Review of the book American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword

            Semour Lipset, in the book American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword, analyzes the following research questions: to what extant is America exceptional in comparison with other developed nations, and why is the country so different politically, socially, and economically (Lipset, 1996)? These research questions are not original but are at the center of an academic discussion that has taken place for approximately two centuries. Notable scholars such as Alexis De Tocqueville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Louis Hartz have written extensively on the subject. Despite the vast distances in time that separate these writers, all of them agree that America is known for its more liberal political culture and economic system in comparison with other countries in the developed world. They also agree that Americans are more adverse to radical political ideologies, more religiously pious, and more individualistic than their European counterparts. Furthermore, like these authors, Lipset sees American Exceptionalism as a “double-edged sword.” While America’s liberal political culture was conducive towards relatively early democratization in comparison with Europe, the country also currently suffers from higher crime rates and a weaker welfare state. Lipset’s main conclusions are not particularly unique, but his methodology, which involves using statistics from the World Values Survey from the years 1980 and 1990, provides more empirical grounding for the conclusions that were made by comparative scholars in the past. More importantly, Lipset goes beyond a general comparison of the United States and Europe by including chapters on Canada and Japan as well as including several sections that discuss the reasons why America’s minority communities—African Americans, Jews, and liberal intellectuals—are outliers within the culture. While these side topics are not the main focus of the book, they add considerable depth to a very old discussion.

            As stated above, most of the answers to Lipset’s research questions are not original. Like past scholars, he views American exceptionalism as the product of its unique foundations (Lipset, 31-76). Unlike European countries or Japan, America has no history of feudalism nor was a social revolution required to overthrow the privileges of an old regime. The United States never had an aristocratic class of landowners that dominated the countryside nor did they have an established church hierarchy. Some of the earliest migrants were Protestants of the Puritan variety. They brought with them what Max Weber calls the “Protestant ethic” of hard work, republican ideals, and personal devotion to God through a personal interpretation of the Bible. The Congregationalist nature of America’s protestant communities also meant that churches had the tendency to splinter. Without an aristocracy or a church hierarchy, the country was born as a democracy, and conflict was not required to establish a liberal polity. Without a need for a social revolution, America never developed a radical leftist movement such as Marxism nor a counter revolutionary tradition in line with thinkers such as Edmund Burke. In the early years of American history, the values of equality of opportunity and liberalism became entrenched in American society, which counter-intuitively led to a lack of tolerance for ideas outside the liberal mainstream of American political life. This is why far-left academics have been marginalized politically. Furthermore, social classes never became ingrained within the American psyche, so Americans are more optimistic about social mobility than other states in the developed world. However, Americans are also more pessimistic about the government and less communitarian than their European and Japanese counterparts. This is why Americans are more likely to favor investments in education over the creation of a robust welfare state. Lipset’s economic data shows that European governments spend considerably more on unemployment insurance, medical care, housing, and social security while America spends far more on education. The World Values Survey data also shows that Americans are more individualistic and value liberty over equality of result.  

            While Lipset’s main arguments fall in line with the main ideas of De Tocqueville and Hartz, there are various points at which Lipset does add more nuance to the debate over American exceptionalism. Lipset partially disagrees with De Tocqueville’s assertion that America’s geographical landscape heavily shaped American political culture (De Tocqueville, 30). Other countries in the New World had different colonial experiences and migration patterns than America, so their political values evolved in a very different direction. Lipset shows how this was the case by comparing America with Canada (Lipset, 77-109). Unlike the Thirteen Colonies, Canada was founded as the French colony of Quebec, so the Catholic Church, with its hierarchical structure and communitarian values, established a foothold in this part of North America. While the English would eventually take control of the colony after the French and Indian War in 1763, the Catholic Church maintained its influence. Furthermore, England’s Protestant colonies objected to Catholic Canada becoming a Crown Colony. When the American Revolution began, many of the Tory loyalists to the British monarchy fled north to Canada, and numerous Congregational Protestant sects in Canada fled south to New England. The type of Protestants that tended to settle in Canada were of the Anglican variety, which emphasized hierarchy and communitarian values in line with the ideals of Catholicism.  Today, Canada’s political culture shares a lot more in common with Europe than the United States. The country has a much stronger welfare state than America and communitarian values such as equality of result are more important.

