THE Michael Lindprofessor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (University of Texas – Austin), has authored influential books on the new American nationalism (The Next American Nation1995) and the modern form of class conflict (The New Class War2020).
He laid out in “The Step” interpretive keys for a periodization of American history based on elite-underprivileged and North-South struggles, concluding on the importance of “economic nationalism” for the future.
How did class conflict develop in American history?
“In the 1770s most of the American population consisted of British and other European free farmers, while about a fifth were African American slaves. The American Revolution, like the Latin American ones, is explained more in terms of conflicts between elites. The British imperial elite resented the US colonial elites, who had a dual character: New England was dominated by Puritans/Congregationalists, who broke away from Anglicans. The Puritans detested the slaveholding elites of the South, who were conservative, pro-monarchical and pro-Anglican, bearing the nickname “cavaliers”. The differences between North and South were so great that it required an absolutely disastrous administration by the English Prime Minister Lord Frederick North, as well as French assistance, in order to achieve the American coalition of North and South.”
What is the context of the differences between North and South?
“If the circumstances were a little different, e.g. if Canada had also rebelled, or if the War of 1812 and the American Civil War had played out differently, we would have had three or four English-speaking countries instead of two (USA – Canada). The great North-South cultural differences erupted in the Civil War, where slavery was merely a pretext. Beyond the fascinating “what if” scenario of multiple English-speaking states, we need to understand how little “United” the United States was in order to understand the division until 1960 or even today: for most of American history there was a northern party (National Republicans/Whigs/Republicans) and a southern party (Jeffersonian Republicans/Democrats Republicans/Democrats), who represented the interests of their respective elites, both of which were expanding westward. New England settlers moved west to the Great Lakes, Illinois and as far as the Pacific and California. The Southerners moved respectively to Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas to Texas.”
What is the key to understanding American history?
“At least until 1960 it’s simple: the elite of each region (North – South) tried to undermine the elite in the opposing region, by allying with the underprivileged there: That is, the southern oligarchic, land-owning and slave-owning elite, who controlled the plantations, allied with Irish and Catholic immigrant-proletarians of the North. Conversely, Northern Federalists supported Southern African Americans for the abolition of slavery. In the South the omnipotence of the Democratic Party was absolute; by 1960 only the white middle classes actually voted. In the North, European immigrants, led by Irish-Americans, installed political machinery in the big cities. The hermeneutic key explains a lot: e.g. in 1960, Democrat John Fitzgerald Kennedy, from an Irish Catholic Boston family, allies with a Southern Texan, Lyndon Johnson, while Republican Richard Nixon is from California.”
After 1960 what happened?
“The scene changes dramatically in 1960 with the civil rights movement completing the transformation of the US into a unified federal nation-state. The process had begun with the New Deal (1933), which used federal power to industrialize and urbanize the American Southwest. But a unified federal regime of civil rights was needed to suppress racism and to form a unified national society, that is, to have a “united” United States for the first time.
The development was completed in the 1970s-1980s, resulting in a paradigm shift: the major dividing line is no longer North vs. South, but an unprecedented nationwide class struggle. In the project “The New Class War” I analyze it as similar to the European countries. We have on the one hand bourgeois professional elites, leaning towards the “left”, with a new meaning of the term, or “center left” (European terminology) and, on the other, a populist right, which is based on the white working class in the periphery, but not on immigrants. American politics thus approached the European political system in an unprecedented way, while Europe became semi-Americanized by becoming a place of reception for mass immigration.
Until 1965 the US had a racist anti-immigration law that made non-white immigration difficult, so the immigrants were basically Europeans. Highly multiracial immigration is recent. A related development was that the USA became Europeanized also in the sense that it became a religiously indifferent society. In the predominantly Protestant (Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist) younger generations do not attend church or believe as they once did. There is a convergence of the US and Europe with multiracial populations, increasing secularization, the decline of Christianity, new class divisions between the educated elites in the urban centers on the one hand, and the native and immigrant working class on the other.”
How do you see the future of class divisions?
“The upper classes will prevail, given that there are no thriving institutions to support the working classes, such as mass participation parties, trade unions or even Churches. Today we have a celebrity democracy, where parties are not responsible organizations of mass participation of workers but simply “brand names” for celebrities to rise to power, tycoons like Trump or stars like Schwarzenegger. Only 6% of private sector workers are organized in unions, compared to a third in the past. The stakes are decided in conflicts within the elites, that is, the elites of different industrial interests, ethnic or religious groups. In the US today we have an elitist democracy, as in the decline of the Roman democracy.”
Compared to the rest of the world?
“Economic nationalism is developing that goes against the founding culture of Anglo-Americans against taxes and central government. While other capitalist societies industrialized from above (Bismarck Germany/Meiji Japan), in the US we never had a strong enough unified nation to coalesce strong central governments that imposed modernization from above. In the US, industrialization and economic nationalism have always been justified in terms of national defense and security. In 1791 Alexander Hamilton, George Washington’s Treasury Secretary, argued that for reasons of national security we should produce our own steel, guns, etc. instead of depending on France. Today, the intimidating role is played by China. Just a few administrations ago, under Clinton or Bush Sr., China was seen as a giant Mexico that merely provides cheap labor. Today, as the US we do not think in terms of free markets, but in terms of military competition and follow protectionism in our industries because it cannot e.g. the American Pentagon to rely on Chinese manufacturers and supply chains. Internationally, we are in an era where strong nations with large and young populations will dominate. From this point of view, I see a trio of USA-China-India as the most dynamic countries.”
