The American Political Tradition

The American Political Tradition is a 1948 book by Richard Hofstadter that has become a standard work.

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1948 - Richard Hofstadter

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Hofstadter's introduction proposes that the major American political traditions, despite contentious battles, have all

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:...shared a belief in the rights of property, the philosophy of economic individualism, the value of competition? hey have accepted the economic virtues of a capitalist culture as necessary qualities of man.

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While many accounts have made political conflict central, Hofstadter proposes that a common ideology of "self-help, free enterprise, competition, and beneficent cupidity" has guided the Republic since its inception. Through keen analyses of a "diverse" sampling of America's (white male) ruling class, Hofstadter argues that this general consensus is the hallmark of American political life.

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Part of Hofstadter's project is to undermine the democratic credentials of politicians mythologized by the American left, calling for reflection rather than nostalgia. Thomas Jefferson is presented in all his ambiguities, the agrarian radical whose

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Thomas Jefferson - Agrarian radical

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:laissez-faire became the political economy of the most conservative thinkers in the country.

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Likewise, Andrew Jackson's democracy was also "a phase in the expansion of liberated capitalism", and Progressive trustbuster Theodore Roosevelt, though he "despised the rich", was at heart a conservative frightened by "any sign of organized power among the people". Even Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal — an amalgam of "improvised" programs — was

Related Topics:
Andrew Jackson - Trustbuster - Theodore Roosevelt - Franklin D. Roosevelt - New Deal

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:far from being intrinsically progressive, capable of being adapted to very conservative purposes.

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Hofstadter's work largely omits the American people themselves, in postulating a monolithic "American Political Tradition". He justifies his approach by arguing that these "practical politicians" can?t help but represent the "climate of opinion that sustains their culture". His iconoclastic scholarship is strengthened by his general unwillingness to sacrifice ambiguity or complexity. His sharp prose betrays a disdain for the occasionally less-than-democratic tendencies in the tradition. This point separates Hofstadter from the "Consensus School" that championed his central thesis.

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