>My point was simply that the kind of individualism
>associated with Emerson and the kind that fuels
>capitalism are very different and that genuine
>individualism - the kind that resists the mob in
>deference to principle and fellow-feeling - is not
>necessarily incompatible with more communal types of
>social arrangements.
Very different? I don't think so. There was a lot of the "imperial self" in Emerson - a voracious ego driven by an emptiness at the core that wanted to consume the world. And the pull yourself up by the bootstraps attitude toward the poor. Emerson is a younger, higher-end version of our contemporary capitalist pseudo-individuality, but they're closer than distant cousins.
Doug