It is based on the notion of institutional isomorphim or transfer of institutional forms rather than just ideologies (it is based on Giddens aned Di Maggio & Powell arguments how institutional forms are reproduced as well as notion of path dependence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_dependence and also Brenner's work on the origins of capitalism.) Similar outcome, different mechanism, if you will. But it makes a lot of sense. Marxism missed the mark quite a bit by focusing on economics and disregarding institutional and cultural factors (or rather reducing them to economic ones.) I understand it was a healthy reaction to idealism of that time, but we should not let the kulturkampf of one era blind our sociological analyses.
PS. I do not think that institutional analysis disproves the centrality of the notion of socio-economic class in historical analysis - it just adds another layer of complexity to it.
Wojtek
On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2012-03-15, at 11:09 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
>> It is
>> amazing to what degree English colonies reproduced liberal capitalist
>> institutions of England even in the relative absence of social classes
>> (landed aristocracy turned industrialists) that originally created it
>> in England. Take Australia or New Zealand - they spearheaded
>> neoliberalism even when Labour was in power and managed to avoid
>> continental-style welfare state. Canada is more of a mixed bag,
>> probably due to the large presence of the French minority.
>
> Ah, the idealist Hartz thesis.
>
> "Hartz rejected Marxism, indeed turned it upside down, finding in the power of an idea the explanation of that inexplicable nonevent for Marxists, the absence of socialism in America.[1]
>
> "In The Founding of New Societies (1964), Hartz developed the idea that the nations that developed from settler colonies were European "fragments" that in a sense froze the class structure and underlying ideology prevalent in the mother country at the time of their foundation, not experiencing the further evolution experienced in Europe. He considered Latin America and French Canada to be fragments of feudal Europe, the United States, English Canada, and Dutch South Africa to be liberal fragments, and Australia and English South Africa to be "radical" fragments (incorporating the non-Socialist working class radicalism of early 19th century Britain).[citation needed]"
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Hartz
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-- Wojtek http://wsokol.blogspot.com/