy has not been institutionalized, whether in the
old states of Europe or the new states of Asia and Africa, it is important
to recognize that particukjupolitical foams, will not_emege automatically
in response to dey.dQpnients in other parts of the sociaLaystem. 55 Whether
these states develop a stable interchange of leadership and support in a
democratic framework also depends in part on the rules they adopt for
their polities. The study of the social effects of diverse constitutional
arrangements should remain a major concern for the student of politics
and comparative institutions.
62 Duverger, Political Parties, p. 278.
53 Patricia Richmond, "Democracy and Party," p. 29.
54 Martin Diamond, "Democracy and The Federalist: A Reconsideration of
the Framers* Intent," American Political Science Review, 53 (1959), pp. 56-57.
55 For a detailed analysis of the factors which influence political forms in
these societies, see Edward Shils, Political Development in the New States
(The Hague: Mouton, 1962); see also S. N. Eisenstadt, "Sociological Aspects
of Political Development in New States," in his Essays on Sociological Aspects
of Political and Economic Development (The Hague: Mouton, 1961), pp.
9-53.
Epilogue: Some Personal
Views on Equality,
Inequality, and Compara-
tive Social Science
10
This book has had two major purposes, a substantive one and a
methodological one. The second purpose is discussed later in this chapter.
Substantively, it has sought to present a perspective on American
society, first, by looking at it historically and, second, by showing how
it differs from other modern Western States. Essentially, I have argued
that the American Creed, with its emphasis on equality and opportunity,
is still a dynamic part of the culture. The concern for equality still de-
termines how Americans interact with each other. The "other-directed-
ness" of Americans, the flattery, the use of first names among people who
hardly know each other or are in a superior-subordinate relation, the
elaborate efforts to avoid hurting the feelings of others, all reflect the
fact that deeply rooted in our values is the mandate that all men should
respect one another.
The accounts of visitors from abroad continue to support the conten-
tion that the two emphases, on equality (respect for others) and achieve-
ment (competition), are clearly linked together in the United States.
Recently, some Canadian academic friends who spent a year in Cali-
fornia told me how impressed they were with the effect of one year
in an American junior high school on the outiook of their eleven-
Epilogue 319
year-old daughter. The girl, who did extremely well in school, had
looked down on her less able schoolmates back home in Vancouver. In
California, according to my friends, she developed much more respect
for her classmates, regardless of intellectual achievement. Her parents
felt this new respect taught her by the American school did not lead
to a reduction in her intellectual interests or her concern for knowledge.
Rather, both strands were present in the American school the need to
do well, and the need to respect others with lesser ability.
Similar impressions were reported by a South African writer, Dan
Jacobson, now a resident of Britain, who lived for a year in an American
surburban community. 1 He was particularly struck with the extent to
which the elementary school system tried to foster a concern for the
feelings of others. Thus, he reports that his seven-year-old daughter came
home one day with the request that she bring twenty-three valentines to
school for St. Valentine's Day. Her teacher wanted each child in the
class to receive the same number of cards. She was concerned that no
child should feel deprived or that he was not liked.
The comments of two European Marxists, one a pro-Soviet fellow
traveler and the other a Polish sociologist and member of the Communist
party, are also relevant here. The first, an Englishwoman whom I saw in
Britain shortly after her return from six months in the United States,
reported that a visit to America always brings home to her the class-
differentiated character of British society. In America a well-educated
member of the upper middle class will discuss politics or other such topics
with a cab driver, a hairdresser, and others at that occupational level;
but in Britain, a person from the upper middle class still finds it difficult
to interact informally with people that far below him in the social scale.
When viewed in comparison with America, Britain even in the 1960's
remains a rigidly stratified society.
The Polish Communist's comments were perhaps even more note-
worthy. He knows English extremely well and had written about some
aspects of American society before his first visit here. I saw him in
Warsaw after he had spent a year in America, and he remarked that
much to his surprise he had felt much more at home, more at ease in
social relations, in the South than in other parts of the United States.
This reaction naturally puzzled him, since he was bitterly hostile to the
pattern of race relations in southern life and thought he disliked every-
thing the South stood for. On thinking the matter through, he realized
1 Dan Jacobson, No Further West: California Visited (New York: Macmillan,
1961).
320 Democracy In Comparative Perspective
that the reason for his apparently contradictory feelings was that inter-
personal relations in the South race relations apart were more like
those of Europe, including Communist Poland, than those of the northern
states, The fact that the South is a caste society not only defines Negro-
white relations but also affects the pattern of life within white society
as well. Thus this Polish sociologist reported that there is much less
informality between superiors and inferiors among southern whites than
among northern ones. Southern white children show more respect to
adults than do those in the North, there is more formality in relations
between the sexes in the South than in the North, and persons in higher
status occupations are shown more deference in the South than in the
North. The American South, in other words, places more emphasis on
elitism, on ascription, on particularism, and on diffuseness, than does the
North, and this makes the South more like Europe than are other parts
of the United States.
In much of Europe, for example, diffuse elitism requires that subordi-
nates address superiors with the impersonal form of "you" (Sie in
German and vous in French), while one of higher status will address one
of lower, such as an employee or a servant, with the more personal
form, which is also the form used in speaking to children (Du in German
and tu in French). In the American South, a similar pattern is followed.
Although English has only one form of "you," whites address Negroes by
their first names, that is, familiarly, as if speaking to a child, while a
Negro must always call a white man "Mister." And a study of Soviet
literature indicates that this indicator of the existence of diffuse superior
status continues in Communist Russia. Alexander Gerschenkron finds "in
Kruzilikha and elsewhere in Soviet fiction that the manager, in addressing
subordinates, uses the time-consecrated feudal ty (thou), while the
subordinates use the respectful vy (you)." 2 Given the continuation of
pre-revolutionary forms of interpersonal relationships after many decades
of Communism in Russia it is not surprising that even a committed
Polish Communist should find that the more ascriptive and elitist South
is more like his homeland, in terms of social relations, than is the more
equalitarian area of the United States.
Because equality and achievement have been linked throughout
America's development as a nation, the concept of equality has had a
special character. As David Potter has stressed, "the American ideal and
practice of equality ... has implied for the individual . . . opportunity
2 Alexander Gerschenkron, "Economic Life in Soviet Literature," in Alex
Inkeles and Kent Geiger, eds., Soviet Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1961), p. 401.
Epilogue 321
to make his own place in society and . . . emancipation from a system
of status." 3 It must be emphasized that the American concept of equality,
which focuses on opportunity and the quality of social relations, does
not demand equality of income. This fact, as Potter has well pointed
out, has been one of the sources of confusion concerning the very use
of the term "equality" to describe aspects of the American reality.
[T]he connotations [of the term "equality"] to an American are
quite unlike what they might be to a European. A European advocat-
ing equality might very well mean that all men should occupy posi-
tions that are roughly the same level in wealth, power, or enviability.
But the American, with his emphasis upon equality of opportunity,
has never conceived of it in this sense. He has traditionally expected
to find a gamut ranging from rags to riches, from tramps to mil-
lionaires. . . . Thus equality did not mean uniform position on a
common level, but it did mean universal opportunity to move
through a scale which traversed many levels. . . . The emphasis upon
unrestricted latitude as the essence of equality in turn involved a
heavy emphasis upon liberty as an essential means for keeping the
scale open and hence making equality a reality as well as a theoreti-
cal condition. ... As for social distinctions, certainly they exist; but
whatever their power may be, social rank can seldom assert an
open claim to deference in this country, and it usually makes at
least a pretense of conformity to equalitarian ways. 4
The focus on the ideology of equal opportunity for each individual
has made Americans relatively insensitive to gross inequalities of income
and wealth in their country. If the stress on equality serves to moderate
relations among those who are unequal in class position, it may be argued
that this very emphasis, which leads Americans to speak of their country
as a "classless society," may serve to inhibit efforts to reduce inequality in
the economic system through political and other means.
Inequality in America
The United States, like all other nations, has an enormous concentration
of personal wealth in the hands of relatively few individuals. The most
recent detailed investigation of the subject, which is based on estate tax
records, estimates that the group of persons who ". . . have had $60,000
3 David M. Potter, People of Plenty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1954), p. 91.
4 Ibid., pp. 91-92, 96.
322 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
Table VIII
Distribution of Total Family Personal Income Among Consumer
Units Grouped by Size of Income Per Unit, Selected Years, 1929-
1959, After Deduction of Federal Income Tax Liability
Income Groups as
Fifths of the Population
1929
1941
1951
1954
1959
Lowest and next
lowest fifth
Third
Fourth
Top fifth
Per Cent
12.6
13.9
19.5
54.0
14.2
15.9
23.1
46.9
17.3
17.2
22.8
42.7
16.9
17.1
22.8
43.2
16.3
16.8
23.1
43.8
Top 5 per cent
29.5
21.5
18.4
18.3
17.8
Average after-tax income
per unit (1960 prices)
$4,160
$4,360
$5,070
$5,340
$6,040
Source: Simon Kwsnets^ "Income "Distribution and Changes in Consumption," in
H. S. Simpson, ed^ The Changing American Population (New York: Institute
for Life Insurance, 1961) , p. 30.
or more of gross estate in 1953 comprised 1.04 per cent of the total popu-
lation, and 1.6 per cent of the adult population. This group of top wealth-
holders held over a quarter of the total personal wealth. . . ." 5 This finding
is substantiated by the 1953 Survey of Consumer Finances, which dealt
with net worth; it reported that those with $60,000 or more constituted
3 per cent of all spending units, and that they held 30 per cent of total
assets. 6 Efforts to estimate changes in the pattern of inequality in personal
wealth indicate that between 1922 and 1929 the top one per cent of the
population, in terms of wealth, increased their share from 33.9 to 38.8
per cent However, this share dropped considerably during the 1930's
and 1940's; it fell to 33.8 per cent in 1939 and 22.8 per cent in 1949.
Between 1949 and 1953, the last year reported in this analysis, the top
one per cent gained somewhat, owning 27.4 per cent of all personal assets,
but was still considerably below 1929. 7
Simon Kuznets finds that the proportion of the wealth going to the
bottom section of the population has increased since 1929, while the
upper groups' portion (the top fifth and top 5 per cent) dropped con-
5 Robert J. Lampman, The Share of Top Wealth-Holders in National Wealth
1922-1956 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 191,
//>#., p. 195. 7 F
7 1 bid., p. 209.
Epilogue 323
siderably during the 1930's and 1940's. Table VTII shows the distribution
of income from selected years after 1929. Most recently, a comparison
of data from the various censuses, including that of 1960, suggests similar
conclusions. Herman Miller of the Census Bureau concludes that, since
the end of the war, income distribution "has not changed significantly." 8
The data reported by Lampman, Kuznets, and Miller suggest that the
tendency to reduce the relative disproportion in income between the
higher and lower groups which characterized the 1930's and 1940's has
ended, and may even be moving slightly in the reverse direction. Given
the widespread opportunities to increase family income available to the
growing middle-class and white-collar strata, there has been a general
reluctance to press for an extension of an egalitarian-oriented progressive
taxation policy, such as that fostered during the Roosevelt depression
and wartime era. In fact, changes in tax legislation have served to reduce
the severity of taxes. "Most noteworthy among the latter changes was
the introduction of the marital deduction on the estate tax, and the
extension to residents of all states of community property rights for both
federal income and gift tax purposes in 1948." 9 This change in national
mood with regard to tax policy probably reflects one of the fluctuations
in relative emphasis on the values of equalitarianism and achievement
discussed in Chapter 3. In a period of high levels of employment and
economic opportunity, the concern for achievement, for incentives,
becomes greater than that for equality.
It is far from certain, however, that the egalitarian trend with respect
to income is disappearing. The largest "occupational" group among the
lowest fifth in income is made up of those without regular employment,
the large majority of whom are retired. And this tendency for the
retired to form an increasingly larger segment of the low-income group
may serve to conceal a continued move toward equality of income among
those in the labor force. As Kuznets puts it:
This trend towards the domination of the lowest group of consumer
units by retired family heads reflects the spread of social insurance
and the "splitting up" of consumer units, the separation of genera-
tions [parents and children living apart after the latter go to work].
. . . Splitting up would, all other conditions being equal, widen the
inequality in the distribution of income among consumer units as
8 Herman Miller, "Is the Income Gap Closed? TSTo!'" The New York Times
Magazine, (November 11, 1962), p. 50.
9 Lampman, The Share of Top Wealth-Holders . . . , p. 239.
324 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
measured; for it would create an increasingly large group of units at
the lower end of the distribution, whose needs are relatively modest,
and whose drive toward or capacity for substantial earnings is
limited.
If reaching retirement age means passing the optimum earning
phase of one's life and declining into a position below the average
not unlike that held in the early stages of life, i.e., before the
acquisition of experience and maturity, the separation of aged heads
from the younger consumer units only lengthens the lower tail of
the income distribution and makes for greater measured inequality
than would be the case if retired folks continued to live with their
children in one consuming unit. Inequality would also be intensified
if splitting up of the very young into separate consumer units in-
creased, since their income also would be much below the average.
. . . The point to be stressed is that in so far as splitting up began in
the 1930's and continued thereafter, inequality in the distribution of
income among consumer units declined until 1947 and was constant
thereafter despite the underlying trend in the structure of consum-
ing units. In other words, even in the 1950's there may have been
forces making for narrower income inequality, but their effects may
have been offset by the greater fractionalization of consuming units
at both ends of the age distribution of heads, i.e., the very old and
the very young, and at one end of the income distribution, i.e., the
low one. 10
But whatever the inequality in personal wealth and income in the
United States, it remains true that in spite of the activities of the 1945-
1951 Labour government, Britain is not only less egalitarian in its value
system but also evidences greater disparities in distribution of wealth.
"In 1945-47 the top 1.5 per cent of adults owned 53 per cent of the
total wealth in England and Wales, while in 1953 the top 1.5 per cent
10 Simon Kuznets, "Income Distribution and Changes in Consumption," in
H. S. Simpson, ed., The Changing American Population (New York: Institute
of Life Insurance, 1962), pp. 36-37. The magnitude of the effect of retire-
ment on any discussion of income distribution can be realized when it is
noted that, while the longevity of the population has been constantly rising,
so that those over sixty-five constitute an increasing portion of the population,
from 1890 to 1960 the proportion of men in this age group who are still in
the labor force declined from more than two-thirds to less than a third.
"Between 1950 and 1960 the percentage declined steeply, from 41.4 to 30.5."
Philip M. Hauser, "More from the Census of 1960," Scientific American,
207 (October 1962), p. 35.
Epilogue 325
of adults in the United States owned only 27 per cent of the wealth." 11
A comparison based on sample survey data of the net worth of spending
units in both countries in 1953 supports these conclusions. In Britain, in
that year, the top one-tenth of the population held 75.7 per cent of the
total net worth, as contrasted with 56 per cent for the comparable group
in the United States. 12 And a recent study of wealth distribution in Great
Britain concludes that "the ownership of wealth, which is far more highly
concentrated in the United Kingdom than in the United States, has
probably become still more unequal and, in terms of family ownership,
possibly strikingly more unequal, in recent years." 13
While any discussion of equality cannot ignore the distribution of
wealth and income, it is important to recognize that the higher standard
of living of the majority in America, as compared with other countries,
may contribute to sustaining the characteristically American assumption
that no man may claim the right to generalized deference from another,
that no elite has the right to dominance outside of its area of very special
competence. The concern for equality may in some part be satisfied by
the fact that the United States is at the point where the majority of the
population can enjoy a high level of consumption. (The situation of the
minority of very poor will be discussed below.) In a real sense, in spite
of considerable inequality of wealth and income, the consumption indi-
cators of status become more equally distributed with a high national
wealth level. Thus in terms of 1960 prices, the average income per
American family rose from $4,160 in 1929 to $5,070 in 1951 and to
$6,040 in 1959. 14 "Between 1909 and 1929, consumer expenditure per
head rose almost 45 per cent, and from 1929 to 1958-60 another 52 per
cent." 15 Such increases, particularly when combined with a reduction in
relative wealth and in inequality of income, means a substantial shift in
the direction of equalizing consumption. And it is notable that the dis-
tribution of personal savings as well became much more equitable between
the 1920's and the 1950's. A comparison of the distribution of consumer
durables and property in the United States and Britain indicates that net
worth "is much more widely distributed in America than in Britain.
11 Lampman, The Share of Top Wealth-Holders . . . , p. 211.
15 /<*., p. 215.
13 Richard M. Titmuss, Income Distribution and Social Change (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1962), p. 198.
