Title: American Character
Rating: 4 Stars
Colin Woodard has written one of my favorite nonfiction books, American Nations (I wrote about it here). His thesis is that our notion of thirteen colonies uniting to overthrow British rule and then becoming one integrated nation of Americans is flawed. In fact, the colonies were formed over a long period of time by religious dissenters, Dutch traders, slave holders from Barbados, Scots-Irish borderlanders, and British aristocrats, among others. Each of these groups has different ideas of how to govern, who should govern, and even more broadly, how society should be structured. Woodard identified eleven such groups, gave each a name, and called collectively them the American Nations.
In fact, even during the Revolutionary War, some of these groups actively supported the British (eg New York City was peaceably occupied by the British for nearly the entire war). Once independence was achieved, instead of being one happy family of Americans, these various nations fight each other for supremacy. This struggle, centuries later, continues on today.
Fundamentally, the struggles boils down to what should be the function of the American federal government. Should it be focused on the common good or on individual liberty?
If a person is from the Northeast (Yankeedom nation) or the Pacific Coast (Left Coast nation), the answer is obvious. The priority should definitely be on making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful. What does this mean? Well, public education should be freely available to all. Infrastructure should be in place for all to use. Laws should be passed to guarantee that no one is discriminated against.
If a person is from the South (Deep South nation) or Virginia (Tidewater nation), the answer is equally obvious. Individual liberty is the highest priority. Specifically, the priority is the individual liberty of the wealthy. After all, if you’re rich, you’ve earned it and you deserved it. If you’re poor, well, it’s your own fault. It sucks to be you.
Therefore, public education is unimportant. In fact it’s self defeating because it just gives ideas to those whose lot is manual labor. The primary role of federal government is defense. Taxation is extremely limited. The government that they hold up as their shining example, with its aristocratic philosophers resting upon the labors of slaves, was ancient Greece.
Broadly, American history can be seen as a struggle between these two ideas. For example, as I’ve written about extensively, no matter what Lost Cause apologists have said in the past, the root cause of the Civil War was slavery. The Deep South states were the first to secede upon Lincoln’s election. They were willing to (and ultimately did) sacrifice everything for the right of their aristocratic slaveowners to own other human beings. During the Civil War, while the Southern legislators were, um, otherwise engaged, the Yankeedom legislators took the lead and implement many federal programs (eg railroads, public universities) that yielded benefits to all.
With the death of Reconstruction, the age of Laissez-Faire arrived. The Southern elite rose up and reclaimed their place. Black code laws were implemented. Supreme Court accepted segregation in Plessy v Ferguson. Large corporations were formed and created monopolies. Competition was destroyed. Strikes were broken up using federal troops. Labor unions were defanged. Salaries for working people plummeted so much that husbands, wives, and children were forced to work just to eat and live. This was the height of Social Darwinism. If someone was hungry or homeless while someone else had millions, that was simply survival of the fittest. States like Nevada and Montana were effectively run by businesses. The Supreme Court consistently upheld corporate rights over state laws attempting to control them.
By the way, if you were to ask a Libertarian today when was America at its greatest, there’s a very good chance that they would say 1880.
This continued on until the world collapsed in 1929. Andrew Mellon, the long running Treasury Secretary, tried to fix it using standard libertarian business practices, making the problem much worse. The election of Franklin Roosevelt ushered in a new era. The government stepped in big time with new programs and massive infusions of cash. This helped, but it was World War II that ended the Great Depression. It was during the war that government size and influence grew even more substantially.
This continued on until the 1960s. With the failure of the Vietnam War and then Watergate, faith in the competence and morality of federal government was wounded. Another key factor was the passing of significant civil rights bills. These bills were inspired by Yankeedom’s ideal of equal opportunity for all. However, in doing so, the Deep South nation was able to tap into other nations’ (eg Greater Appalachia, Far West) sense of grievance to create a new bloc of voters that was able to stop if not reverse these gains.
Starting with President Reagan, even as the size of government increased due to the growth of the military; environmental, safety, and labor regulations were rolled back. The tax rates on the most wealthy were reduced from 50% to 28%. The tax rates on the poorest increased from 11% to 15%. Even when democrats like Bill Clinton were elected, they governed from the middle with such actions as reforming welfare by drastically restricting it.
Now we’re in a time where it appears that we’re at a crossroads. Consistently the nations of Yankeedom, New Netherland, and the Left Coast face off against the Deep South, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, and the Far West. What path will the United States take next? Woodard has a plan to move forward.
There are two things to keep in mind. One is that Woodard appears to be from Maine (he currently lives there). That puts him pretty firmly in Yankeedom. Therefore his plan is to create a platform of ideas that would appeal to multiple American nations (eg Midlands, Greater Appalachia, and Far West) but that also work towards the common good. Since I was born, raised, and lived for over fifty years on the West Coast, I’m firmly in the Left Coast nation. As such, I firmly support Woodard’s platform of ideas. However, I’m not at all sure that the citizens of the other nations would be so inclined.
The reason why I say that is because of the second thing. This book was published in 2016. That is, it was written before the election of Donald Trump. Donald Trump, if nothing else, made obvious that overt ploys to grievance, racism, sexism, anti-intellectualism can still be a winning ticket.
It was interesting to see how Woodard was able to weave his concept of American nations into the fabric of American history. Given all that’s happened since 2016, it’s hard for me to see how making high minded commitments to fairness will resonate and create some new grand voting bloc majority.
dorkenstein 