            Lipset also addresses other critical questions that are neglected by the classic writers on this topic. For example, why is it that several of America’s minority communities have a different political culture than the majority? Through a historical analysis and a comparison of World Values Survey data, Lipset shows that African Americans and Jews are outliers. They are more likely to share the communitarian values found in Europe than the average American, although each group has a very different historical experience that led to this outcome. The attitudes of African Americans were shaped by the institutions of slavery and later Jim Crow in the South (Lipset, 113-150). Unlike the political culture found among whites in New England, the systems of slavery and Jim Crow were hierarchical and oppressive. Consequently, blacks are far more likely to identify themselves with their racial group and are less individualistic. Furthermore, the black community had to struggle to obtain their Civil Rights, so they were more likely to adopt the values of equality of result. With that said, the majority of African Americans do share most of the same liberal political values as whites according to survey data although whites are still far more likely to hold those values by a large margin. Consequently, African Americans are more likely to support redistributive economic policies and affirmative action.  

            While Jews share similar political values with African Americans, their historical experiences are very different (Lipset, 151-75). Most of America’s Jews were voluntary migrants that came to the United States from Central and Eastern Europe. During the Middle Ages, Jews were forced to live in urban ghettos, so they gravitated towards professions such as commerce and banking. This placed the Jewish community in an optimal position to thrive economically when the Western world began to industrialize in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. Jews that have migrated to the United States over the last two and a half centuries have fit in very well in a capitalist economy and a pluralistic political culture that has tolerated their presence. Jews have done remarkably well politically, economically, and socially to the point where they have surpassed every other ethnic and religious groups in America by a very large margin in nearly every socioeconomic indicator. However, like African Americans, the community has also experienced a long history of discrimination, and they are more sensitive to the needs of minority communities than the average American. It is why Jews, like African Americans, are more likely to vote for the Democratic Party and support policies that favor the redistribution of wealth to the poor. Lipset’s analysis of these minority communities shows that there are exceptions to the rule within America’s political culture. The origins of different immigrant groups is an important explanatory variable in terms of explaining the current state of political culture in the United States.

            However, there are several concerns with Lipset’s work that need to be addressed. While making a causal connection between long term historical trends and present cultural values makes intuitive sense, it neglects the fact that political cultures also change overtime in response to political, economic, and social crises.  Not every piece of data from the past or present fits the narrative constructed by Lipset. While it may be true that the United States significantly outspent Europe on education in the 1990’s, many countries have caught up since then and even surpassed America since Lipset completed his book two decades ago.[1] For example, Germany reformed its entire educational system in response to disappointing PISA exam scores in the early 2000’s. We cannot explain this shift in attitudes towards education in Germany based on a distant feudal past but as changes to a political culture in a globalized world. By overemphasizing the historical differences between different political cultures based on their origins, it denies their capacity to evolve with the times and learn from the past. With that said, Lipset provides a good overview of the different perspectives on American exceptionalism while adding more nuance and empirical evidence to the debate.  

  

Work Cited

De Tocqueville, Alexis. 1966. Democracy in America, translated by J.P. Mayer. Harper & Row Publishers: New York.

Hartz, Louis. 1955. The Liberal Tradition in America. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers: New York.

Lipset, Seymour. 1996. American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. W.W. Norton: New York.

“Public Spending on Education,” https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/public-spending-on-education.htm, 2017.

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[1] “Public Spending on Education,” https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/public-spending-on-education.htm, 2017.