14 Kuznets, "Income Distribution and Changes in Consumption," op. cit., p. 30.
Ibid., p. 46.
326 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
There are comparatively few Americans who own nothing [15 per
cent]: there are many Britons who own nothing [34 per cent]. . . ," 16
[T]he over-all difference between the British and American patterns
of property ownership is largely attributable to differences between
the lower-paid occupations in the two countries. Property is more
widely held in America than in Britain, not because the higher-paid
occupations have more property in America, but because more
manual workers, more clerical and sales workers, and more retired
and unoccupied persons have property in America. . . .
These figures suggest that in respect of property ownership there
is more difference between the social classes in Britain than in the
United States. . . . British spending units headed by managers and
technical employees have net worth which is more than twice the
all-British average, while American spending units in this group
have net worth only slightly above the all-American average. At the
other extreme, British manual worker spending units especially
skilled manual workers are relatively badly off. The gap between
them and the managers is very great, while in America it is only
moderate. 17
While the American distribution of 'wealth seems less steep than in
Britain, and seemingly less than some other European nations for which
data exist, the variations in income in the United States are among the
highest in the world. As was noted earlier in the discussion of trade-
union policy, the stress placed on achievement in America seemingly
fosters a concern with, and an acceptance of, relatively large differences
in pay among those of varying skills, responsibility, and power. It is
interesting to note, therefore, that the other great nation which places
high stress on the value of achievement, the Soviet Union, seems com-
parable to the United States in inequality of income. This is true, both
with respect to differences in reward for varying levels of worker skills,
and in variations between incomes of factory managers and workers. The
economist David Granick has recently concluded:
Managers comprise part of the high-income group of Soviet society,
just as they do in the United States. ... In terms of income in-
equality the relation between worker and manager in Russia and
16 Harold Lydall and John B. Lansing, "A Comparison of the Distribution of
Personal Income and Wealth in the United States and Great Britain," The
American Economic Review, 49 (1959), p. 59.
Epilogue 327
in the United States does not differ too gready. Pre-tax, the Ameri-
can manager would be a bit ahead; but then his income tax is
higher. 18
Comparisons such as these, of course, ignore the social implications of
the fact that a majority of the American population earn enough to
purchase some form of the "good" things of die society, a fact which
is certainly not true of the Soviet Union or of most other nations. But
if the greater absolute level of income makes possible a more comparable
style of life among the classes, this pattern of seeming equality in social
relations is perhaps facilitated even more by what is probably the most
equitably distributed item in America from a comparative point of view
education. The pressures to equalize educational facilities reflect the
emphasis on both equality and achievement, and these pressures are still
operating.
Between 1910 and 1960, according to United States Census data, the
proportion of sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds attending school increased
from 43.1 to 80.9 per cent And the enrollment of those of post-high
school age, eighteen and nineteen years old, as full time students jumped
from 18.7 to 42.2 per cent. 19 The sharp increase in the educational attain-
ments of the American people may be seen in a comparison of the
educational achievements of a 1959 national sample of heads of families
(Table IX). Only 15 per cent of the youngest group did not go on to
high school, as compared with 53 per cent of the oldest one, while 30 per
cent of those under thirty-four have attended college as contrasted with
17 per cent among those over fifty-four years old. These figures under-
estimate the increase in education among those eighteen to thirty-four
years old, since the sample cited is one based on heads of families, and
consequently the unmarried college students who are still supported by
their parents are not included in the returns.
Today, over two-thirds of all Americans in the relevant age groups
graduate from high school, and over one-third enters colleges or uni-
versities. These proportions are even higher in the wealthier urbanized
18 David Granick, "Soviet- American Management Comparisons," U.S. Con-
gress, Joint Economic Committee, Subcommittee on Economic Statistics, 86th
Congress, Comparisons of the United States and Soviet Economcs, Part I
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1959), p. 144. See also
Herbert McClosky and John E. Turner, The Soviet Dictatorship (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1960), pp. 384-385.
19 Hauser, "More from the Census of I960," op. cit., p. 33.
328 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
Table K
Education and Age, 1959
55 and older
35 to 54
18 to 34
Education
(Born Before
1905)
(Born
1905-1925)
(Bora
1925-1942)
Per Cent
None
4
1
Grades 1 through 8
Grades 9 through 11
Grade 12
49
17
8
26
23
18
15
23
21
Grade 12 plus non-academic
courses
5
11
11
Some college or more
17
21
30
Source: James N. Morgan, Martin H. David, Wilbur J. Cohen and Harvey E.
Brazer, Income and Welfare in the United States (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962),
p. 332.
northern and western states. In California, well over 40 per cent of all
college age youth enter an institution of higher learning. But even such
figures as these do not satisfy the American passion to equalize opportu-
nity. A Presidential Commission on Higher Education set as a desirable
and attainable objective that two-thirds of the college age population
should attend such institutions. And the various public agencies are plan-
ning to enlarge facilities to reach that figure in die latter decades of this
century.
Since a college education is a necessary prerequisite for a place on the
bureaucratic ladder in business and government, it becomes essential to
Americans to tax themselves to provide such educational opportunities.
Evidence that Americans are more than willing to pay these costs may be
seen in the 1959 survey study cited in Table EX. When asked whether
taxes should pay more of the cost of higher education than they are now
doing, 52 per cent of the sample of 3,000 family heads said that they
should, while only 18 per cent favored decreasing the tax burden; 30 per
cent would continue the present policies. Those family heads with de-
pendent children were, not unexpectedly more in favor of increasing
taxes for college than those without them. However, even among the
latter group, 48 per cent favored higher taxes, as compared with 21 per
cent who supported a reduction. And even when the respondents were
differentiated according to income, the highest income group, those
earning $10,000 or more, showed many more favoring a tax increase
Epilogue 329
(41 per cent) than a cut (22 per cent). Strong Democratic partisans
were more likely than were committed Republicans to favor increasing
taxes for higher education (56 per cent to 40 per cent), but it is per-
haps more significant that many more Republicans favored raising taxes
than advocated a decrease. 20
The continued strength of liberal social and economic political forces
in the wealthiest nation of the world also attests to the continued signifi-
cance of the basic value system in the power arena. Some political experts
had seen Democratic and liberal strength primarily as an after-effect of the
Great Depression, and predicted that post-depression generations reared
in affluent America would vote Republican and conservative. 21 Such ana-
lysts saw in the election of Eisenhower in 1952 the beginning of a long-term
Republican era. But in fact, even during the Eisenhower years, the
Republicans could not elect a majority in either house of Congress (1952
apart), and they lost strength on the local level. In my judgment, it 'was
the prolonged post-Civil War Republican reign that 'was the major deviant
case in the general American political pattern of liberal domination. It was
brought about by the increment of Negro and northern white votes
which the Civil War gave to the Republicans as the party which freed
the slaves and saved the Union. Once the Republicans lost their hold on
groups won by these issues, the nation returned to the electoral patterns
set in the eras of Jefferson and Jackson, which ensure a normal majority
for the party of equality. Today, as before the Civil War, it is an
electoral handicap to be identified with the party of the elite. 22 Republican
candidates today, like Whig and Federalist candidates a century or more
ago, seek to run as personalities rather than as Republicans. In many states,
it is difficult to find the Republican label on the campaign literature of
20 James N. Morgan, Martin H. David, Wilbur J. Cohen and Harvey E.
Brazer, Income and Welfare in the United States (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1962), pp. 416-418.
21 Samuel Lubell, The Future of American Politics (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Anchor, 1956).
22 "In America, of course, status, as fixed differential social position, has long
been in disrepute. Ever since the Revolutionary War, it has borne the hateful
implications of privilege and subservience. . . . Thus status incurred obloquy,
and even the party of conservatism that is, the Republican party rejected it.
Probably nothing has contributed more to the weakness of the conservative
position in the United States than the fact that this principle, which the
great conservative leaders like Edmund Burke and Benjamin Disraeli have
recognized as the foundation stone of conservatism, has been so sharply re-
jected by American conservatives. . . ." Potter, People of Plenty y pp. 104-105.
330 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
that party's nominees. Democrats, on the other hand, recognize that the
party label, the label of the party of the common man, is an asset, and
they emphasize it.
Although the majority of employed Americans (primarily those in
white-collar jobs) do not belong to trade unions, and although unions
have been subject to continuous criticism as dictatorial, corrupt, and
excessively powerful organizations, efforts to hamper their activities have
been defeated by the electorate when subject to referenda in northern
and western industrial states. Goodly majorities, including the residents
of well-to-do suburban counties, have voted down anti-union "right-to-
work" kws. When the voters are asked to cast ballots on issues that are
defined as business versus unions, the latter almost invariably win. There
is a strong bias in favor of them as organizations protecting poor people
against wealthy business interests.
American egalitarianism is, of course, for white men only. The treat-
ment of the Negro makes a mockery of this value now as it has in the
past. During the early nineteenth century, when European leftists and
liberals were pointing to the United States as a nation which demonstrated
the viability of equality and democracy, America was also the land of
slavery. The trauma of slavery is deeply rooted in the American psyche.
The contradiction between the American value system and the way in
which the Negro has been treated has, if anything, forced many Ameri-
cans to think even more harshly of the Negro than they might if they
lived in a more explicitly ascriptive culture. There is no justification in an
egalitarian society to repress a group such as the Negroes unless they
are defined as a congenitafly inferior race. Therefore, Americans
have been under pressure either to deny the Negro's right to participate
in the society, because he is inferior, or to ignore his existence, to make
him an "invisible" man. The South has always insisted on the first
alternative. The North tried for many decades after the Civil War to
follow the second. But once the Negro appeared on the northern urban
scene with his demands for equality, there was no legitimate way to hold
him down. As Gunnar Myrdal has convincingly demonstrated in his An
American Dilemma, the American Creed is on the side of the Negro,
and even men who have strong prejudices against Negroes must assent
publicly to their rights. The pace is all too slow; the poison of anti-Negro
prejudice is a part of American culture, and almost all white Americans
have it, to a greater or lesser degree. White Americans can no more fail
to absorb anti-Negro sentiments than Christians can avoid assimilating
Epilogue 331
some anti-Semitic feelings. But racist sentiments are in sharp conflict
with American values and create a strain in the minds of Americans, a
strain which provides an important weapon for those pressing for Negro
equality.
It is important to note that what makes the Negro issue so difficult
of quick resolution, as compared to prejudice against various immigrant
groups, is that two centuries of slavery left the American Negro without
a stable family or community structure. 23 Existence under slavery also
resulted in a negative reaction to work or achievement. Working hard
led nowhere. Exhibiting or developing high intelligence often resulted in
punishment. These negative rewards for conforming to the normal
American achievement standards continued until deep into the present
century for most southern Negroes. Hence, the Negro now enters white
urban society at a much greater disadvantage than any white immigrant
group ever did. He appears "undesirable." The white community, there-
fore, continues to punish him for the sins which its forefathers committed
against his.
Perhaps the most important fact to recognize about the current situa-
tion of the American Negro is that equality is not enough to assure his
movement into the larger society. The greatest progress in the direction of
securing equal rights for Negroes has occurred since World War II, with
integration in the armed services, the Supreme Court's decision outlawing
segregation in schools and other public places, and the passage in various
northern states and cities of legislation designed to prevent discrimination
in employment and housing. In spite of all these gains, however, the
national median income for the non-white population in 1960 was only
54 per cent of that for whites. (It should be noted, however, that there
is a tremendous disparity between the South and the rest of the country.
Thus, southern non-whites average 43.4 per cent of the regional median
white income, while in the rest of the country the non-white median
income is 70 per cent of that received by whites. 24 ) On a national basis,
employed Negroes in 1960 received about 60 per cent of the income of
whites -2, figure that was almost identical to that of 1950. 25 Unemploy-
ment, which has been around 5 per cent of the labor force since 1958,
has been disproportionately concentrated among Negroes. As of mid-
year 1963, more than 10 per cent of Negroes were unemployed, and
23 Stanley Elkins, Slavery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959).
24 Hauser, "More from the Census of 1960," op. cit., p. 37.
25 Miller, "Is the Income Gap Closed? 'No!'" op. cit., pp. 50-52.
332 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
another 10 per cent had only part-time work. 26 One out of four Negroes
under nineteen years of age in the kbor force was unemployed.
The reasons for the Negro's seemingly slow rate of economic progress
do not lie solely in discrimination in the labor market. The fact that the
Negro population has a much lower level of education and skill means
that automation has been eliminating the very jobs in which Negroes are
concentrated. Fair employment legislation does little good if there are no
decent jobs available for which the bulk of Negroes are qualifed. Ac-
cording to the 1960 Census, 23.4 per cent of the non-white population
is functionally illiterate, <c unable to read a newspaper easily." 27 The
problem is a continuing one, since Negro youth do much less well than
whites in school. The low emphasis on achievement resulting from their
past, their weak family structure, and their segregated and inferior
schools, all adversely affect their capacity to gain from education. To
break this vicious cycle, it is necessary to treat the Negro more than
equally, to spend more money rather than equal amounts for Negro edu-
cation, to have smaller classes with better teachers in predominantly
Negro schools, to enlarge the scope of counseling and recreation facilities
available for Negro youth, and the like. The white community must be
forced to recognize its moral responsibility to subsidize the training of
Negroes. If the former imperialist nations such as France and Great
Britain now feel the responsibility to contribute to the economic develop-
ment of the successor states formed from their empires, white Americans
today should be prepared to assume responsibility for the educational
and economic development of the descendants of those whom earlier
white Americans dragooned from Africa to serve them as slaves.
The equalitarian pressures in American society obviously do not operate
independently of the minds of men, and they have meaning only insofar
as they affect behavior. The abolition of slavery did not occur simply
because it violated basic morality; it required a heroic struggle by the
abolitionists to activate the conscience of white America. White Ameri-
26 E. W. Kenworthy, "Rise in Negro Jobs Linked to Growth," The New
York Times, June 28, 1963, p. 1; John D. Pomfret, "Literacy Act Tied to
Equality," ibid. (Western Edition), p. 4.
27 Hauser, "More from the Census of 1960," op. cit., p. 34. In testifying before
Congress on the problem of Negro unemployment in July, 1963, Secretary
of Labor Willard Wirtz reported that 44 per cent of unemployed Negroes
had not finished the eighth grade. He stated that "many applicants for a
recent training program for janitors in the District of Columbia could not
read the labels on boxes of detergent and rat poison." Pomfret, op. cit.
Epilogue 333
cans, like all people, prefer to be left in peace; they do not want to be
told that their behavior violates their sense of right. Equalitarian values
are a force in the Negro's favor, but their efficacy depends on whether
men are willing to use them as political weapons. And while the Negroes
themselves have been a major force pressing for their rights, appealing to
the morality of the majority group, the very social and economic in-
equality of the Negroes reduces their political power. Like all depressed
and uneducated groups, Negroes vote less and participate less in
politically relevant organizations than do more advantaged groups. Even
the Negro Revolt of 1963 is largely the work of college students and
others from the middle-class Negro minority. Unless whites are willing
to take up their cause in order to force politicians, businessmen, labor
organizations, and other relevant groups to support the necessary meas-
ures, Negro inequality will remain a blot on the American claim to be
democratic and will prevent foreigners from recognizing how real and
significant is the national commitment to equalitarianism as is evidenced
in other spheres of American life.
While Negroes constitute the most visible example of economic and
social deprivation in the United States, they are joined at the bottom of
the economic ladder by a large white group. Various estimates, by
economists, government agencies, and labor organizations, of those living
in poverty in the United States have varied from 20 to 40 per cent of the
population. 28 Negroes constitute about 25 per cent of the poverty-
stricken, twice their proportion in the population, but are still out-
numbered by the poor whites.
The modern American poor are significantly different from the poor in
the economically less developed countries and in the past of this country.
They vary from the poor elsewhere in having a much higher absolute
standard of living. This fact, however, should not be a matter for self-
congratulation. The lowest fifth of the population of the United States
had an average income in 1958 of $1,460 per family. This is considerably
higher than the income per family in many nations, but the standard of
what constitutes a decent level of life obviously is much different for an
American than for an Iranian village dweller or for the resident of a
Chinese commune. Living in a nation in which success is expected of all,
28 For a discussion of these estimates and their sources see Michael Harrington,
The Other America: Poverty in the Unhed States (New York: Macmillan,
1962), pp. 175-101. The most comprehensive set of references to the literature
on this subject may be found in Morgan et al. } Income and Welfare in the
United States.
