[WS:] I have a strong suspicion that our images of the "settler culture" is product of the 20th century propaganda and Hollywood-made mythology and have little resemblance of reality. I recall reading an article a while ago arguing that guns were not very popular among earlier settlers because they were expensive and unreliable, but the image of a gun toting settler was manufactured by gun industry and lobby after the Civil War. Needless to say that the NRA shitheads took exception to it.
I think it is quite probable that settlers had highly developed sense of social solidarity, because without they would not be able to survive in a harsh and often hostile environment. However, settlers seldom wrote about their own experiences - it is jurnos and intellectuals of various stripes who did and these tend to pander to popular myths bending the truth in the process. Take the Donner Party for example. This is the story of enormous solidarity among people who found themselves in extreme conditions, but the press at the time trumped up the cannibalism trope because it was sensational. I recall reading an article (National Geographic?) saying that there is not much evidence of cannibalism in the Donner party - meaning that that there was some but not as wide spread as the press of the time portrayed it.
Or take the smallholders of the time. These were extended family households not a mom, pop and 2 and 1/2 kids as modern mythology has it. Similar social arrangement elsewhere were associated with strong social solidarity bonds (cf. Thomas and Znaniecki study of peasant immigrants in the US.) So it is very likely that social solidarity bonds were strong among smallholders as well.
And then there is Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc. that are also settler communities, but do not have such a strong individualistic and libertarian ethos as the US population does. Clearly, it must have been something else than "settler culture" that produced them. That something is, I argue pro-business propaganda and mythology permeating nearly every aspect of the US culture.
As to your view of European history and claiming its similarity to American history - I think you are quite wrong about it, as many Marxists are. There were different configurations of class powers between lords and peasants, and different role that state played in those class relations, which led to different outcomes, e.g. England vs. France, Western Europe vs. Eastern Europe, etc. This has been hammered to death by Brenner, Moore, Skocpol, Rueschemeyer and others. A good place to start would be Brenner's long piece "Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre industrial Europe" (Past 7 Present, 1982, 97:16-113.) where he contrast the development paths of England and continental Europe, and the edited volume "bringing the State In" (by Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol.) Both publications offer strong historical evidence that the state in Europe was not a mere tool of landlords or bourgeoisie, but rather an independent actor balancing the power of different social classes.
In any case, I would like to reiterate the fact that the US state has very different origins than European states - the former is a creation of the US bourgeoisie whose power and influence predates the state, whereas European states predate modern social classes and historically has had a much greater autonomy vis a vis social classes than the US state. This, I believe, set two different paths of institutional development that account for different political outcomes (strong vs. weak welfare state, for example) as well different cultures: the strong presence of pro-business libertarianism in the US vs. collective security preferences in Europe.
Wojtek
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 3:56 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wojtek S
>
> CB: Petit bourgeois Robinsonade, ideology generated continously in
> capitalism...rugged individualism, _self_-reliance, alienation...
> America has an especially virulent case of it perhaps related to its
> historical settler state thingy as you suggest.
>
> [WS:] But this was a while ago, no? Besides, guys like Thoreau were
> not settlers.
>
> ^^^^
> CB: Yes, some of them were a while ago, but I'm suggesting that unique
> American national character is still shaped by American history. Also,
> the whole pioneer and Western cowboy culture stretches to the 20th
> Century. Cowboy movies and television shows were popular in the
> 1950's and 60's. Small farm freeholders, petit producers, family
> farmers were generated for many generations after the original
> settlers. There was no feudal landlords to take the land away from.
> As to Thoreau, there were plenty of small farmers in New England for a
> while , I'm pretty sure.
>
> The American gun fetish is rooted in the standard equipment of
> pioneers and cowboys including to fight Indians.
>
> Ronald Reagan's announcer role in the television show "Death Valley
> Days" was very emblematic of the transfer of this small freeholder
> culture to Reaganism , anti-Gov'ment philosophy and now, the Tea
> Party.
>
> ^^^^^^^
>
> My take on it is a bit different, more institutional. In Europe, the
> state (monarchy) precedes the capitalist class and as such was the
> "default" embodiment of what we today call "public interest" (its the
> l'état, c'est moi thing.) The bourgeoisie (big and small) only
> gradually chipped away this state hegemony on "public interest" but a
> lot of that hegemony remained vested in modern state by default, so to
> speak (cf. the French republicanism.)
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Yes, though I would say feudal lords and bishops preceded the
> capitalist class. The monarchies were a transitional form between
> feudalism and capitalism as kings helped the bourgoisie come to power
> in many ways, including forming nations.
>
> ^^^^^
>
> In America, by contrast, the capitalist class - plantation owners and
> industrialists precede the state. Not only did they found the US
> state, but they crafted it in such a way that it was ideologically and
> politically subordinate to the capitalist class, which by default held
> the hegemony for "public interest" (if this term is appropriate here.)
>
> ^^^^
> CB: Agree on the slavocractic capitalists as the leading section of
> the first US ruling class. They were overthrown in the Civil War by
> the newly rising industrialists.
>
> Early, the bourgeoisie were more in the manufacturer rather than
> industrial phase of capitalism ( See Marx's distinction between these
> in _Capital_). The Civil War marked the rise of industrial capital
> and the takeover from the slavocracy as the dominant section of the
> bourgeosie.
>
> At any rate, throughout this time there were masses of small
> freeholders, as described in Marx's last chapter in _Capital_ on
> colonialism.
>
> ^^^^
>
> The state chipped away some of that hegemony away (especially during
> the Civil War), but by default a lot that hegemony remained vested in
> "private initiative."
>
> In short, the American infatuation with libertarianism and private
> initiative is rooted not in some purported "settler mentality" (if
> there was ever such a thing) but in the blueprint of US
> political-economic institutions crafted by plantation owners and
> bourgeoisie that prioritize "private initiative" (i.e. the interests
> of plantation owners and industrialists while paying lip service to
> smallholders) before the state. This institutional blueprint changed
> remarkably little in the US (vis a vis sweeping institutional changes
> taking place in Europe and Asia in the same time) - which may explain
> the popularity of ideological expressions of that institutional
> blueprint.
>
> Wojtek
>
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