Is America really special?

Author: Joshua Zantz In 24, Ian, an Irishman who lived in the United States for one and a half years? Croery complained that "Americans have a view that American identity is superior to that of people from other countries. Because many Americans believe that their life is better than that of other countries, and that the United States is safer and more democratic than other countries, they feel honored to be "citizens of the greatest country on earth". Of course, it is easy to have such an idea without knowing the outside world. Because Americans have short holidays, only two weeks a year, they rarely travel abroad, and they rarely know the outside world except their own country. " We can ignore the author's acerbic tone and obviously unfair accusations. (Croery may think that the United States has the largest number of immigrants among the developed countries in the world, so he thinks that the United States is a cosmopolitan country that transcends national prejudice.) But he is right on at least one point. Americans really feel that they are different. John from 163? John Winthrop urged his Puritans to build a "city on the hill". In the 193s, Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, noticed some features of the American spirit. By the 195s, a generation of historians with knowledge of * * * thought that the United States had no feudal past and therefore no bloody social conflicts and disputes. So "American exceptionalism" has a strong market. Tokwell wrote that "the status of the United States is exceptional, and it is believed that no other democratic country has a similar situation." Recently, some scholars have challenged this persistent concept, arguing that the United States is not an exception to the trend of historical progress. Princeton historian Daniel? Daniel Rodgers' rhetorical question best expresses their position: "Isn't America unique? Of course it is. It is. Even if another country replaces the United States, the answer is the same. For example, "Isn't Argentina special?" Or "Isn't Afghanistan unique?" In his new book "Lucky Nations: How the World Made America (Hill and Wang, $24)", Eric, a historian at the University of California, Davis? Eric Rauchway positively discusses the traditional "American exceptionalism". He opposed Rogers and others' view that the United States actually showed a different economic and political development model from Europe. But what distinguishes him from most supporters of "American exceptionalism" is that he puts his views in the context of globalization. This globalization is not the globalization of the 21st century that we often see in the news, but the wave of globalization in the early 19th century, when capital, labor and ideas flowed among continents. He said that the United States rose on the basis of European capital and immigration, but its unique geographical location and historical tradition made it use global resources to establish a unique system and tradition. The central point of his works is that the United States began its imperialist career as magnificent as European imperialism, but European countries looked for new markets, resources and territorial expansion in other parts of the world, while the United States focused on its own western frontier. Because the westward movement of the United States does not require large-scale military and colonial infrastructure, the United States is more capable and not bloated than the European powers. In Lowe's words, "the particularity of American imperialism lies in the western part of the Mississippi River. The newly developed west is like a colony established overseas by European powers for Americans, providing rich natural resources for the industrialized and urbanized east to produce industrial manufactured goods. " He went on to say that the difference is that "compared with other empires, the United States can establish such ties and ties very cheaply." Moreover, the United States does not need a huge navy to enter the center of the prairie like a colony, nor does it need to have a war with other empires because of colonial competition. Comparing the American conquest of the west with Russia's conquest of Turkestan (Central Asia east of the Caspian Sea), Lowe pointed out that Russian colonial officials eventually reached 2% of the population of Turkestan, while the number of people in the western territory of the United States never exceeded .8% of the population of the region. Unlike the colonial people of the European powers, the residents of the western United States have their own representatives in the national government. In fact, when the country was founded, the proportion of representatives in the sparsely populated western region was much higher than that in other regions. Each state has two Senate seats regardless of its population. Therefore, in the United States, colonial residents are actually national citizens and have an outlet to vent their frustration. This is related to Lowe's second important point of view, which tries to answer a classic question of most American exceptionalists. In 196, German social scientist Werner? Sambat wrote in his paper Why There is No Socialism in the United States? ) very directly raised the question. Lowe's answer is complicated. He explained that, first of all, the United States has accepted a large number of European immigrants. Unlike other countries that welcome new immigrants, the New World has attracted a large number of adventurers and refugees with different backgrounds. An illustrative example: In Argentina, Italians account for 39% of all immigrants. In the United States, Italians account for only 1%. Due to the diversity of culture, religion and language, immigrants find it very difficult to build class consciousness and consciousness beyond their respective racial identities. In addition, the high rate of returning to the home country shows that many immigrants come to the United States to get rich quickly and then go back. For these immigrants, it is meaningless to sacrifice short-term economic goals for long-term trade union interests and political goals. Of course, this is not a new idea. Like the historian Lizabeth Cohen of Harvard University, it is more detailed and clear. But Lowe provides a new perspective for this story. Although he admits that immigrants have reduced workers' wages, he still thinks that many native Americans have moved to the west with their families. In fact, in 191, foreign-born western population accounted for 15%, and American immigrants accounted for 19% of the entire western population. If immigrants don't have the willpower or the necessary means to build a strong force to criticize capitalism, these immigrants in the United States can do so, which explains why the American socialist movement thrives in some strange places, such as rural areas in Oklahoma, which is different from the general way of socialist development in Europe, because the European socialist movement is concentrated among the urban working class. If socialism (or, more generally, fierce criticism of capitalism) appears among different groups in the United States, that is, immigrants from the west, then it also produces different ways to participate in national politics. This is Lowe's third point. In Europe, the working class has formed a powerful socialist party, demanding a welfare state, a safety net to cope with the vagaries of the new global economy. In the United States, those who have the motivation and ability to attack the development of capitalism are concentrated in the western region like a colony. Their anger is not directed at the capitalist system, but at new immigrants (who have dragged down their wages) and financial institutions in the east and abroad. For example, we can consider the populist movement in 189, the most powerful and intense political movement in the 19th century. Hofstadter, a historian, once said that populism is permeated with paranoid and irrational hatred of British bankers, Jews and foreign capital. This discovery led hofstadter to conclude that populists are all flawed people. But don't jump to conclusions. For conservatives who praise the spirit of American unilateral adventurism expansion and conquest, Lowe's description is cautious. The western part of the United States may have been conquered by the sweat and tears of Americans in the good old days, but this conquest is largely due to foreign investment. Britain, America's largest creditor, has also invested in many other places. But generally speaking, British government bonds account for 2% to 66% of foreign investment. Therefore, it has funded a huge public infrastructure project in a country like Canada. In the United States, due to the lean central government, only 6% of British capital is directly invested in the federal government. 6% of the capital goes to private enterprises, railway companies, etc. These companies use these much-needed capital injections to open up the vast frontier in the west. Therefore, when rural populists attack the influence of foreign capital, companies in the east and capitalists in the distance, no matter how fierce, exaggerated and narrow their words are, it is by no means unreasonable. This is why American radicalism is not so much socialist as anti-colonialism. It can also explain why the demands of American radicals focus on the management of public utilities, railways and banks rather than the establishment of a welfare state like Europe. Luo Wei's provocative book has brought us more, and the author certainly has not dealt a fatal blow to American exceptionalism. However, The Lucky Country: How the United States was Formed also has fluent writing, bold explanation and ambitious discussion. These advantages make this book and 19th century historians hofstadter, Arthur? Arthur Schlessinger, Jr and C. Vann Woodward's works are equally important. Thanks to this new book, Lowe reintroduced America to a new generation of Americans. (Wu Wanwei/translation)