334 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
and in which the poor are aware that they live on a level much below
that of the great majority, must result in a sense of frustration, of
alienation from the society. It will be of a different order from that which
exists among those who must worry about enough food to eat and who see
some of their children die while young, but the sense of relative depriva-
tion, of personal inadequacy, may be greater than exists among the poor
in nations where they can feel that they are living a life akin to the ma-
jority of their fellow men. By the standards which the highest 60 per
cent of the American population use to define the modicum of a livable
existence, the poor, those with less than $3,000 to $5,000 a year income
(to take a low point which must vary with size of family) are living in
miserable conditions. They lack decent housing, a good diet, adequate
clothing, and, most important of all, the ability to have pride in them-
selves.
But the greater income, or the possibly increased sense of relative
deprivation, which characterizes the American poor as compared with
those elsewhere, is not the most significant fact about the condition of
this group in the United States of the 1960's. Rather, as John Kenneth
Galbraith and Michael Harrington have emphasized, poverty is not a
general condition of the lower strata as it once was in the American past
and still is in most nations. Where the majority of the working-class or
the rural population are poor, they constitute an actual or potential force
pressing for a general improvement in their lot. Thus, in the under-
developed countries, the dominant parties seek to foster rapid economic
growth so as to reduce mass poverty. In the United States, the lower
classes once provided the mass base for political movements, farm organi-
zations, and trade unions, which advocated reform legislation designed to
improve the situation of the more deprived groups. The leaders of parties
and mass organizations were sensitive to the demands and plight of the
depressed. Many middle-class intellectuals devoted considerable energies
to publicizing their situation and to supporting measures for economic
betterment.
Today, however, poverty is not general; it is located in special pockets
of the society. And these pockets are both politically weak and relatively
invisible. The affluent middle class and the well-paid, skilled section of the
working class are almost unaware of the existence of large numbers of the
very poor. The poor today are not the bulk of the urban proletariat or
the majority of a predominant farm population; rather, they are con-
centrated among the Negroes, the aged, the uneducated, the unskilled,
the migrant farm workers, small farm operators, families which have lost
Epilogue 335
their male head, and that large group of persons with individual handi-
caps (those with low LQ.'s or those suffering from mental illness, physical
deformities, or other chronic illnesses). The handicaps of many in the
latter group, of course, are as much a consequence as a cause of poverty,
since the poor are disproportionately subjected to such morbidities pre-
cisely because of their poverty. In evaluating the social sources of poverty
for a Senate Committee, Robert Lampman estimated that over two-thirds
of the low-income group have an eighth grade education or less, one-
quarter are over sixty-five years of age, one-quarter are in families in
which the woman is the chief breadwinner, and one-fifth are non-
white. 29 These categories overlap considerably, of course. Lampman re-
ports that 70 per cent of the low-income group have at least one of these
characteristics, a finding which suggests that low education is the principal
intervening variable which determines income opportunities, since race,
age, and family instability are associated with extent of education.
Lampman's analysis has since been reiterated in a comprehensive study of
factors related to low income completed by a group at the University
of Michigan's Survey Research Center. 30 It is significant to note that
beyond the variables cited above, one-half of the poor families in this
survey live in the South, and that a "sizable majority of poor families
live in areas beyond the suburban belts surrounding metropolitan areas,
where the variety and number of jobs available are not as great as in the
large cities and their environs." 31
It is difficult to predict whether existing trends will operate to reduce
the proportion of the very poor in succeeding decades. Robert Lampman,
who estimates that about 20 per cent are now in the poverty-stricken
class, concludes on the basis of his analysis of long-run trends that by
1977-1987 this will decline to 10 per cent. 32 He bases this conclusion on
the assumption of a continuing rate of economic growth. In addition to
this factor, the expansion of educational facilities should reduce the
proportion of individuals who lack the skills to hold relatively well-paying
29 Robert J. Lampman, The Low Income Population and Economic Growth,
U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Study Paper No. 12, 86th Congress,
1st Session, December, 1959, pp. 6-9.
30 Morgan et al, Income and Welfare in the United States, pp. 188-217.
81 Ibid., p. 212. Poverty in this study is defined as not earning enough to main-
tain a necessary minimum standard of living, as defined by social agencies in
determining eligibility for assistance and free medical care. According to this
standard 20 per cent of all families are living in poverty, and another 20 per
cent are slightly above this minimum.
82 Lampman, The Low Income Population and Economic Growth, p. 24.
336 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
jobs. And it should be noted that changes in the occupational structure
are constantly reducing those positions which are least rewarding eco-
nomically: small farms, farm labor, and unskilled manual labor.
These optimistic projections are countered, however, by the fact that
the United States' economic growth rate (2 per cent) has remained for a
number of years the lowest of any developed country except Britain's; by
the fact that, over the past five years, the economy has been unable to
create new jobs to repkce those eliminated by automation or made
necessary by the expansion of the labor force as a result of population
growth; and, finally, by the implications of the fact that the poverty-
stricken have much larger families than do the well-to-do. Lampman in-
dicates that one-third of the 20 per cent of the population in the low-
income class are under eighteen. And we know from a variety of studies
that poverty tends to sustain itself in a self-maintaining cycle; the children
of the very poor as compared to others are less motivated to achieve,
do less well in school, and enter the labor market with fewer of the
skills which might enable them to compete for good jobs. Increasing
automation also contributes over the short run, at least to an increase
in the very poor, since older men (age forty or older), once they are
displaced by the elimination of the need for their traditional skill, find it
extremely difficult to relocate in a well-paying position.
The data from the University of Michigan Survey Research Center
study do offer some hope that the younger, better educated children
of the poor succeed in securing better jobs than their fathers. Two-
thirds of those from poverty-stricken families who had completed their
education at the time of the interviews in 1959 had secured more than an
eighth grade education and almost half of them (45 per cent) had
finished high school. 38 Among the children of unskilled workers, 44 per
cent of those fifty-five or older in 1959 were in unskilled jobs, in
contrast to 3 1 per cent among those in the thirty-five to forty-four bracket
and only 21 per cent among those under thirty-five years old. 34 In other
words, as a group, the younger offspring of the unskilled are now working
in jobs which require more education and skill, which pay more, and
which are less vulnerable to economic fluctuations than those held by their
fathers.
But if structural trends with respect to education and skill are favor-
able to a long-term decline in the proportion among the population who
83 Morgan et al., Income and Welfare in the United States., p. 211.
84 Ibid., p. 337.
Epilogue 337
live at the level of poverty, the data for the 1950's indicate that it is
impossible to rely on structural trends alone to eliminate or sharply
reduce income inequality. As has been noted, the very forces which
have upgraded the economy have also served to make a hard-core minority
out of the poor, the clearly underprivileged. The economically well-to-
do, the middle class, both self-employed and employed, and the organized
workers in the skilled crafts and mass production industries constitute a
majority of the population. The Democratic Party, the more left-wing
party, is today largely responsive to pressures from middle-class liberal
intellectuals and relatively well-paid trade unionists. And though it con-
tinues to espouse the cause of Negro equality, and to favor the extension
of welfare measures and the equalization of opportunity for example,
medical care for the aged and federal aid to education on the whole it
has not fostered a drive for a massive (and therefore costly) attack on
poverty. No prominent Democrat, for example, has proposed to extend
old age pensions to the point where the State will provide for a pension
of 65 per cent of the average of the top fifteen years of a man's earnings,
as has been enacted in Sweden; or to reduce the pressures on older
workers who face elimination by automation, by means of lowering the
retirement age to fifty-five which has been done in a number of na-
tions; or to extend leisure and increase the need for labor by guaranteeing
a three- or four-week vacation with pay, as the Swedish government is
proposing and as a number of other countries have already provided. Few
Democrats in high places seriously propose to increase sharply the con-
tribution of the government to community leisure resources, as Galbraith
has advocated. Many liberal intellectuals, believing that they live in an
affluent, relatively equalitarian society, have in fact deliberately turned
away from a concern with economic betterment of the underprivileged
(the Negroes apart). They now direct the bulk of their criticism at the
quality of American culture, and their targets include mediocre taste in
architecture, bad urban planning, the corrupting character of the mass
media, the uninspired quality of public education (the weaknesses of
high schools in preparing students for college is of much more concern
to them than the lack of school resources in lower-class areas), the dilu-
tion of taste fostered by advertising and by companies seeking the largest
possible market, and the supposedly new emphases on conformity and
status seeking in middle-class suburbs and corporate bureaucracies. The
trade unions, like all interest groups, are primarily concerned with serving
the particular needs of their own members and with preserving and ex-
tending their organizational influence on industry and the polity.
338 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
Most of these causes are well worth the effort put into them, but
they also serve to deflect attention from the fact that for thirty to fifty
million people, America is not an affluent society, that for this group the
very emphasis on equality and achievement may intensify their sense of
frustration. The Negroes are not the only depressed group left in
America, and it ill becomes those who see this country as legitimately
dominated by an egalitarian ethos to desist from the battle to extend
economic equality. If the Democratic Party ignores its historic mandate to
press for egalitarian reforms, then it may well suffer another catastrophe,
equivalent to that which affected it in the 1850's when it failed to meet
the slavery issue. For the American class system will not stand still,
nor will it automatically continue to become more equalitarian. The
changes occasioned by technology and the requirements of America's
world role upset existing relationships. Men must respond deliberately
to the requirements of their day; the fact that our basic values are still
those set down in the Declaration of Independence means that the left,
now as in the past, has the strength of these beliefs working on its side.
But it must work to convert such national predispositions into meaningful
policies. If it does not, then the pressures toward stabilizing the
privileges of the more well-to-do and the more powerful, which are
characteristic of all complex human societies, may reverse the trend
toward equality and if allowed to operate unchecked, may even begin to
change these very values themselves.
An example of the way in which the American value system may be
negated can be seen in the passage and continued existence of restrictive
immigration legislation biased in favor of Nordic Protestants. The passage
of this law in 1924 eliminated the universalistic and egalitarian principle
which asserted that anyone had a right to become an American, that to
become one required only that one wanted to be an American, not that
one be lucky in having chosen one's parents. And though it is possible to
argue that the imposition of numerical restrictions on immigration was
necessary with an end of an open land frontier, the fact remains that
to have imposed particularistic ethnic and religious restrictions on im-
migration constituted a fundamental violation of traditional American
values.
Fortunately, an examination of the forces which precipitated the pas-
sage of this law suggests that it did not reflect a clear-cut rejection of the
American Creed. Rather, in the 1920's its enactment together with the
passage of the Prohibition Amendment to the United States Constitution
which occurred a few years earlier, the enactment in many states of kws
Epilogue 339
barring the teaching of evolution, and the rise of the Ku KIux Klan
represented the power of the backwash of provincial resentment against
structural changes within the society which were weakening the social and
political influence of the more fundamentalist small-town and rural
Protestants. The 1920 census reported that for the first time in American
history, a majority lived in "urban areas." And the urban areas, par-
ticularly the culturally and economically dominant metropolitan cities,
were centers of opposition to evangelical Protestant influence, an op-
position consisting of Catholics, Jews, and adherents of the liberal high-
status Protestant denominations. To the ascetic smalltown Protestants,
these cities represented drunkenness, immorality, political corruption, and
cosmopolitanism. Many evangelical Protestants backed Prohibition and
nativism because they saw real evidence that the increase in the size of
the non-Protestant population and the growth of the metropolis were
undermining their way of life, were relegating them and their com-
munities to a minority position.
The crusade to keep America Protestant by imposing ascetic norms
on the total population and by barring massive non-Protestant immigra-
tion is actually almost as old as the United States itself. From Jefferson's
day to Wilson's, there was an association between conservative politics,
efforts to impose ascetic Protestant morality on the lower classes often
viewed as largely immigrant in composition and attempts to limit im-
migration of (or to withhold equal rights from) the foreign-born. In
almost every generation, "old American" groups which saw themselves
"displaced," relatively demoted in status or power by processes rooted in
social change, have sought to reverse these processes through the activ-
ities of moralistic movements or political action groups. Conflict between
the advocates of ascetic and nativist doctrines, usually associated with
the Federalist-Whig-Republican party, and their more culturally cos-
mopolitan and egalitarian opponents, most often located in the non-
Southern Democratic Party, has characterized much of American history.
The victories which these fundamentalist groups attained after World
War I did not, however, indicate that the basic values had been adjusted
in their favor. If anything, as I have suggested above, they won their
legislative battle on the very eve of their loss of a numerical majority
in the nation. 35 Their strength at the time was in part a result of the
35 The chief national lobbyist of the Anti-Saloon League pressed for the en-
actment of Prohibition before 1920 because, as he openly stated at a conven-
tion of the League: "We have got to win it now because when 1920 comes and
reapportionment is here, forty new wet Congressmen will come from the
340 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
coincident combination of, first, the greatest Republican electoral victory
in history, resulting from the resentment of many traditional Democratic
ethnic groups to the fact that Wilson had taken the country into a war
they opposed, and second, the intensity of fundamentalist feeling oc-
casioned by the fact that their real decline had become more manifest
than ever.
The sources of support for such policies began to disintegrate almost as
soon as they were enacted into law. The Ku Klux Klan collapsed before
the 1920's ended. In 1928, Al Smith, though a Catholic and an avowed
anti-Prohibitionist, secured a larger proportion of votes outside of the
fundamentalist, Prohibitionist, and rural South than any previous Demo-
cratic presidential candidate in the twentieth century, with the exception
of Woodrow Wilson in 1916. The Great Depression provided the death
blow for prohibition; repeal was regarded as a measure that would help
spur business and increase employment. The existence of mass un-
employment, however, strengthened the sentiment supporting restrictions
on immigration, and the nationalist fervor occasioned by war and con-
tinued postwar international tensions have reinforced them. Gradually,
however, the more bigoted aspects of the restrictions are being eliminated.
The United States has taken many "non-quota" European refugees from
non-Nordic Protestant areas, and the administration of the quotas is
being slowly liberalized. The country will probably never return to a
state of unrestricted immigration; but it will probably curtail discrimina-
tion based on national origins as a means of differentiating among those
who may enter.
The Ever-Present Conflict between Equality and Inequality
In evaluating the continued effect of the value system on various
institutions, I am not arguing the case for sociological determinism as an
alternative to economic determinism. In presenting the thesis that there
was a relationship between the Protestant ethic and economic develop-
ment, Max Weber did not argue in terms of any necessary condition.
Rather, he advanced the generalization that certain values inherent in
great wet centers with their rapidly increasing population." Wayne B. Wheeler,
quoted an Peter Odegard, Pressure Politics, The Story of the Anti-Saloon
League (New York: Columbia University Press, 1928), p. 173. The majority
of Democrats outside of the South voted against the Prohibition Amendment
in the House of Representatives. It was passed with the support of the Re-
publicans and Southern Democrats.
Epilogue 341
ascetic Protestantism were extremely encouraging to the capitalist ac-
cumulation of wealth. In the same way, I have been urging here that
certain elements of the American value system encourage various forms
of behavior and institutional reaction and development. But the precise
developments which occur at any given time in history are a result of a
multitude of factors. Men must act to secure the kind of social order that
they want. American values, more than those of other nations, have
encouraged men to apply equalitarian and achievement orientations to
the polity and its various institutions. But other forces have pressed
men in very different directions. The privileged strata in America, as in
other countries, have sought to maintain and enhance their advantages.
And they have been able to win victories in the struggle with the
egalitarian left. The Civil War, led in the North by the party allied
with business, ironically strengthened economic and class conservatism
greatly. The very success of the American Revolution and its leftist
political aftermath, which gave the lower strata a place in society
superior to that of lower classes in any other nation, also meant that
there was less that they would want in the future. The subsequent
moderation of American class politics is related to the fact that
egalitarianism and democracy triumphed before the workers were a
politically relevant force. Unlike the workers in Europe, they did not
have to fight their way into the polity; the door was already open.
Hence, they had little use for socialist revolutionary theories, for ap-
proaches which argued the class domination of the society. And the lack
of a social base for a really radical working-class party has given a seem-
ingly conservative face to American politics and even to its ideology,
when viewed from the vantage point of Marxist doctrine.
In a world in which radicalism is equated with some form of Marxism
and socialism, a nation without such movements or ideological tendencies
seems conservative. But as Leon Samson argued, the weakness of socialism
as an American ideology reflects, in part, the similarities between the
ideological content of socialism and that of Americanism as laid down in
the Declaration of Independence. 36 Americans have always defined the
preferred relationships among men in the same terms as have most
socialists. And since their self-conception leads them to believe that such
relationships actually characterize America or are the agreed-upon ob-
jectives toward which the nation is moving socialism as such has never
been able to make much headway. In a real sense, the more conservative
86 Leon Samson, Towards a United Front (New York: Farrar and Rinehart,
1933), pp. 1-90.