Review of Gordon Wood's Book The Creation of the American Republic

          Gordon Wood, in the book The Creation of the American Republic, rejects Louis Hartz’s theory that a liberal consensus has dominated American political thought since the founding of the country (Wood, 1969). In Wood’s analysis of the evolution of American political thought from the beginning of the American revolution in 1776 to the creation of a the country’s federal constitution in 1787, he demonstrates that the political ideas that inspired the revolution and the subsequent experiments with new forms of government were heavily rooted in the political thought of liberal English Whigs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; however, the interpretation of those liberal ideas changed substantially from 1776 to 1787 to the extent where we can say that a social revolution—and not only a political revolution—took place (Wood, 3-45).  This revolution witnessed the collapse of British colonial authority with its notions of monarchy and parliamentary sovereignty, and the emergence of republic whose principals were based on popular sovereignty. Far from being blind promoters of the political thought of John Locke, American politicians and intellectuals of the era are shown to have conflicting ideas of how to establish a republic. These intellectuals questioned the nature of English political ideas such as the separation of powers, representation, sovereignty, and bicameralism (Wood, 127-255). This period led to several radical experiments with government at the local level and culminated in the creation of federal constitution that sought to cap the more extreme political sentiments that emerged at the beginning of the revolution. Furthermore, many of the cultural values espoused by intellectuals in this time period were republican in nature as they emphasized ideals like virtue, the public good, and temperance (Wood, 46-90). 

            One of the great strengths of Wood’s work is the eloquent and sophisticated manner in which he weaves together the ideas of dozens of prominent American intellectuals and politicians such as John Adams, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton into his own writing. Over the course of 600 plus pages, Wood demonstrates his extensive knowledge of the primary resources from the era. The heavy use of quotations effectively shows that American politicians were not blind receivers of English Whig philosophy but made substantial innovations of their own as they were forced to confront the challenge of replacing their colonial systems of government in a politically unstable environment. In contrast to Hartz, who claims that Americans were not interested in philosophical debate because they were so blindly devoted to Locke, Wood shows through primary resources that American political thought during the revolution was filled with creativity and debate. American intellectuals not only quoted from Locke but writers from classical Greece and Rome such as Thucydides and Cicero as well as writers from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment such as Nicollo Machiavelli and Baron de Montesquieu. In other words, the primary resources show that there was no liberal consensus.

            It is important to note that Wood does not reject the notion that American political thought was heavily influenced by liberal English Whigs (Wood, 3-45). One of the critical political arguments made by Americans in defense of the revolution was that they were defending their rights as Englishmen. According to American Whigs, Parliament had violated their right to representation, and the excessive power of the monarchy’s royal governors in the colonies upset the balance of power that was supposed to exist in a mixed government between the king, the aristocracy, and the people. Colonial political leaders and intellectuals frequently quoted moderate and radical English Whigs such as John Locke to justify revolution. Furthermore, colonists already had experience with electoral representation and legislatures prior to the revolution. Unlike Europe, America has no history of feudalism or aristocracy. The structure of the American Republic that would emerge by 1787 was partly inspired by liberal English political ideals and the 1688 English Bill of Rights.

            With that said, many of the political ideas held by American Whigs changed substantially throughout the course of the revolutionary period. For example, the concept of representation in eighteenth-century England was understood as being virtual and not direct. In other words, legislatures represented districts that had large differences in terms of the size of their populations, and only a small minority of Englishmen had the right to vote (Wood, 162-96). Members of the House of Commons were not actual representatives of a district’s population but virtual representatives based on the fact that they came from the same class as the common people and had the same economic and political interests. Some Americans did use the concept of virtual representation to justify revolution by claiming that members of parliament could not represent the colonies because of the great socioeconomic differences between the colonies and the motherland. However, more radical Whigs challenged the concept of virtual representation all together by claiming that legislators should actually represent the voters of the districts from which they come. Therefore, a citizen can only obtain representation through the vote. From this perspective, districts should have an equal number of voters, and representatives should be directly elected by the people. Colonial intellectuals also changed their views on mixed government (Wood, 197-255). In England, mixed government came to mean the balance of power between the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the common people to prevent both tyranny and anarchy. During the course of the revolution, radical Whigs came to reject the legitimacy of monarchy as well as the legitimacy of an upper house in the legislature that consisted of noble peers. The idea of mixed government in America evolved to mean checks and balances between different branches of government, and an upper house in the legislature would serve not as representation for the aristocracy but as a check on the power of the lower house. Notions of sovereignty also changed (Wood, 344-89). In Britain, sovereignty was vested in Parliament, which contained the influence of all three estates in society, whereas in America, the notion of sovereignty became vested in the people. In the midst of the revolutionary fervor, Americans adopted the radical notion that a constitution should be the supreme law of the land, which contrasted with the British notion that parliament had the final say in terms of the law (Wood, 259). It is important to note that these radical Whig ideas were persistently challenged by moderates during this time period.

