> I do not dispute that American labor movement
> grew out of its own soil. All I am arguing is that:
> (i) labor movement required a precondition - social
> solidarity ties; (ii) those social solidarity ties
> have its origins in immigrant communities, and (iii)
> those social solidarity ties have been weakened by the
> particularly nasty form of capitalism that grew on the
> Amerikan soil.
[...]
> ...I think that it is difficult
> to argue with proposition (iii) of my argument - that
> they were destroyed in this country to a far greater
> degree than in Europe due to a particularly virulent
> form of capitalism that developed here. That virulent
> form of capitalism combined high industrial
> productivity with peculiar demographic composition
> (vis a vis Europe) characterized by low density (and
> thus land availability) and high ethnic heterogeneity,
> and the ideological hegemony of the WASP business
> class.
>
> These three elements allowed social engineering on a
> much larger scale than it was ever possible in Europe.
> It involved continuous physical relocation of millions
> of workers, upward mobility opportunities to select
> groups, and fanning of ethnic and racial tensions -
> which undoubtedly weakened communities and social
> solidarity ties...
==================================
Unless I'm misunderstanding, it seems to me we're generally in agreement
that superior US economic growth - you cite, among other things, labour
productivity, land availability, and social mobility - dulled the political
consciousness of American workers compared to their more aware European
counterparts; that European workers and intellectuals played a prominent
role in the introduction of early socialist ideas into the American labour
movement; and that the descendents of immigrant families, chasing economic
opportunities and assimilating the host culture, including it's fierce
individualism, abandoned the more benevolent traditions of mutual aid found
in the immigrant enclaves.