342 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
the adjustment which a nation made to facing the problems of industriali-
zation, that is, the more it preserved aspects of traditional pre-industrial
values, particularly ascription and elitism, the greater the strength of
radical lower-class movements within it. The United States, which
retained fewer of these values than did any industrialized European
country, has consequently been able to adjust to the structural changes
imposed by economic and population growth with much less intense class
conflict. Since progress is part of America's national self-image, progressive
movements have been able to induce change without becoming radical.
And the very success of earlier progressive movements has often eased the
way for the victory of latter-day ones, so that these, when they arose,
could hope to triumph by following moderate techniques. As Selig Perl-
man has pointed out, a major reason for the political moderation of the
American labor movement lies in the fact that battles, such as the struggle
for adult suffrage, which organized workers had to win in other nations,
were already won and finished with before trade unions appeared on the
scene:
Another cause for the lack of "class consciousness" in American
labor was the free gift of the ballot which came to labor at an early
date as a by-product of the Jeffersonian democratic movement. In
other countries where the labor movement started while the work-
ingmen were still denied the franchise, there was in the last analysis
no need for a theory of "surplus value" to convince them that they
were a class apart and should therefore be "class conscious." There
ran a line like a red thread between the laboring class and the other
classes. 37
Ironically, though many foreigners view the United States as the one
great stronghold of conservatism, it is the right-wingers, the American
practical conservatives, who feel most alienated from the polity. The
radical right finds a mass base; the radical left has little support. This fact
tells a great deal about contemporary American society. Conservative
businessmen and right-wing ideologists speak of the "liberal Establish-
ment"; they believe that the dominant center of power in the country-
is on the left. American businessmen and conservatives, like their Swedish
counterparts, report that the government and the society is opposed to
87 Selig Perlman, The Theory of the Labor Movement (New York: Augustus
M.KelIey, 1949), p. 167.
Epilogue 343
them. While this feeling of inferiority leads to a gross exaggeration of
the realities of liberal power, since the strengths of business outside of the
electoral arena are enormous, the fact remains that the United States is a
nation in which the upper social and economic classes do not regard
themselves as being in power. Businessmen are harangued by their as-
sociations and journals to learn how to participate in politics, and to
follow the example of the liberals, intellectuals, and trade unionists, who,
in their view, dominate the polity.
The recurrent conflict between liberal and conservative forces, be-
tween groups linked to equality or achievement, will continue as long
as America is free. The forces making for elitism, for inequality, will
seek, often successfully, to strengthen themselves. If they achieve a major
permanent breakthrough, then America will become a different nation
in terms of its values. If, for example, the values of a military society,
which are elitist and diffuse, increasingly dictate the norms of the entire
society, then one will not be able to speak of the continuity of values. To
build and maintain a free and equalitarian society is the most difficult task
political man has ever set himself. There are tendencies inherent in human
social organization which seek to destroy freedom and to foster inequality.
Hence the effort to prevent them from dominating must be a constant
one. It must be directed against poverty and its related evils at one hand,
and against ascription and elitism at the other. Most efforts to erect or
continue democratic polities have disintegrated. The American experi-
ment may very well fail. On the other hand, the fact that this New
Nation has succeeded in fostering economic growth and democracy under
the aegis of equalitarian values holds out hope for the rest of the world.
For prosperity, freedom, and equality cannot be for white men only.
If they are, then they will prove to have been as illusory and impermanent
as the slave-based democracies of ancient Greece.
Comparative Analysis
From a methodological vantage point, that is, the concern with the
creation of social science, this book is designed to illuminate the. way in
which sociological value analysis may contribute to generalizations about
the sources of variation among complex societies. I write "illuminate"
deliberately, since it should be dear that this work has not "proved"
anything about the causes of differences among social systems. What I
have attempted, rather, is to use a certain conceptual framework to point
344 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
out possible relationships between the pattern of dominant value orienta-
tions and the content of their internal differentiation.
Clearly, if we are to move from purely descriptive comparative
analysis, or narrowly focused historical comparison, to hypotheses con-
cerning the generalized characteristics of such differences, we must have
concepts, for which reliable indicators can be found, that permit sys-
tematic comparisons of different nations. As I suggested earlier, Talcott
Parsons has inaugurated the major effort in this direction. His concepts,
while obviously subject to considerable further refinements, do permit the
comparison of complex units in terms of a number of predominant value
orientations. As yet, however, little work has been done on the problem
of linking such concepts to systematic empirical indicators (for example,
how to differentiate units as being higher or lower in particularism or
diffuseness).
Perhaps the most important efforts to test hypotheses about comparative
national development by the rigorous methodology of modern social
science have been initiated by Karl Deutsch. His study, Nationalism and
Social Communication, demonstrated ways in which social scientists could
test hypotheses concerning magnitudes in the variation of significant
characteristics among different segments of a nation, and concerning its
prospects for surviving as an integrated society. 38 In Political Community
and the North Atlantic Area, he and a group of historians examined
twenty historical efforts to create new national communities out of what
had been separate entities. As has been noted earlier, some of their
hypotheses are comparable to those suggested by the specific early Ameri-
can experience. They, however, sought to define the conditions for a
particular type of new state by extensive comparative references to events
in these societies, rather than an intensive case study of one society. 39
Still a third approach to the problem of testing hypotheses concerning
the conditions for social and political development has involved the use
38 Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (New York: John
Wiley, 1953). Stein Rokkan's efforts to systematize analysis of the sources
and consequences of ways in which new strata were admitted to the suffrage
in various societies is also noteworthy in this respect See his, "The Compara-
tive Study of Participation," in Austin Ranney, ed., Essays on the Behavioral
Study of Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), esp. pp. 66-85.
89 Karl Deutsch, S. A. Burrell, R. A. Kann, M. Lee, Jr., M. Lichterman,
R. E. Lindgren, F. L. Loewenheim, and R. W. Van Wagenen, Political
Covmrnnity and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1957), and Gabriel Almond and James S. Coleman, eds., The Politics
of Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960).
Epilogue 345
of quantitative parameter data. 40 These data, however, are for the most
part originally collected without reference to a complex conceptual
scheme. They do yield much knowledge about the interrelated correlates
of social structure; but the data collectors and manipulators will in the
future have to be guided by theory which directs them to sources of data
which census takers do not normally gather and might not think of
looking for.
To find indicators of elitism in a culture, it might be useful to do a
content analysis of symbols in samples of fiction, both popular and elite;
or one might make a comparative study of military manuals among various
nations. The sources of recruitment to different schools, government
units, business organizations, and so forth would be hard data bearing
on the extent of particularism in a society. Data from public opinion
polls in various nations is an obvious source of evidence to test and
elaborate hypotheses such as have been offered in this book. For the most
part there has been little such comparative research explicitly guided by
general theoretical considerations of a comparative sort. Perhaps the best
example of such work is that of David McClelland and his collaborators,
who have attempted to test various hypotheses concerning the psycho-
logical factors related to economic development on a comparative scale.
As has been noted, McClelland has made detailed content analyses of the
themes of children's stories in many countries and over considerable
periods of time. He has also secured field data, based on interviews and
questionnaires, designed to relate variations in personality patterns to oc-
cupational orientations in a number of countries. There are few methods
or types of data, whether from ancient Greece or the modern Com-
munist world, that McClelland is not prepared to use to elaborate his
approach. 41
40 For example, see Lyle Shannon, "Is Level of Development Related to Ca-
pacity for Self-Government?" American Journal of Economics and Sociology,
17 (1958), pp. 367-382; Russell H. Fitzgibbon, "A Statistical Evaluation of
Latin American Democracy," Western Political Quarterly, 9 (1956), pp. 607-
619; Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society (Glencoe, 111.: The
Free Press, 1958), especially p. 63; S. M. Lipset, Political Man: The Social
Eases of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.; Doubleday, 1960), chapter 2; Karl
Deutsch, "Toward an Inventory of Basic Trends and Patterns in Comparative
and International Politics," American Political Science Review, 54 (1960),
pp. 34-57; and idem, "Social Mobilization and Political Development," iKd. 9 55
(1961), pp. 493-514.
41 See David C. McClelland, The Achieving Society (Princeton, N.J.: Van
Nostrand, 1961); McClelland, J. W. Atkinson, R. A. Clark, and E, L. Lowell,
346 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
We do not really know how similar and how different are men in
various cultures. This book has emphasized differences among people
living in such highly similar societies as those of the major English-
speaking democracies. However, it would be possible to write an interest-
ing and important book about similarities in taste and behavior among men
in comparable or even highly varied societies. 42 What is one to make of
the fact that the Readers Digest, the most popular magazine in the United
States, edited and published for Americans, is also the most popular
magazine in many other countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin
America? Why do Finns, Arabs, or Latins prefer a translated version of
an American magazine largely dealing with American themes to magazines
written by their compatriots? The Digest apparently has located a
common bond of taste which unifies men in different cultures. Similarly,
other popular cultural activities the movies, jazz, various sports have
all had considerable appeal to the residents of nations which vary
greatly in literacy, wealth, cultural history, religious values, and so forth.
A study of the social prestige of occupations in various parts of the
developed and underdeveloped world indicates high similarities in the
rankings of comparable occupations in these nations. 43 If one may argue
that any two nations, even two as similar as the United States and
Canada, can be shown to be quite different, it is also possible to demon-
strate that people everywhere have much in common.
Whether one stresses similarities or differences is to some extent a
matter of taste or, rather, of conceptual frameworks. One may say about
many things, "as much as" or "as little as." If one assumes that stratifica-
tion and the pressure to pass on one's privileges to one's offspring are
inherent in human social organization, then a national rate of social
mobility in which one-third move down the class ladder appears high.
If, however, one judges a system against a norm which demands perfect
The Achievement Motive (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953); and
McQelknd and G. A. Friedman, "A Cross-Cultural Achievement Motivation
Appearing in Folk-Tales," in G. E. Swanson, T. M. Newcomb, and E. L.
Hartley, eds,, Readings in Social Psychology (New York: Henry Holt, 1952),
pp. 243-249. For an interesting effort by an economist to apply psychological
concepts to the comparative and historical analysis of problems of economic
development, see Everett E. Hagen, On the Theory of Social Change (Home-
wood, EL: The Dorsey Press, 1962).
42 Deutsch, et aL, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, do this
with respect to the relatively similar nations of the North Atlantic area.
43 Alex Inkeles and Peter Rossi, "National Comparisons of Occupational Pres-
tige," American Journal of Sociology, 61 (1956), pp. 329-339.
Epilogue 347
equality of opportunity, then the fact that most of the privileged strata
do not fall seems inequitable. The way that one looks at social data de-
pends in large measure on the questions asked, the theory employed, and
the classifications used. It should be obvious that in dealing with complex
subjects, no matter how rigorous the methodology employed, in elaborat-
ing or presenting a thesis which involves interrelating such structural
variables as national values, class, personality, and the like, most social
scientists basically present an argument which they then "validate" by
showing that there are more positive than negative data available. Most
of our concepts, however, are necessarily very imprecise, and con-
sequently leave a great deal of room for the analyst unwittingly to find
reasons for selecting those indicators which best fit the conceptual
framework he is using. And when existing data are confirmatory, we
are not motivated to look further. It is only when the data are in con-
flict with our theory, hunches, or prejudices that most social scientists
decide there must be something wrong with the data or with the con-
cepts underlying the selection of the data, and look further. In reading
the work of others, we are normally inclined to accept their findings as
both valid and reliable, as long as they agree with our predispositions.
Disagreement, however, results in efforts to re-analyze the evidence and
to demonstrate that previous work has drastically oversimplified, or
simply ignored, much data.
It is important to recognize that by looking at the same problem from
different theoretical perspectives, we increase knowledge about social
processes. Different conceptual frameworks lead one man to highlight
certain aspects which another ignores. Often findings that appear to be
contradictory merely reflect the fact that different scholars have used
different concepts. Thus a definition of class which is stated exclusively in
terms of income may result in the conclusion that there has been no change
in the class structure. On the other hand, a view of the class structure of
the same society in terms of power or status may suggest that important
changes have occurred. 44
This book, like any effort at comparative analysis, is necessarily subject
to the sins of oversimplification and exaggeration. Oversimplification
comes about because, in comparing such complex phenomena as national
value systems and national organizational structures, one must neces-
sarily gloss over the internal differences that exist. Exaggeration is
44 A brilliant discussion of the implications of various conceptualizations of
class is Stanislaw Ossowski, Class Structure in the Social Consciousness (Lon-
don: Roudedge and Kegan Paul, 1963).
348 Democracy in Comparative Perspective
present because any effort to analyze the influence of only one set of
factors, even if it is as important as the national value system, tends to
disregard many other variables which are obviously necessary for the
proper understanding of the variations involved. For example, important
economic variables, such as differences in past rates of economic growth,
in current levels of productivity, and in international market situations,
all of which may have an independent effect on the various national pat-
terns discussed, have largely been ignored here, partly because I have
dealt with them in other works, but more significantly because a major
purpose of this book has been to demonstrate the independent explanatory
power of value analysis, seen as the codification of historical experiences. 45
But while the principal scientific contribution of comparative analysis
is to permit the testing of hypotheses concerning complex social systems,
it has another less ambitious function, and those who reject the first as
intellectually unattainable should be able to accept the second. A look
at the same institution in varying cultural contexts is basic to any effort
to understand why it has the character it does. To understand the
American labor movement, American religion, American education,
American law, or any other institution, it is necessary to know how it
differs from the comparable institution in other cultures. Only when one
knows what is unique on a comparative scale can one begin to ask
significant questions about causal relationships within a country. Hence,
even that most particularistic of all social scientists, the historian, can
learn much about American history by studying the history of somewhat
comparable foreign nations at equivalent points in their development. And
if this is true for the historian, then it is even more valid for the rest of us.
A meaningful scientific dialogue requires, of course, certain basic levels
of agreement on the rules of the discussion. Where problems are stated
in fundamentally differing terms, as between political "true believers"
and empirically, behaviorally oriented social scientists, no effective com-
munication is possible. One must agree concerning the levels of hypothesis
and the nature of evidence. Where this occurs, the dialogue can result
in replication and the growth of knowledge. This method has been the
very meaning of scholarly verification in history. The social sciences,
however, with their desire to employ the same approaches to the verifica-
tion of hypotheses as the natural sciences, have been reluctant to recognize
that dialogue or controversy remains a principal means of scientific verifi-
cation of hypotheses in their disciplines as well.
45 An excellent analysis of much the same aspects of American values and
behavior that have been discussed here which places the brunt of explanation
on American economic development is Potter, People of Plenty.
Name Index
Aaron, Daniel, 40 n.
Abegglen, J. C, 125 n.
Abel, Theodore, 190 n.
Abrams, Mark, ix
Adarnic, Louis, 180n.
Adams, Abijah, 42 n.
Adams, Francis, 253
Adams, Henry, 59, 65 n.
Adams, John, 19, 21, 44
Adams, John Quincy, 44, 65
Adams, Rex, 188 n., 192
Adenauer, Konrad, 239
Adorno, T. W., 277
Alexander, Fred, 252 n., 256n.
Alford, Robert, 267 n.
Allen, V. L., 190n.
Allport, Gordon W., 278 n.
Almond, Gabriel, 24n., 113 n., 115n.,
132n., 177 n., 211n., 212n., 344n.
Anderson, C. A., 22 In., 222 n., 240n.
Anderson, D. R., 64n.
Anderson, Perry, 23 6 n.
Angus, H. F., 251 n., 302 n.,
Apter, David E., ix, 14, 18, 36n., 37n.,
287 n., 289 n.
Argyle, Michael, 157 n.
Arnold, Matthew, 115n.
Arnold, Thomas, 215 n., 216n.
Aron, Raymond, 227 n., 232 n.
Aronson, Sidney, 101 n., 102
Aschinger, F. E., 66 n.
Asquith, Herbert Henry, 243 n.
Atkinson, J. W., 345 n.
Atlee, Clement, 218n.
Austin, Dennis, 36n.
Backmer, Donald L. M., 24n.
Baedeker, Karl, 110
Bagehot, Walter, 76, 213, 217 n., 223 n.,
240 n., 313n.
Bailyn, Bernard, 95 n.
Baird, Robert, 142-146, 160 n.
Baltzell, E. Digby, 153
Bancroft, Aaron, 22
Bancroft, George, 72
Baring Brothers, 55 n.
Baron, George, 22 In.
Barzun, Jacques, 109 n.
Bassett, John Spencer, 40 n., 77 n.
Bayard, James A., 119n.
