> Wojtek writes:
>
>> 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.
>
>
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