            The radical Whig ideas of this era were not empty rhetoric; instead, they manifested themselves in the political activity of the colonists and the creation of new state constitutions in 1776. In the 1760’s and 1770’s, radical Whigs engaged in a range of revolutionary activities that included protests, boycotts, the formation of extralegal political institutions, and the holding of constitutional conventions (Wood, 306-43). The thirteen states experimented with these new ideas in a variety of ways. Most of the new constitutions of 1776 tended to create stronger legislatures at the expense of the governor’s power (Wood, 127-61). New constitutions also tended to mandate a larger number of representatives in legislatures with a greater emphasis on actual rather than virtual representation (Wood, 162-96). The state of Pennsylvania engaged in the most radical experiment by placing all political power in the hands of a unicameral legislature directly elected by the people.  These political changes were matched by changes in the culture. Republican notions of sacrificing for the public good and living a life of virtue and temperance filtered throughout society (Wood, 46-90). This contradicts the assertions of Louis Hartz, who claims that ideals such as individualism and protection of property rights were dominant before, during, and after the revolution.

            While the ideals of radical Whigs predominated in the early years of the revolution, Wood asserts that the pendulum swung back to the moderates by the 1780’s. The political, economic, and social problems that followed the revolution made many Americans doubt the efficacy of the political institutions created at the beginning of the revolution (Wood, 393-429). The weakness of the Articles of Confederation made it impossible for the central government to deal with the countries mounting problems. Furthermore, much of the population was still filled with revolutionary zeal. Radicals were not respecting the legitimacy even of their directly elected representatives at the state level. After Shays’ Rebellion in 1786, a constitutional convention was held (Wood, 471-518). Many of America’s political elites were fearful of a tyranny of the majority and sought to create political institutions that would protect the rights of minorities—specifically, land owners. America’s political elites formed a new constitution that placed checks on the majority by creating an upper house that was chosen by state legislatures and the Electoral College for the indirect election of the President (Wood, 519-64). Furthermore, a more powerful executive was created through the presidency, and a strong central government was formed to limit the power of the states. Individual states also created or modified their constitutions throughout the course of the 1780’s to shift some power back to the executive branch. While the Federalists succeeded in rolling back some of the more radical reforms that were made during the revolution, America was substantially different politically and socially in comparison with the prerevolutionary period. With the English monarchy abolished in the colonies, sovereignty rested with the people.

            Overall, Wood provides strong evidence against the idea that there was a liberal consensus during the course of the revolution; however, less convincing is his assertion that America’s revolution amounted to a social revolution. First, Wood spends surprisingly little time conceptualizing and operationalizing the term revolution. One might assume that by a social revolution, he means a rapid change in popularly held ideas over time, but did American ideas change radically enough to constitute labeling this period as encompassing a social revolution? Can we place this revolution in the same category as the France in 1789 or Russia in 1917? A defender of Hartz’s theory might read Wood and decide that his book only confirms their theory since the founding fathers were all arguing from within the framework of liberalism even if there were radicals and moderates among them. Furthermore, Wood does not show that there was an American equivalent to Robespierre or Lenin.  In fact, Wood himself asserts that America didn’t have an aristocracy or a feudal past. Shifting from virtual to more direct representation in government may not be as revolutionary as eliminating aristocratic privileges or dismantling the Catholic Church. Finally, scholars such as Joshua Dienstag have claimed that Republican concepts like virtue and temperance actually fit well within the rhetoric of John Locke if we are to frame his work around the Protestant Ethic (Dienstag, 1996). Perhaps there was less social change during the revolution than Wood is claiming. While I am not fully convinced that what America experienced was a social revolution, Wood does show that there was a vibrant political debate among American intellectuals during the revolutionary period and an extensive amount of political innovation on the part of the founders.  

Work Cited

Hartz, Louis. 1955. The Liberal Tradition in America. HBJ Book Harcourt Brace Javanovich Publishers: London.

Dienstag, Joshua Foa. 1996. “Serving God and Mammon: The Lockean Sympathy in Early American Political Thought,” The American Political Science Review, 90(3): 497-511.

Wood, Gordon. 1969. The Creation of the American Republic: 1776-1787. Norton & Company: New York.