Beard, Earl S M 54n.
Beaumont, Gustave de, 17 n^ 19 n., 22 n.,
73 n., 74n., 154-155, 177 n.
Becker, Carl L., 116
Beecher, Lyman, 82
Beer, Samuel, 306n.
Bell, Daniel, ix, 105, 138, 176, 214n., 220n.,
271 n.
Bell, W. M., 262
Bemis, Samuel F., 66 n.
Benda, Harry J., 25 n., 35n., 69n.
Bendix, Reinhard, vti, ix, 6, 129 n., 170 n.,
183 n., 216n^ 228n.
Benson, Lee, 82 n., 83 n^ 85 n.
Berger, Max, llOn., 119n., 142n.
Berger, Morroe, 190 n.
Bernardi, Gene, ix
Berthoff, Rowland, 113, 138
Bismarck, Otto von, 23 3 n., 242
Bissell, Claude T., 257, 259n.
Black, Max, 7n., 210n., 212 n.
Blishen, Bernard, 252 n.
Blumenthal, Albert, 13 In.
Boardman, J., 120 n.
Bodo, John R., 59 n., 82
Boisen, A. T., 157 n.
Bonham, John, 296 n.
Boorstin, Daniel J., 70, 106
Bourget, Paul, 113
Bourricaud, Francois, 225, 227
Brady, Alexander, 225 n., 258 n.
Brazer, Harvey E., 329n.
Breckenridge, John C., 300
Bridenbaugh, Carl, 92, 160 n.
Briggs, Asa, 215n.
Brock,W. R., 41 n.
Brodbeck, Arthur, 287n.
Brodersen, Arvid, 13 3 n.
Brogan, Denis W., 60, 112, 113 n., 156 n.,
215n.
Bromwich, Leo, 196 n.
Bronfenbrenner, Urie, 275 n.
Brooks, John Graham, 109, 115, 120n.
Brotz, Howard, 117n.
350
Name Index
Brown, Stuart Gerry, 64n.
Bruckberger, R. L., 1, 152 n.
Bruner, Jerome S., 178 n.
Bryce, James, 108, 110, 112, 116-117, 141,
142n^ 199-200, 258n., 263, 264n.
Buckingham, J. S., 120n.
Burdick, Eugene, 287 n.
Burke, Edmund, 40n^ 329n.
Burne- Jones, Philip, llOn.
Burr, Aaron, 33
Burrell, S. A., 9n., 26 n^ 91 n., 210n., 344n.
Butler, D. E., 297 n., 301 n., 303 n.
Butts, R. Freeman, 165 n.
Caiger, George, 254n.
Calhoun, Arthur W M 120n., 121n.
Calhoun, Daniel H., 130n.
CaUender, G. S., 48, 51 n^ 56 n.
Campbell, Peter, 303 n.
Cantril, Hadley, 150n.
Carroll, H. K,, 146 n., 147 n.
Carter, Gwendolen M., 303 n^ 306 n.,
309 n.
Chamberlain, Joseph, 243 n.
Chambers, William Nisbet, x, 27 n^ 3 On.,
32n n 33, 38n., 61n.
Chapman, John Jay, 109
Charles, Joseph, 19 n^ 22 n., 38 n.
Chaudhuri, Nirad C., 248 n.
Chubb, Basil, 303 n.
Churchill, Randolph, 243 n.
Clark, E. T., 157n.
dark, R. A., 345 n.
Clark, S. D., , 88, 166n., 250n., 251n.,
262, 263 n.
degg, Hugh A., 172-173, 188n., 192 ru,
193 n., 194, 199n n 200n., 202n., 265 n.
Clinton, George, 33, 42 n.
Cohany, Harry, 188 nu
Cohen, Wilbur J., 329n.
Cole, A. H., 55 n.
Cole, David, 186 n.
Coleman, James S., viii, 23 n., 24, 35n.,
36n n 190n., 207 n., 212n., 344n.
Coleman, Lee, 106 n.
Colton, Calvin, 161 n^ 162 n.
Commager, Henry Steele, 105-106, 177 n.
Conant, James B^ 223 n.
ConneU, W. F M 254n.
Coxe, Tench, 47 n.
Crawford, R. M., 258
Crevecoeur, M. G. J. de (J. Hector St.
John), 92, 94
Crosland, C. A. R., ix, 217n., 221 n.,
236, 271 n.
Crozier, Michel, ix, 231
Cunliffe, Marcus, 18, 19n n 20, 22n.,
104-105
Curley, James, 177
Curti, Merle, 69n., 72 n., 86 n.
Cyriax, George, 173 n., 18 In., 192, 196 n.
Dahl, Robert, ix
Dahrendorf, Ralf, ix, 89, 90n., 282-283
Dandakar, V. M., 70n.
Dangerfield, George, 45 n.
Dauer, Manning, 152 n.
David, Martin H., 329 n.
Davis, Jefferson, 34n.
Dawson, C. A., 25 In.
Debre, Michel, 314n.
De Gaulle, Charles Andre, 296, 301
De Grazia, Alfred, 289 n.
Deutsch, Karl W., viii, 4, 9n., 25-26, 46 n^
75, 91n., 93n., 210n., 238n., 292n., 344,
345 n., 346
Devereux, Edward C., Jr., 275 n.
Dewey, John, 122
Dewhurst, J. F., 260
Diamond, Martin, 317n.
Dickens, Charles, 177
Disraeli, Benjamin, 242, 243 n., 329n.
Dogan, Mattei, ix
Dolto, Fran5oise, 283 n.
Donald, David, 72 n.
Douglas, Paul H., 295 n.
Dunlop, John T., 181 n., 193 n., 194 n.
Dupeux, George, 298 n.
Duroselie, Jean-Baptiste, 229 n.
Duverger, Maurice, 289, 293, 295 n., 297 n.,
298, 305, 310n., 316n., 317n.
Earle, Edward M., 226 n.
Eckstein, Harry, x, 4n., 224, 234-235,
239n., 276n^ 281n., 287 n., 289n.
Edinger, Lewis J., 238n., 292 n.
Edwards, Alba M., 149
Eggleston, Frederick, 254
Ehrmann, Henry W., 228 n.
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 329
Eisenstadt, S. N., 245 n., 317n.
Elizabeth I, 96
Elkins, Stanley, 28n., 30n., 162n., 331n.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 72 n.
Emerson, Rupert, 37n.
Engels, Friedrich, 5-6, 7n., 272 n.
Erikkson, Erik M., 101 n.
Etzioni, Amitai, 74 n.
Evan, William, 212 n.
Everett, Edward, 22
Fairlie, John A., 287 n.
Farber, Maurice L., 133 n., 275 n., 279
Fee, Walter, 78 n.
Feuer, Lewis S., 8, 9n.
Fidler, Isaac, 122
Name Index
Finney, Charles G., 83 n.
Fish, Carl R., 85 n.
Fisher, Marvin, 60 n.
Fitzgibbon, Russell H^ 345 n.
Flexner, James T., 71 n., 73 n.
Florence, P. S., 22 In.
Floud, Jean, 22 In., 222 n., 240 n.
Ford, Thomas, 13 In.
Ford, W. C., 43 n.
Fox, Dixon Ryan, 73 n.
Franklin, Benjamin, 69 n.
Frenkel-Brunswick, Else, 277 n.
Friedman, G. A., 346n.
Friedman, Milton, 128 n.
Friedrich, Carl, 307 n.
Friis, Henning, 192
Fromm, Erich, 132 n.
Gabriel, Ralph H., 106
Galbraith, John Kenneth, 334, 337
Galenson, Walter, 187n., 188n., 190n.,
191 n., 196 n.
Gallatin, Albert, 48
Gallup, George, 134n.
Garrison, W. L., 34
Gay, Peter, 233 n.
Geiger, Kent, 320n.
Geiger, Theodore, 291 n.
Gerschenkron, Alexander, 320
Gerth, H. H., 94n., 115n., 126n M 142n.,
156, 246 n., 316n.
Gilbert, Felix, 65 n.
Gillespie, James M., 278 n.
Goguel, Francois, 226, 229n., 273 n., 299n.
Goldberg, Arthur, ix
Gollan, Robin, 258 n.
Goodrich, Carter, 48, 52 n., 54n., 255 n.,
256 n.
Gorer, Geoffrey, 266
Gower, L. C. B., 200n., 221 n., 264 n.
Grand Pierre, J. H., 154n.
Granick, David, 326, 327n.
Grassi, Giovanni, 153
Grattan, Thomas C., 153 n.
Greeley, Horace, 83 n.
Greene, Evarts B., 166 n.
Griesinger, Karl T., 143 n.
GrifEn, Clifford S., 80n., 161 n.
Grand, Francis J., 108 n., 116
Gulick, Charles, 308n.
Gunderson, Robert G., 84 n.
Gusfield, Joseph, 8 In.
Habakkuk, H. J., 57 n.
Hacker, Andrew, 7n., 212n.
Hagen, Everett E., 346 n.
Haldane, Richard, 219
351
Halevy, EUe, 6n^ 216n., 248n.
Haliburton, Thomas Chandler, 257
Halsey, A. H., 221 n., 222 n., 240n.
Hamburger, Joseph, 265
Hamilton, Alexander, 20, 27 n., 32, 37, 44,
65-66; forms "government party," 38;
neutralism of, 63-64; "Report on Manu-
factures," 47 n.
Handlin, M. F., 49n.
Handlin, Oscar, 49n., 143 n., 153 n.
Harpur, Charles, 258
Harrington, Michael, 186 n., 193 n^ 333n.,
334
Harris, Seymour, 170 n.
Harrison, Martin, 301 n.
Harrison, Tom, 218n., 223 n.
Harrison, William Henry, 84
Hartley, E. L., 346n.
Hartman, Paul T., ISOn., 199a, 200n^
202 n.
Hartmann, Heinz, 238
Hartz, Louis, 50n., 52 n., 54uu, 78n^ 83 n.,
85n^ 106
Hauser, Philip M., 324n., 327n., 331n^
332n.
Heath, Milton S., 53 n.
Heckscher, August, 136 n.
Herberg, Will, 141, 158, 198 n.
Hermens, F. A., 293, 298n., 307 n.
Higham, John, 95 n.
Hill, Evan, 134 n.
Himmelfarb, Gertrude, 223 n.
Hobsbawn, Eric, 6n.
Hodgkin, Thomas, 24, 31n., 32n,
Hoffman, Stanley, 229 n., 230n.
Hofstadter, Richard, 40 n., 70, 72 n^ 73 n.,
89, 123
Hogan, D., 289n.
Hopldnson, Joseph, 83 n.
Horkheimer, Max, 274 n., 277
Homey, Karen, 125, 132 n.
Hsu, Francis, 276 n.
Hudson, Winthrop S., 144n., 145 n., 151n.
Hughes, E. C, 251 n.
Humphreys, John H., 310
Hunsberger, Warren S., 25 n.
Hutchinson, John, 189
Hyman, H. H., 220n.
Inkeles, Alex, 183 n., 276 n., 277-279, 320n.,
346 n.
Jackson, Andrew, 44, 82-84, 101 n., 329
Jacob, Philip E., 150n.
Jacobs, James R M 93 n.
Jacobs, Paul, 186 n., 193
Jacobson, Dan, 319
352
James, E., 223 n.
James, J. Franklin, 89n., 163, 202 n.
Jamison, L., 156n., 157n., 159n.
Jay, John, 26, 33
Jefferson, Thomas, 20, 33-34, 37, 42 n.,
43 n., 45-46, 48, 65 n., 66, 72, lOln^ 329,
339; Embargo Act and, 47; on free
press, 42; in Napoleonic wars, 63-64;
opposition to "government party," 38;
rise of national authority under, 45;
Virginia dynasty of, 44
Jenks, Leland Hamilton, 55, 56 n.
Jensen, Merrill, 30n M 3 In.
Johnson, F. Ernest, 167 n.
Johnson, John J., 92 n.
Johnson, Richard Mentor, 165 n.
Jones, Maldwyn Allen, 25 n., 26
Jowett, Benjamin, 115
Kaldegg, A., 278n.
Kalven, Harry, 265n.
Kaon, R. A., 9n., 26n^ 91 n., 210n., 344 n.
Karpat, Kemal H., 316n.
Kautsky, John H., 23 n., 24n., 69n.
Kaysen, Carl, 170n.
Kenworthy, E. W., 332n.
Kerr, dark, 181 n., 182 n., 186
Key, V. O., Jr., 301 n,
Killick, A. J^ 188n., 192
Kindleberger, Charles P., 229 n.
King, E. J., 260 n.
Kirchheimer, Otto, 293 n.
Klein, Philip S., 78n.
Kluckhohn, Clyde, 124, 138-139
Knorr, Klaus, x
Koniarovsky, Mirra, 181 n.
Korchin, Sheldon J^ 178n.
Kossuth, Lajos, 86 n.
Kristol, Irving, ix
Krout, John A., 81 n.
Kuhn, Anne L., 120
Kuznets, Simon, 179n., 322-323, 324n.,
325 n.
La Guardia, Fiorello, 127
Lakeman, Enid, 304n.
Lambert, James D., 304n.
Lampman, Robert J., 322-323, 325 n., 335-
336
Landes, David S., ix, 226n., 249n.
Landis, Benson Y., 144n.
Lane, Robert, 284n.
Lansing, John B n 326n.
Larrabee, Eric, 1, 60 n.
Laski, Harold, 125 n.
Lavau, G. E., 243 n., 289n^ 297 n.
LeBras, G^273n.
Name Index
Lee, Henry, 18
Lee, M., Jr., 9n., 26n., 91n., 210n., 344n.
Lee, Robert, 163 n.
Leiserson, Avery, 306n.
Leland, L., 280 n.
Lens, Sidney, 189 n.
Lerner, Daniel, 345 n.
Lerner, Max, 1
Lester, Richard, 188 n., 192, 196 n., 202 n.
Leuba, James H., 149 n.
Levinson, Daniel J., 277 n.
Levy, Leonard W., 39 n., 43
Lewis, John L., 181
Lewis, Roy, 221n., 226n., 227 n., 241, 242n.
Lichterman, M., 9n., 26n*, 91 n., 210n.,
344n.
Lichtheim, George, 8
Lindblad, Ingemar, 192
Lindgren, R. E., 9n., 26n., 91 n., 210n.,
344 n.
Linton, Ralph, 279 n.
Lipset, Seymour Martin, 8n., 16 n., 36n.,
llOn., 112n., 129n., 136n., 172n., 181n.,
183 n., 190n,, 200n., 207 n., 213 n., 218n.,
223 n., 228n., 269n., 282n., 283 n., 288n.,
302 n., 313n M 345n.
Lipson, E., 22 In.
Lipson, Leslie, 254, 255 n., 296 n.
Littell, Franklin Hamlin, 148
Lively, Robert A., 54 n.
Livermore, Shaw, Jr., 41 n.
Lloyd George, David, 243 n.
Loewenheim, F. L., 9n., 26n., 91 n., 210n.,
344 n.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 72 n.
Loomis, Charles P., 209 n.
Lorwin, Val, 228 n.
Louis XVI, 63 n.
Lowell, E. L., 345 n.
Lowenthal, Leo, x, 213n., 282 n., 283 n.
Lower, A. R. M., 87
Lowie, Robert, 29 In.
Lubell, Samuel, 329n.
Ludlum, David M., 8 In.
Luethy, Herbert, 228 n.
Lunt, Paul S., 125 n.
Lynd, Robert S., 125
LydaU, Harold, 326n.
Lynch, WilHam O., 40 n.
McAvoy, Thomas T., 152 n.
McCallum, R. B^ 306n.
McCarthy, Joseph R., 262
McClelland, David, 134-135, 345, 346n.
Mcdosky, Herbert, 327n,
McCready, Benjamin, 114n.
McGranahan, Donald V., 277, 278n.
McKean, Thomas, 42
Name Index
353
Mackenzie, Jeanne, 202 n., 253 n., 256 n.,
262 n., 264n., 266n., 267n., 268 n.
Mackenzie, W. J. M., 315n.
Mackenzie, Sir William, 250 n.
McKitrick, Eric, 28n., 30n.
McLoughlin, William G., 83
MacRae, Duncan, Jr., 30 In.
Madison, James, 20, 29 n., 34, 65 n.; op-
position to "government party," 38;
Virginia dynasty of, 44
Marshall, T.H., 9 n.
Martin, Kingsley, 219n.
Martineau, Harriet, 22 n., 59 n., 97, 107-
112, 119n., 120, 141, 142 n., 155
Marvick, Dwaine, 69 n.
Marx, Karl, 272 n.
Matthews, John Pengwerne, 257
Mayer, J. P., 233 n., 242 n., 291 n.
Mead, Margaret, 132 n., 275 n., 280 n., 283 n.,
284 n.
Mead, Sidney E., 160 n.
Meany, George, 189 n.
Merton, Robert K., viii, 174
Mesick, Jane L., 58 n., 59 n., 108 n., 121
Metraux, Rhoda, 275 n., 280 n., 284n.
Michels, Robert, 36n., 208n., 217, 291
Middleton, Drew, 215n.
Miller, Daniel R., 13 7 n.
Miller, Herman, 323, 331n.
Miller, J. D. B., 254n., 303 n.
Miller, James Grier, 278 n.
Miller, John Q, 39 n.
Miller, Nathan, 53n.
Miller, William Lee, 40 n., 41 n., 42 n.,
159 n.
Millikan, Max F., 24 n.
MiUs, C Wright, 1, 8, 94n., 115n., 126n.,
130, 142n., 156n., 188n., 246n., 316n.
MiUs, Frederick C, 179 n.
MitcheU, WiUiam, 213 n., 287 n.
Mitford, Nancy, 244 n.
MoUegen, A. T., 167 n.
Monroe, James, 44, 48, 64 n.
Moore, Barrington, Jr., 8
Morgan, James N., 329n., 333 n., 335n.,
336n.
Morison, Elting E., 105 n., 124 n., 139
Morris, Gouverneur, 29 n.
Muirhead, James F., 109, 117, 120 n.
Mulvaney, B. G., 145 n.
Miinsterberg, Hugo, 114, 121
Myers, Charles A., 182 n., 186 n.
Myrdal, Gunnar, 97, 191 n., 195, 330
Naegele, Kaspar, 251, 252 n.
Napoleon Bonaparte, 65
Nay smith, Jenny, 218n.
Nelson, William H~ 76 n.
Neufeld, Maurice F., 226 n.
Neumann, Erich Peter, 184
Neumann, Sigmund, 291 n., 305 n., 306 n.
Newcomb, T. M., 346n.
Nicholas, A. G n 223 n.
Nichols, Roy F., 79n.
Niebuhr, H. Richard, 157n^ 160n., 168n.
Nkrumah, Kwame, 18, 36
Noelle, EHzabeth, 184
Oakeshott, Robert, 173 n., 181 n., 192
Odegard, Peter, 340n.
O'Dowd, Bernard, 259
Ogle, Charles, 84
Oppenheim, Felix E., 305 n.
Ormsby, Margaret, 302nu
Orwell, George, 218n.
Ossowski, Stanislaw, 185 n., 347 n.
Ostrogorski, Moisei Y., 108
Ouseley, William G., 143 n.
Ozanne, Robert, 182 n.
Packard, Vance, 1
Padover, Saul K., 226n.
Page, Charles, 190 n.
Paine, Tom, 43
Papineau, Louis Joseph, 250 n.
Parrington, V. L., 47 n.
Parsons, Talcott, viii, 3-5, 119, 141 n., 209,
210n., 211n., 212 n., 213n., 270, 271n.,
285, 287, 344
Passow, A. Harry, 128
Pelling, Henry, 180 n.
Perkins, Bradford, 45 n., 7 In.
Perlman, Selig, 342 n.
Perry, Stewart E., 279 n., 285 n.
Persons, Stow, 156n.
Petro, Sylvester, 189n.
Philips, Irving P., 188n.
Pierce, Henry, 53 n., 54 n.
Pierson, George W., 155 n.
Pittman, David, 81 n.
Pitts, Jesse R., 229 n.
Pitts, Ruth Ann, ix
Plamenatz, John, 93 n.
Plato, 118-119
Platt, Julius W., 64 n.
Pomfret, John D., 332n.
Potter, David M., 7n., 179n., 320-321,
329n., 348n.
Price, Leolin, 200 n., 22 In., 264 n.
Priestley, J. B., 262
Primm, James N., 53 n., 54 n.
Pringle, J. D., 268 n.
Probst, George E., 165 n.
Purcell, Richard, 48 n., 49 n.
354
Name Index
Raditsa, Bogden, 112 n.
Rasmussen, Albert T., 167 n.
Rawson, D. W., 200 n.
Reder, Melvin W., 181 n.
Renan, Ernest, 16
Renier, G. J., 215n.
Rezneck, Samuel, 46 n.
Rhys, Ernest, 118n.
Richardson, Stephen, 22 In.
Richmond, Patricia, 316n^ 317n.
Riesman, David, 1, 102, 104, 107, 114n.,
119, 122, 126, 128, 130, 132, 135-136,
281-282
Rimlinger, Gustav, 6n.
Roberts, B. O, ISOn., 189n^ 192, 193 n.,
196n., 198n.
Robinson, K. E., 315n.
Roche, John P., 27n., 28-29
Rokkan, Stein, ix, 192, 344n.
Rose, Arnold M,, 225 n., 252 n.
Rosenberg, Arthur, 23 3 n.
Ross, Arthur M., 180n n 196n^ 199 n., 202 n.
Ross, Lloyd M,, 201 n.
Rossi, Peter, 183 n., 346 n.
Rossiter, Clinton, 83 n^ 85 n^ 97
Rosten, Leo, 150 n.
Rostow, Walt W., 59, 105, 124
Rothchild, Donald S., 23 n., 25 n^ 27 n.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 226
Rowe, A. P., 254n.
Runcinian, W. G., 37 n.
Rustow, Dankwart, 23 5 n., 314n.
Sampson, Anthony, 216n^ 222n.
Samson, Leon, 178, 341
Sanford, Charles ll, 58n.
Sanford, R. Nevitt, 277 n.
Sangster, Charles, 258
Sanseverino, Luisa R., 186 n.
Sawyer, John E^ 226n.
Schacter, Ruth, 33n.
Schaff, Philip, 142, 153 IL, 163
Schattschneider, K E., 293, 295 n.
Schlatter, Richard, 95-96
Schlesinger, Arthur, Jr., 80
Schlesinger, Arthur, Sr., 34, 35n., 90n.,
124-125
Schumpeter, Joseph A., 178, 242 n., 291 n.
Schunnann, Franz, ix
Scott, Robert E., 316n.
Segal, Harvey, 54n.
Segerstedt, Torgny, 237
Seidman, Harold, 189n.
SeUers, Charles, 215 n.
Selznick, Philip, 312
Seward, William, 85
Shannon, Fred A., 48 n.
Shannon, Lyle, 345n.
Shepard, Benjamin, 49
Shils, Edward, 4n^ 18n., 23 n., 67-68, 69n.,
70n^ 71n., 72n., 91, 92n., 218n., 219-
220, 242 n., 245 n., 317n.
Sinunel, Georg, 308n.
Simon, Walter B., 309n.
Simpson, Hoke S., 179n., 324n.
Slichter, Sumner, 198 n.
Smelser, Marshall, 34n., 39 n., 41 n.
Smelser, Neil, ix, 8, 218n.
Smith, Alfred E., 340
Smith, Henry Nash, 105
Smith, J. W., 156n., 159n.
Smith, James M., 39n.
Smith, John Cotton, 49n.
Smith, Timothy L., 146 n., 153, 161 n.
Smith, W. B., 55 n.
Smuts, Robert W., llln., 112n., 171n.,
180
Snyder, Charles R., 81 n.
Sofer, Elaine Graham, 282 n.
Sombart, Werner, 114
Sovani, N. V M 70n.
Spencer, Herbert, 115n.
Spiller, Robert E., 60n., 71 n.
Spindler, G. Dearborn, 276 n.
Sprague, Peleg, 22
Stammer, Otto, ix, 192
Stanton, Alfred H., 279 n., 285 n.
Sternberger, Dolf, 292
Stevens, Thaddeus, 85
Steward, U M 280n.
Stewart, Rosemary, 221n., 226n^ 227n.,
241
Srigler, George J., 149, 179n.
Stiles, Ezra, 19
Stoker, Cleo, xi
Stokes, Anson Phelps, 82 n.
Sturmthal, Adolf, 182 n., 185, 196 n.
Suci, George, 275 n.
Sufrin, Sidney, 198 n.
Sumner, Charles, 72 n., 85
Sumner, William Graham, 89
Sun Yat-sen,315
Sutton, Francis X., 170n., 314n.
Swanson, Guy E M 137 n., 346n.
Sweet, WilHam W., 157 n.
Taft, PhiHp, 188 n.
Taft, Ronald, ix, 252 n.
Taine, Hippolyte, 217 n., 218n.
Thisdethwaite, Frank, 88, 89 n., 97-98
Thomas, Charles M,, 63 n.
Thomas, Hugh, 215n.
Tingsten, Herbert, 310
Titmuss, Richard M., 325 n.
Tobin, James, 170 n.
Nam Index
Tocqueville, Alexis Charles de, 17n., 80n.,
86n, 95-96, 102, 108, 110, 112, 114n,
122, 132n, 137-138, 141, 154-155, 158,
160, 166, 168, 170 n, 213, 216 n., 226 n.,
228-229, 243 n., 253
Tolles, Frederick, 89n,
Tonnies, Ferdinand, 209
Torrielli, Andrew J., 117n., 122n.
Toynbee, Philip, 240n.
Trevelyan, G. M., 96
Trollope, Anthony, 110, llln., 120, 141,
W2n, 156
Trollope, Frances, 110, llln., 112
Tro P p,Asher,221n
Trow, Martin, m, 36n, 181n., 190n,
207n< n ., ,,
Truman, David, 301
Truman, Tom * 192, 202n.
355
Wallerstein, Immanuel, ISn., 70n.
Ward, tassel, 255n, 256n., 264, 266n.
Warner, Charles Dudley, 117
Warner, W. L, 125
Washington, George, 18-19, 37, 42n M 63 n.;
as charismatic leader, 18-23; "Farewell
Address," 20, 65; veneration of, 22
Wayne, Ivor, 278n.
Weber, Max, w, 7, 17, 94, 115, 119, 126,
142, 156, 209n., 242n, 246, 316, 291n.
Webster, Daniel, 84
Wecter, Dixon, 116n, 119n. ( 153n.
Weens, Mason L, 22n.
Weiner, Myron, 23, 24n.
Weinstein, James, 295n.
Wesley, Jok, 146
^J w R 3
^ ^
Whitmar,Walt7259
m ^ Wfc H < ** 102 ' 10Jn " 1W '
107 ' 119 ' 122 ' 126 ' 128 ' 1?2 ' 1J5 - 1
Wildavsky, Aaron, 289n.
Ulich, Robert, 244
UnderhiU, Frank H, ix, 16n, 87, 250,
25^ 268n.
Useem, John, 133 n.
Useem, Ruth Hill, 133n.
Vaizey, John, 215n.
Van Buren, Martin, 84
Van Wagenen, R. W., 9n., 26n., 91n.,
210n M 344n.
Veblen, Thorstein, 114
Verney, Douglas, 235n.
Walker, Kenneth F., 252n., 267n.
WaUace, Edward S., 35n.
Philip, 301n.
Williams, Raymond, 217n.
Williams Robin . ^ 9<Jn - ^^ 213 n.
Willis, R. H, 279n.
Wilson, James, 29n.
Wilson, Woodrow, 339-340
Wirtz, Wilkd, 332n.
Wolfenstein, Martha, 283n.
Wood, Robert, 138
Wylie, Laurence, 229n.
Young, Michael, 218n., 220n, 224n.
Zahn, Jane C, 167n.
Subject Index
abolitionists, 34
abstention, principle of, 65
achievement, equality and, 1-2, 203, 213,
253, 273, 284, 318; gifted child and, 127-
129; in Great Britain, 215; and labor
unions, 203; legitimacy and, 245; and
Old World traditions, 101; other-direct-
edness and, 134-135; Protestant ethic
and, 126-127; religion and, 273; school
youths' attitude toward, 133; social
structure and, 174-175; value system
and, 123
achievement-orientation, 132-134
Actors' Equity, 190
address, forms of, 320
"affluent society," 1, 174, 338
AFL-CIO, 189n.
Africa, kinship with world ideals in, 67-
68; mass parties in, 33n.; nationalism in,
23 n., 24, 35n.; neutralism in, 62; one-
party systems in, 33n M 36-37; opposi-
tion permitted in, 44; party structure
in, 31-32, 314; religious nationalism in,
79; rule of law in, 11; unifying functions
of parties in, 33n.
age, education and, 328
Alien and Sedition Acts, 39, 42 n.
America, see United States
American character, changing nature of,
101-139; conformity in, 116-119; con-
tinuity of, 106; egalitarianism in, 110;
foreign accounts of, 106-122; social bar-
riers and, 113; summary of factors in,
129-139; unchanging nature of, 106-110;
values and, 110-122
American history, continuity in, 104;
periods in, 106
Americanism, as ideology, 178
American labor movement, 171-173; see
also labor unions
American literature, 73-74, 259, 278
American Newspaper Guild, 190
American political system, see political
parties; party systems
American Protestantism, fecundity of,
166-167; see also Protestantism; religion
American religion, church-state separa-
tion in, 81, 161, 168; competition in, 160;
pervasiveness of, 141-151, 155-156; secu-
larity in, 151-159, 166-167; special qual-
ity of, 155, 159; value system and, 105,
140-169; voluntarism in, 159-169; see
also Protestant ethic; religion
American Revolution, basic values of, 105;
effect of in Canada, 87-88; effect of on
"lower class," 341; egalitarianism and,
123, 127; legitimacy of authority fol-
lowing, 16-17, 77; national unity and,
26, 30; religion and, 159
American values, 123, 170; see also values;
value system
"American way of life," 158, 165, 168
Angola, Portuguese, 24 n.
anti-Americanism, 256
anti-clericalism, 27 3 n.
anti-Federalists, 30-31
anti-intellectualism, 71-73
anti- Jackson party, 82
anti-Masonic party, 82, 84
Anti-Saloon League, 339n.
anti-Semitism, 117
anti-Westernism, 35
Arab nations, national unity problem in,
aristocracy, collectivity and, 270; equal-
ity and, 112; in France, 226, 241; in
Germany, 232-233, 242; in Great Britain,
217-218, 243-244, 291; versus labor un-
ion leadership, 190-191; versus popu-
lism, 76; religion and, 83, 95, 162; sec-
recy and, 219-220; in Sweden, 235-236
Arminianism, 161-163
army life, 93, 273, 276, 343
Articles of Confederation, 27, 3 In.
ascription, 209-211, 237, 282; achievement
and, 245, 249; elitism and, 271
Asia, kinship with world ideals in, 67-68;
neutralism in, 62; opposition permitted
in, 44; rule of law in, 11
Australia, anti-elitism in, 199; education
in, 260-261; as egalitarian society,
199-202, 254-255, 267; frontier in, 255-
256; labor unions in, 192, 201, 264-265;
law enforcement in, 265; lawyers in,
Subject Index
264; "mateship" in, 252, 266-267; party
system in, 303n.; success ethic in, 253;
value differences in, 248-273; wage dif-
ferentials in, 267
Australian Council of Trade Unions, 201
Australian literature, 258-259
Australian Workers Union, 201, 256n.
Austria, republic of, 308-309
authoritarianism, 91, 234, 239, 314
authoritarian personality, 127-128, 277-281
authority, in African party structure, 31;
decentralized, 197; mistrust of, 121-122;
need for, 90; party systems and, 313;
in post-revolutionary society, 16; revo-
lution and, 11; source of, 313
autonomy, need for, 62-66
Bacongo, 24 n.
bank charters, granting of, 50
bank stock, state investment in, 51-52
Bank of the United States, 48, 51 n.
Baptist Church, 151, 162
Belgian Congo, 24 n.; see also Congo
Belgium, party systems in, 305-306
big business, legitimacy of, 127-128
Bonn republic, Germany, 237-239
bounties, state, 49
bourgeoisie, Engels' view of, 5-6; in
France, 226, 228; in Great Britain, 240-
241; political parties of, 290; rise of, 76
British Amalgamated Engineering Un-
ion, 193
British capital, in early American enter-
prises, 55-56
British Gallup poll, 194n.
British labor unions, 173, 190
British Labour Party, 194, 217, 219, 324
bureaucracy, college education and, 328;
growth of, 282
bureaucratization, fair treatment and, 136;
trade unions and, 136; urbanization and,
132, 140
"business unionism," 187
Calvinism, 94, 161-163; capitalism and,
94; decline of, 126; in early U.S., 80;
trade unionism and, 294; see also Protes-
tant ethic; Puritanism
Canada, anti-Americanism in, 256; con-
servation in, 250; education in, 260-261;
as egalitarian society, 199-202, 251;
frontier in, 160; "intellectual superior-
ity" of, 257-258; labor officials in, 201;
local autonomy in, 262; parliamentary
system of, 301; party systems in, 299-
302; as product of counterrevolution,
86; religious change in, 88-89; religious
357
sects in, 166; "rightist" bias in, 86-87;
similarities to U.S., 89; Toryism in, 86-
87; value differences in, 248-273
Canadian literature, 258-259
Canadian Protestants, 147
canal-building, state support of, 51-53
cantonal government, Switzerland, 17, 310
capital, foreign, 55-57
capitalism, achievement and, 125; equality
and, 175, 178-179; and Protestant ethic,
94, 341; reinforcing of egalitarianism
by, 178; revolution and, 175; triumph
of, 171; Weber's view of, 7
caste system, British, 115-117, 215-217,
243-244
Catholic Church, American character of,
153 ; democracy and, 96; in France, 226,
231; growth of, 163; membership in,
145 n., 151
"caution," in American character, 107,
109; in Canadian character, 252
Census Bureau, U.S., 147-149, 323
change, commitment to, 105; materialistic
interpretation of, 122-129
character, national, 21, 27, 280; social, 123,
274-278, 285
charismatic leader, defined, 17; role of,
16-23; 315-316
charters, granting of, 50-51
child-rearing, egalitarianism and, 119-120;
in France, 283; Germany, 275, 279-280;
Great Britain, 220-221; home discipline
and, 279; permissiveness in, 124, 274-276
children, democratic character in, 279;
early "ripening" of, 119; pampering of,
124; tolerance and equality toward, 119-
122
children's stories, as value indicators,
135-136, 345
Chinese Communists, 315
Christian Michelsens Institute, ix, 192
Christian Democratic Party, Italy, 308
Christian Democratic Union, Germany,
292
Christianity, democracy and, 94-96; per-
vasiveness of, 155; see also Protestant
ethic
Church and State Party, early U.S., 82
church membership, 142-147
Church of England, 88-89
church-state separation, 81, 161, 165, 168
civil liberties, early U.S., 39-41
civil service, under Jackson, 101
Civil War, 91, 106, 112, 165, 341; electoral
system and, 309; national authority pre-
ceding, 34; Republican Party and, 329
358
class consciousness, absence of in U.S.,
111, 178-179, 214, 342
class differences, early US., 92, 341
class system, France, 225-226, 231; Ger-
many, 234, 242, 291; Great Britain, 115-
117, 215-217, 243-244; Sweden, 236-237
class values, rise of, 76
clergymen, number of, 148-149
Cold War, new nations and, 62
collective bargaining, 181; American ver-
sus European, 198; in Australia and
Canada, 200; in France, 227-228
colleges, enrollment figures for, 260, 327;
religious belief in, 149-150
Communism and Communists, in Africa
and Asia, 314-315; equality and, 262; in
France, 229-230, 273 n n 298; in Ger-
many, 233, 291-292; in India, 306; in
Italy, 308-309; in new nations, 247; in
Poland, 319-320
comparative analysis, methods of, 343-348
conformity, 116-117; versus brotherhood,
138; decline in, 138; equality and, 119;
as form of individuality, 137-139; in re-
ligion, 139
Congo, national unity problems in, 24-25
Congregationalists, 80-81, 83, 94, 151; and
American Revolution, 160; in Nova
Scotia, 88
Congress of Industrial Organizations, 181,
185
conscience, religion and, 167
consensus, national unity and, 2324
conservatism, in Canada, 250; versus de-
mocracy, 97; versus liberalism, 343;
post-war, 126; religion and, 79; Tory-
ism and, 86-87
constitution, as authority symbol, 312,
314
Constitution, U.S., 34-35, 338
Constitutional Convention, 28-32
contest mobility, 222
Continental Congress, 28
corporation, versus family-owned com-
pany, 136; government protection of,
56-57
corruption, decentralization and, 198; in
labor unions, 176, 189, 198, 202
crime, in English-speaking nations, 265-
266; success and, 176
criticism, sensitivity to, 108-109
decentralization, 198
Declaration of Independence, 70, 97, 225,
338, 341
deference, absence of, 110-112
deism, 80
Subject Index
democracy, conservatism and, 97; minor-
ity rights in, 11; odds against in emerg-
ing nations, 11; Plato's analysis of, 118;
as process, 316; Protestantism and, 157n.
(see also Protestant ethic); religion
and, 168-169, 204; slow growth of, 316;
social distinctions and, 110; stability
and, 207-247, 317; turmoil in founding
of, 15-16; "tutelary," 315; value sys-
tems and, 207-247
Democratic Party, 300, 337; "common
man" label of, 330; egalitarian reforms
of, 338; labor unions and, 171-173; re-
vival of, 128
democratic personality, versus authoritar-
ian, 277-281
democratic polity, versus revolutionary
mood, 10-11; social character and, 274-
285; values and, 209-213
democratic process, value and, 268-273
Democratic-Republican Party, 33, 41, 43,
45, 78; anti-elitism of, 85; economic
policy of, 62
democratic rights, 39-40
democratic stability, values and, 207-247,
268
democratization, defined, 316
Denmark, labor unions in, 186 n., 187 n.,
192
denominationalism, function of, 168
desegregation, 331
difruseness-specificity, 249, 269, 284
disestablishment, 160-162
dissent, freedom of, 269; see also oppo-
sition
drama, German versus American, 278
due process, 11
economic development, egalitarianism
and, 343; legitimacy and, 246; other-
directedness and, 134-135; past rates of,
348; as "payoff," 46; stability and, 290;
value system and, 122
economic intervention, forms of, 46-49
education, age and, 328; versus conform-
ity, 138; high-school and college attend-
ance, 327; intellectuals and, 67; number
of college students by countries, 260;
old-fashioned versus eHte, 128; religious,
165
egalitarianism (equalitarianism), 76, 211-
213; aggressive, 110-111; in Australia,
254; capitalism and, 178; decline of, 125;
economic development and, 343; educa-
tion and, 127; of frontier, 251; see also
equality; opportunity; value differ-
ences; value systems
Subject Index
Eire, political parties in, 303-304
electoral rules, acceptance of, 44
electoral systems, 301-306; social structure
and, 293-295; in two-party system, 314;
U.S., 300, 309
elitism, 284; ascription and, 282; diffuse-
ness and, 269; egalitarianism in, 249;
European, 226-234, 320; indicators of,
345; political, 208; populism and, 271;
schools and, 128, 221-223; social recog-
nition and, 76, 211; stability and, 268; in
Sweden, 235-236; values in, 216; in West
Germany, 234, 238
embargo, U.S., 47, 59n., 64
employee, individuality of, 131, 228-231
employer, fear of, 136; loyalty to, 227
England, class lines in, 115-117, 215-217;
industrial competition with, 46-47;
loans to American industry from, 55;
see also Great Britain
Englishmen, Americans as, 93
English-speaking democracies, value dif-
ferences in, 248-273; see also Australia;
Canada; Great Britain; United States
entrepreneur, 131,238
Episcopal Church, 151
equality, achievement and, 1-2, 101, 203,
318; anti-elitism and, 84-85; in Australia,
199-202, 252, 254-255, 262; in Canada,
199-202, 251; capitalism and, 175; in
child-rearing, 119-121; competition and,
318; conformity and, 116-119; economic
development and, 343; gifted child and,
127-129; income and, 321; inequality
and, 321-343; labor unions and, 203; op-
portunity and, 115, 318, 321, 347; other-
directedness and, 118-119; political be-
havior and, 97; religion and, 273; in rev-
olutionary movements, 77; snobbishness
and, 117, in social relationships, 112; in
Soviet Union, 320; stability and, 268;
status-seeking and, 112, 139, 175; success
and, 102, 175; wage theories and, 186;
"for whites only," 330; see also egalitar-
ianism; inequality
Erie Canal, 56
"Establishment," 218, 270, 342
Europe, collective bargaining in, 200;
labor leaders in, 172-173, 191-192; labor
problems in, 198; school youth attitudes
in, 133; social structure in, 181; state
church in, 162-164; working-class ideol-
ogy in, 186; see also France; Germany;
Great Britain, etc.
evangelism, 6n., 162
"exclusiveness," stress on, 113n.
359
family-owned company, versus corpora-
tion, 136
"Farewell Address," Washington's, 20, 65
farm population, 334
fashion, submission to, 115
fatalism, in American character, 108
federal aid, to industry, 46-49
federalism, labor movement and, 196-197;
religion and, 80
Federalist, The, 26, 65
Federalists and Federalist Party, 21n^ 73,
329; anti-egalitarianism of, 77; versus
anti-Federalists, 30-31; attack on em-
bargo, 47-48; birth of, 32; compared to
African parties, 30-33; disappearance of
after 1814, 40; economic policy of, 62;
fear of organized opposition, 39-40;
name adopted by, 3 In.; origin of party,
32; "political suicide" of, 41; resistance
to opposition party, 38-40; secession
and, 34; in temperance movement, 81;
turnover of power to opposition in 1800,
44
feudalism, absence of in U.S., 89, 130
Ford Foundation, ix
foreign capital, U.S. need for, 55-57
"foreign entanglements," rejection of, 90
foreign policy, early U.S., 65-66
France, ancien regime and aristocracy in,
241; businessmen and capitalism in, 227;
child-rearing in, 283; civil service, 231;
Communists in, 229-230, 273 n., 298; in-
ner direction in, 283; instability of, 231-
233; "modern," 230; political history,
296-298; political parties in, 296-297;
pre-industrial values in, 228-229; social
structure in, 283-284, 296; two-ballot
system in, 300, 314; value systems in, 210,
224-239
franchises, as economic aid, 49-50
fraternal lodges, 138
free press, 42-43
French Revolution, 21, 225, 241; legiti-
macy of, 228; terror following, 39
frontier, Australia, 255-256; Canada, 250-
251; religion and, 160; U.S., 251, 255-
258, 338
Fugitive Slave Law, 35
fundamentalists, 151, 339
Gallup poll, British labor, 194n.
gambling, 49, 82, 176
Gemeinschaft, versus Gesellschaft, 209-
210
Georgia, state aid to industry in, 52-53
360
Germany, aristocracy in, 232-233, 242;
child-rearing in 275, 279-280; class sys-
tem in, 291; Communists in, 233, 291-
292; dramatic subjects in, 278; military
hierarchy of, 276; parent-child relations
in, 275; status in, 291; value patterns and
systems in, 210, 224-239; white-collar
status in, 183-185
Ghana, 18,36-37,315
gifted child, 127-129
Gilded Age, 114
God, belief in, 149
"good life," 287
government aid, to industry, 46-49
government ownership, 49-52
government planning, 46
grades, versus popularity, in school, 133-
134
Great Britain, achievement in, 215; aris-
tocracy in, 217-218, 244, 291; child-rear-
ing in, 279-280; class system in, 115-117,
215-217, 243-244; collective bargaining
in, 200; education in, 260-261; elitism
in, 217, 218n., 219, 224; income distribu-
tion in, 325-326; labor leadership in,
190-192; Labour Party, 194, 219, 324;
lawyers in, 264; Liberal Party, 294-295,
297; parliamentary history, 240; political
secrecy in, 219-220; stability in, 224;
values compared to U.S. values, 213-224,
248-273
Great Depression, 106, 125, 157 n., 233, 323,
329, 340
Great Plains, frontier and, 105
hierarchy, rejection of, 76; respect for, 234
high school education, 327
historical analysis, of social systems, 7-10
holidays, national, 75
Homestead Act, 105
identity, establishing of, 16; fee also na-
tional identity
Illinois, church attendance in, 13 In.
ELO Mission Report, 196-197
immigration laws, discrimination in, 338-
340
incentives, bases for, 136-137
income, inequality in, 324
income distribution, 322, 325
income tax, 322-323
Independence Day, 75
India, Commujiists in, 306; languages in,
24n., national unity problems in, 24;
party systems in, 306; religious national-
ism in, 79
individuality, versus conformity, 124, 137
Subject Index
Indonesia, national unity problem in, 25;
religious nationalism in, 79
industrialism, nationalism and, 46-47; and
pre-industrial values, 342
industry, foreign capital and, 55-56; gov-
ernment aid to, 46-49
inequality, versus equality, 340-343;
growth of, 125; of Negro, 331-333; in
U.S., 321-340
"inner-directed" character, 102-103, 126,
281-285
innovation, crime and, 176-177
intellectual inferiority, sense of, 70, 71 n.;
populism and, 68
intellectuals, leadership by, 66-74
interest groups, use of, 26-27
International Ladies Garment Workers
Union, 188
International Typographical Union, 190
Ireland, electoral system in, 293; political
parties in, 303-304
Israel, party system in, 304; political pres-
tige from leftism in, 74 n., 75 n.
Italy, Communists in, 308-309; wage
theories in, 186
Jacksonian Democrats, 83, 300; anti-
elitism of, 73, 84
Jamaica, B.W.I., 261
Jay treaty, 33
Jeffersonian Democrats, 20, 33; civil
liberties record of, 40-41; "irreligion"
of, 80
Jeffersonian Republicans, 2 In.
Jews, as dissenters, 164; immigration of,
152; in motion picture industry, 176 n.;
psychic punishment of, 271; snobbish-
ness and, 177
Junkers, 242
jury system, 265
Keynesian economics, 128
Know Nothing Party, 286
Ku Klux Klan, 286, 339-340
labor lawyers, 200
labor leadership, 187-196
labor movement, 171-172
labor parties, 290, 303 n.
labor-saving equipment, 198
labor troubles, equality and, 204
labor unions, American versus British and
European, 172-174; and American polit-
ical system, 196-199; and American
value system, 170-204; in Australia and
Canada, 199-202; bureaucratization of,
136; corruption in, 176, 189, 198, 202;
Subject Index
criticism as "libel" in, 42-43; equality
and, 183, 195; European, 198; and Euro-
pean social structure, 181; France, 227,
231; Germany, 183-185; lack of class-
consciousness and self-interest in, 178-
179, 342; laissez faire in, 181; leadership
versus societal values in, 187-196; mili-
tancy of, 179-182, 197-198; "more-
money" ideology of, 187; number of
officials in, 191-196; paradox of, 203;
political system and, 196-199; power of,
188; religion and, 203-204; salaries to
full-time leaders in, 195; skilled versus
unskilled workers in, 185-186; socialist
ideologies in, 196; social structure and,
173-178; societal values and, 170-187;
wage differentials and, 182-187
Labour Party, Great Britain, 194, 217, 219,
324
laissez faire, versus aid to industry, 48;
government ownership and, 52; labor
unions and, 181
language, national unity and, 24; in Revo-
lutionary era, 26
Latin America, electoral systems in, 300n.;
legitimacy in, 246; underdeveloped
status of, 15
law, respect for, 11; rule of, 8-9, 11, 265
lawyers, in English-speaking democracies,
264-265
leader, charismatic, 16-23
leadership, in Great Britain, 215n.; labor
unions, 187-196; in political elite, 208-
209
leftism, in American political tradition,
85-86; in Canada, 87; of Founding
Fathers, 90; in independence struggles,
75-77; in Israel, 74n., 75 n.; national
identity and, 78; in U.S., 295
legislative supremacy, principle of, 30
legitimacy, achievement and, 245; crisis of,
16-23; and economic development, 246;
of French Revolution, 228; of political
party, 311; revolution and, 90; stability
and, 290; three approaches to, 17
libel, 42-43
Liberal Party, Canada, 306; Great Britain,
294-295, 297; New Zealand, 303
literacy, early U.S., 95
lotteries, state, 48-49
Louisiana Purchase, 59
loyalty, in new political system, 16
Lttmpenproletariat, 291
Lutheran Church, 151
McCarthyism, 262 n., 263
mail, Sunday delivery of, 81
361
majority, sovereignty of, 290; tyranny of,
108
Malaya, local rule in, 17
management, bureaucratization and, 136
manual labor, versus white-collar work,
183-185
manufacturing, aid to, 46
manufacturing class, rise of, 57
mass parties, Africa, 33n.
"mateship," Australia, 252, 266-267
Memorial Day, 75
merchant class, rise of, 57
Methodist Church, 146, 148 n., 152, 162
Mexican War, 35, 86 n.
Mexico, 316; political systems in, 315-317
military class, 93, 276, 343
minority parties, 312
minority rights, 11, 164
Missouri Compromise, 44
mobility, contest versus sponsored, 222;
decrease of, 125; in religion, 167; social,
272
Monroe Doctrine, 65
morality, economic development and, 57-
58; and national identity, 80-83, 95-96
Moslem League, 79
Moslem parties, Indonesia, 79
motion picture industry, 176 n.
multi-party system, 296, 307-313; failure
of, 291
national authority, establishment of, 15-
60; versus opposition rights, 36
national celebrations, political creed and,
75
national character, 21, 27, 280
National Council of Churches, 145 n., 151
national evolution, comparative studies in,
343-348; historical, 9
national identity, establishing of, 16; for-
mulation of, 61-98; leftist ideology and,
77-78; Puritan tradition and, 94-96; re-
ligion and, 78-83; revolution as source
of, 74-90
nationalism, and economic independence,
58; economic policy and, 62; industrial-
ism as "payoff" in, 46-47; and intellec-
tual elite, 27, 67-68; versus states* rights,
28-29
National Party, South Africa, 303
national symbols, class values and, 76
national unity, authority and, 36; problem
of, 23-35
Nazism, 233-234, 238, 292, 314
Negro, inequality of, 330-333, 337; psy-
chic punishment of, 271; religious affil-
iation of, 152
362
"Negro Revolt of 1963," 333
Negro schools, 332
Negro vote, 329, 333
Negro-white relations, 320
neurotic personality, 125-127
neutralism, rise of in Asia and Africa, 62;
in U.S., 65-66, 90
neutrality, need for, 62-66
New Brunswick, Canada, 302
New Guinea, language problems in, 24 n.
New Jersey, states* rights stand of (1852),
35
New Jersey Plan, 29
New Jersey Society for Establishing Use-
ful Manufactures, 47 n.
new nation, America as first, 2, 15, et pas-
sim; charismatic authority in, 18; intel-
lectuals' role in, 69-74; legitimacy in,
246; national unity problem in, 23-26;
neutralism and non-alignment in, 62-
63; political problems of, 36 n^ 37 n.;
rule of law in, 11; "socialist" parties in,
85; suppression of opposition rights in,
36-37
New York, church attendance in, 142-143;
state aid to industry by, 53
New Zealand, political parties in, 303
Nigeria, autonomy in, 35n.; national unity
problems in, 24n.; one-party domina-
tion in, 37; religious nationalism in, 79
noblesse oblige morality, 241, 270
non-alignment policy, new nations, 62-63
Norway, electoral system in, 293; party
systems in, 311; union membership in,
192
Nova Scotia, "inertness" in, 257-258; re-
ligious change in, 88
nullification ordinances, 34
occupational mobility, 125
old-age pensions, 337
Old World traditions, achievement and,
101
one-party systems, 16, 33 n,, 36-37, 78
opinion, in democratization process, 116,
316; fear of, 108
opportunity, equality of, 2, 115, 318, 321,
347; status-consciousness and, 112; see
also equality
opposition, Federalists* fear of, 39; rights
of, 36-45; as sedition or treason, 39; sta-
bility and, 316-317; succession and, 44
"organization man," 103-104
"other-directedness," 102-103, 123, 130,
207; versus achievement-orientation,
135; bureaucratization and, 132; as con-
formity, 11&-119; in Europe, 133; and
Subject Index
"generalized other," 134; versus inner-
directedness, 281-285; religion and, 141;
urbanization and, 132
Pakistan, national unity problem in, 25 n.
parent-child relationships, 274-275, 283;
see also child-rearing; children
parent-teacher associations, 221-222
parliamentary systems, 228, 293-294
particularism-universalism, 249, 270, 284
party politics, versus intellectual leader-
ship, 73
party systems, authority and, 313; conse-
quences of, 307-312; social cleavage and,
295-306; social groups and, 286-317;
social structure and, 289-295; see also
political party
patriotism, industrialism and, 47
pattern variables, 209, 270; ranking by
country, 249
"payoff," economic development as, 45-
60
Pennsylvania, egalitarianism in, 78; state
aid to industry in, 52
permissiveness, in child-rearing, 121-122,
274
personal failure, social structure and, 175
personality adjustment, 127
personal responsibility, 163
Philippine Islands, 261
physiocrats, 47
plurality system, 294
Poland, Communists in, 319-320; white-
collar workers in, 184
political cleavage, in post-Revolutionary
U.S,26
political elite, 208; see also elitism
political party, Constitutional Convention
and, 32; first "modern," 33; representa-
tion and, 286-289; rise of, 26-27, 34; see
also party systems
political stability, social change and, 239-
247; two-party system and, 309; see also
stability
populism, excesses of, 271, 285; minority
rights and, 11; intellectuals and, 68; rise
of, 76, 220, 286; versus rule of law, 11
post-revolutionary society, legitimacy in,
16; rule of law in, 11
poverty, 333-337
predestination, 161
presidential system, U.S., 300-301
primary elections, 300
productivity levels, 348
professions, training of, 72 n.
progressive education, 120, 122, 126-128
Progressive Party, Canada, 302
Subject Index
Prohibition Amendment, 338, 339n.
property ownership, 326
proportional representation, 293, 299
prostitution, 176
Protestant churches, membership in, 145-
147
Protestant ethic, 94, 101, 107, 339; capital-
ism and, 94, 341; decline of, 126, 136;
foreign investment and, 57 n.; versus
social ethics, 103; trade unionism and,
204
Protestantism, American, 157-159, 162;
crime and, 176; immigration laws favor-
ing, 338-339; minority rights and, 164
provincialism, 27-28
Prussia, 233, 237, 292
psychic energy, conformity and, 138-139
psychic punishment, 271
public opinion, in democratization pro-
cess, 316
public-opinion polls, 345
public roads and waterways, 49-50
public school system, 2; see also educa-
tion; schools
Puerto Rico, 261
Puritanism, as counter-reformation, 81;
effect of, 95-96; labor unions and, 203;
significance of, 158-159, 253
Quakers, 152
Quebec, education in, 261
race relations, 214-215
racketeering, success in, 176
radicalism, versus conservatism, 124-125;
versus religious innovation or revival-
ism, 6n.
railroads, state support of, 50-54
Reader's Digest, 346
religion, achievement and, 273; as adaptive
mechanism, 272; American, see Ameri-
can religion; church membership, 142-
148; church-state separation in, 81, 161,
168; as conduct and good deeds, 156;
conformity in, 139; democracy and,
167-169; denominationalism in, 168; in
early U.S., 94; equality and, 169, 273; of
middle class, 6n.; mobility in, 167; mu-
tual esteem among competing sects, 154;
national identity through, 79-83; Negro
and, 272; other-directedness in, 153;
pervasiveness of, 156; sects and seculari-
zation in, 152-154; "Sunday" versus
"weekday" varieties of, 168; trade
unions and, 203-205; traditional English,
6; urbanization and, 140; in value sys-
tems, 139; voluntarism in, 159-169
363
religious affiliation, survey of, 147-149
religious education, 165
religious tolerance, 164-165
"Report on Manufactures," Hamilton,
47 n.
representation, social structure and, 287-
300
Republican Party, big business and, 127-
128; Civil War and, 329; and liberal
domination pattern, 329; "popular" ap-
peal of, 38
revolution, American, see American Rev-
olution; legitimacy and, 90; national
identity through, 74-90; religion and,
95-96; "of rising expectations," 46, 91;
value system and, 89
revolutionary groups, equality in, 77
revolutionary ideal, twentieth-century
U.S., 97-98
revolutionary intellectual, 67
revolutionary mood, and democratic
polity, 10-11
Revolutionary War, see American Rev-
olution
rightists, versus conservatism, 97
Rights of Man, doctrine of, 225
rising expectations, revolution of, 46, 91
roads and waterways, state aid through,
49-51
"rules of the game," respect for, 43, 93,
307
rural culture, versus metropolitan, 103
schools, Australia, 254; British versus U.S.,
221-223, 327; prayers in, 165; punish-
ment in, 121-122; Sweden, 236; see also
colleges; education
Scientific American, 324n.
secession, 34; in Africa, 35 n.
secrecy, in government and politics, 219-
220
secret societies, 37
secularity, in American religion, 151-159
Sedition Act, 39, 42 n.
segregation, 331
self-distrust, in American character, 108
self-image, national, see national identity
self-interest, lack of in unions, 178-179
self-orientation, versus collectivity-orien-
tation, 270
single-party systems, see one-party sys-
tems
skilled labor, versus unskilled, 182-187
slavery, U.S., 34, 330-332
small-town ambitions, 131-132
social analysis, monistic approach to, 4-5;
patterns in, 137-138
364
social change, continuity of, 104-105; sta-
bility and, 239-247
social character, values and, 123, 274-285
social cleavage, party systems and, 295-
306
Social Credit Party, Canada, 302
Social Democratic Party, Germany, 233,
291-292
social distinctions, absence of, 110; capi-
talism and, 179; see also class conscious-
ness; status
social ethic, 103
social groups, party systems and, 286-317
socialism, versus "Americanism," 178
socialist parties, in new states, 85
Socialist Party, France, 231; Germany,
233, 291; Sweden, 237; U.S., 286, 295
socialization process, 133, 275
social mobility, 1; as adaptive mechanism,
272
social recognition, factors in, 76
social science, comparative, 318-348
social stratification, 269 n.
social structure, electoral systems and,
293-295; party systems and, 289-295;
unionism and, 173-178
social systems, historical analysis of, 8;
hypotheses concerning, 348; value sys-
tem in, 123
social work agencies, 195
societal values, union leadership and, 187-
196; union movement and, 178-187
society, dynamic equilibrium model of,
7-8
South, electoral system in, 309; Negro-
white relations in, 214-215, 320; Prohi-
bition and Protestantism in, 339-340; as
source of instability, 214-215
South Africa, national unity problem in,
24 n.; party system in, 309; political par-
ties in, 302-303
Southern Baptist Church, 151
Soviet Union, elitism in, 320; income level
in, 327; "intellectual inferiority" in,
71 n.
specificity-difruseness, 209, 213
spoils system, 101 n.
stability, democratic, 207-247, 317; legit-
imacy and, 290; and social change, 239-
247; two-party system and, 309; value
system and, 207-247, 268; wealth and,
290
Standestaat system, Germany, 10, 234
state, aid to industry from, 46-49
state banks, 51-52
state charters, 50-51
state lines, crossing of by political parties,
2627
Subject Index
"State parties," 3 12
states* rights, and Democratic-Repub-
lican Party, 41; expressions of, 35; ver-
sus national authority, 28-29; versus na-
tional planning, 48
status and status-seeking, 112-113; books
deploring, 138; as conformity, 116; as
egalitarianism, 112, 139; in Germany
and other countries, 10, 291; inequalities
in, 271; in small communities, 132
strikes, 202
subversion, force and, 37-38
"success" ethic, 114, 124; anxiety and, 125;
in Australia, 252-253; bureaucracy and,
132; crime and, 176-177; equality and,
102, 175; labor unions and, 174, 189,
204; need for, in U.S., 273; and social
structure, 174-175
suffrage, universal, 2, 235
Sunday Blue Laws, 164
Sunday, as day of rest, 81-82
Sunday school, 146
Sweden, aristocracy in, 235-236; electoral
system in, 293; old-age pensions in, 337;
party system in, 310; union leadership
in, 190; union membership in, 192
Swiss Federation, 66
Switzerland, canton system in, 17, 310;
multi-party government in, 312
tariff, protective, 48
taxation, as aid to industry, 49 n.
tax changes, U.S., 323
teachers, American versus British, 221-222
temperance movement, 81
theocracy, 82-83
Togoland, British and French, 24n.
Toryism, 76, 83, 86-87, 92, 160, 250
totalitarianism, 91, 247, 315
Townsend Harris High School, N.Y., 127
trade unions, see labor unions
Transport Workers Union, 185
treason, libel and, 42-43
Tunisia, 315
two-ballot system, 300, 307, 314
two-party system, 16, 44, 294-295, 299; in
Belgium, 310; in Canada, 302; class con-
flict and, 290; consequences of, 308;
electoral system and, 314; Federalists'
view of, 39; national government and,
311; religion and, 82; weaknesses of,
307-308, 312
underdeveloped nations, 246; see also new
nation
unions, see labor unions
Unitarian Church, 151
United Automobile Workers, 185, 188
Subject Index
United Mine Workers, 181
United States, absence of class conscious-
ness in, 214, 342; absence of military
class in, 93; aid to industry in early
years, 46-48; charismatic authority in,
18; child-rearing in, 119-120, 279-280;
church membership in, 143-144; civil
liberties in, 39-41; class structure in, 92;
compared to Great Britain, 213-224;
"democrats" as political leaders in, 85-
86; early advantages of, 91; early capi-
talism, 50-54; early foreign policy, 64-
65; economic growth rate, 336; equal-
ity in, see equality; expansionism of,
59n., 251; family income distribution,
322; fear of by Canada, 251; as first new
nation, 2, 15, et passim; foreign capital
needs, 55-57; frontier in, 255-258; "gov-
ernment party" of Hamilton, 38; Great
Britain and, 213-224; identity estab-
lished, 16; industrial consciousness in,
46; inequality in, 321-340; "interna-
tional impotence" of, 27; labor move-
ment in, 171-172, 178-187, 192, 196-199;
lawyers in, 264; "leftism" in, 75-78, 85-
86, 90; legal-rational authority in, 22;
legitimacy acquired, 59-60; materialism
and love of money in, 58, 122-130; mo-
bility in, 222; as "modern" society, 123;
national character formation in, 21; na-
tional identity formulated, 61-98; na-
tional intellectuals in, 68-69; national-
ist leadership in, 30; Negro inequality
in, 330-333; "neutralism" of, 62-66, 90;
one-party system in, 44; opposition
rights in, 37-38; party systems in, 299-
300, 307-312; per-capita income in, 333-
334; political publicity in, 219-220; pov-
erty in, 333-334; presidential system,
300-301; Puritanism in, 94; rational-
legal system of authority, 20; religion
in, 94, 140-167; religious materialism,
79-83; school systems, 221; secession
threats in first decade, 34; state and lo-
cal support of industry, 50-54; success
ethic in, 114, 124, 132, 174-176, 189, 204,
273; twentieth-century revolutionary
ideals of, 97-98; two-party system in, 44
(see also two-party system); union
membership totals, 192; value cleavages
in, 91; value differences in, 213-224, 248-
273; see also American (adj.)
universaHsm-particularism, 209, 213
universal suffrage, 235
University of Michigan Survey Research
Center, 335-336
unwritten constitution, 269
365
urbanization, other-directedness and, 132,
140
Uruguay, electoral system in, 300n.
value analysis, 4n., 7
value cleavages, early U.S., 91-92
value conflict, continuity and, 123-124
value differences, in English-speaking
democracies, 248-273
value patterns, and democratic polity,
209-213; political process and, 274
values, versus institutions, 2-3, 6; social
character and, 274-285
value system, American character and,
110-122; analysis of, 2; Canada, 250-251;
as causal factor, 3; central, 4; changes
in, 103; character and, 122; and demo-
cratic process, 268-273; democratic sta-
bility and, 207-247; in dynamic equi-
librium model of society, 7-8; foreign
capital and, 57; France, 224-239; free
choice and, 98; Germany, 224-239; la-
bor unions and, 170-204; national, 209-
213; religion and, 139-169; and revolu-
tionary origins, 89; social barriers and,
113; social character and, 123, 274-275;
stability and, 268; trade unions and,
170-204
veto groups, 282
violence, in labor unions, 180-181
Virginia, state aid to industry from, 52
Virginia dynasty, 44-45
Virginia Plan, 28-29
voluntarism, religious strength from, 159-
169
voluntary associations, egalitarianism and,
195
voting and electoral systems, 293-294,
301-302, 309, 314, 329, 333
wage differentials, labor unions and, 182-
187
wage structure, American versus Euro-
pean, 182-187; English-speaking democ-
racies, 267
War of 1812, 44, 47, 58-59, 64-65, 105
wealth, inequality in, 324; per-capita dis-
tribution of, 324-325; Protestant ethic
and, 341; stability and, 290; striving for,
114-115
Weimar Republic, Germany, 233-235,
291-292, 314
Western world, American patterns for,
130
West Germany, 237-238; see also Ger-
many; Weimar Republic
West Indian Federation, 25
366 Subject Index
Whig Party, 44, 82-85, 240, 300, 329 social status of, 111, 183-184; Sweden,
white-collar worker, 231, 330; wage-pref- 237
erence scales for, 183-184 working-class parties, 290
Wisconsin, states' rights stand of 1859 in,
35 Yankee peddler, 257
working class, rise of, 76, 104, 227-228; Year Book of American Churches, 148
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