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Hartz-Horowitz at Twenty: Nationalism, Toryism and Socialism in Canada and the United States*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

H. D. Forbes
Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Abstract

Twenty years’ debate have revealed many weaknesses in the Hartz-Horowitz interpretation of conservatism, liberalism, and socialism in Canada, but it continues to be widely taught, for it provides a simple and appealing explanation for some striking differences between Canadian and American politics. This article argues that the interpretation is best understood as a form of neo-Marxism, that its basic weaknesses are most easily seen by examining its treatment of French Canada, and that its explanation for the exceptional strength of socialism in English Canada, linking socialism to toryism, can be strengthened by linking both socialism and toryism to nationalism.

Résumé

L'interprétation de la pensée politique canadienne a été grandement influencée par les idées de Louis Hartz. Sa soi-disant « théorie du fragment » fut formulée au cours des années cinquante pour expliquer la faiblesse du socialisme aux États-Unis. Les difficultés d'insérer le Canada français dans cette théorie démontrent les limitations. Les concepts qui la soutiennent déforment l'élément religieux et nient le libéralisme de la pensée politique canadienne-française. Néanmoins, la théorie, avec les modifications introduites par Gad Horowitz, a connu un grand succès au Canada anglais, peut-être à cause de son lien avec le nationalisme anglo-canadien.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1987

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References

1 Horowitz, Gad, “Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 32 (1966), 143–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted with some additions and slight modifications in Canadian Labour in Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 344Google Scholar, 57. Quotations from these sources are hereafter acknowledged parenthetically in the text, using the abbreviations “CLS” and CLP, respectively. If the quoted material is the same or practically so in both sources, references to both will be given. If there is a significant difference between them, only the first will be quoted and cited.

2 See Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955)Google Scholar, and Hartz, Louis et al., The Founding of New Societies (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964)Google Scholar. References hereafter to these sources will be parenthetical, using the abbreviations LTA and FNS, respectively.

3 McNaught, Kenneth, “Comment,” in Laslett, John H. M. and Lipset, Seymour Martin (eds.), Failure of a Dream? Essays in the History of American Socialism (New York: Doubleday, 1974), 409–20;Google ScholarWise, S. F., “Liberal Consensus or Ideological Battleground: Some Reflections on the Hartz Thesis,” Canadian Historical Association Papers, 1974, 114;Google ScholarWinn, Conrad and Twiss, James, “The Spatial Analysis of Political Cleavages and the Case of the Ontario Legislature,” this JOURNAL 10 (1977), 287310;Google ScholarTruman, Tom, “A Scale for Measuring a Tory Streak in Canada and the United States,” this JOURNAL 10 (1977), 597614;Google ScholarPreece, Rod, “The Myth of the Red Tory,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 1 (1977), 328;Google Scholar Gad Horowitz, “The ‘Myth’ of the Red Tory?” ibid. 1 (1977), 87–88; Rod Preece, “Tory Myth and Conservative Reality: Horowitz Revisited,” ibid. 2 (1978), 175–79; William Christian, “A Note on Rod Preece and Red Tories,” ibid. 2 (1978), 128–34; Rod Preece, “Liberal-Conservatism and Feudalism in Canadian Politics: A Response to Christian,” ibid. 2 (1978), 135–41; McRae, K. D., “Louis Hartz's Concept of the Fragment Society and Its Application to Canada,” Etudes canadiennes 5 (1978), 1730;Google ScholarHorowitz, Gad, “Notes on ‘Conservatism, Liberalism and Socialism in Canada,’” this JOURNAL 11 (1978), 383–99;Google ScholarSoderlund, Walter C., Nelson, Ralph C., and Wagenberg, Ronald H., “A Critique ofthe Hartz Theory of Political Development as Applied to Canada,” Comparative Politics 12 (1979), 6385;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWiseman, Nelson, “The Pattern of Prairie Politics,” Queen's Quarterly 88 (1981), 298315;Google Scholar and Gibbins, Roger and Nevitte, Neil, “Canadian Political Ideology: A Comparative Analysis,” this JOURNAL 18 (1985), 577–98.Google Scholar See also Bell, David V. J., “The Loyalist Tradition in Canada,” Journal of Canadian Studies 5 (1970), 2233;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBelanger, André-J., L'Apolitisme des idéologies québécoises: le grand tournant de 1934–1936 (Québec: Les Presses de l'Universite Laval, 1974);Google ScholarLipset, Seymour Martin, “Radicalism in North America: A Comparative View ofthe Party Systems in Canada and the United States,” Transactions ofthe Royal Society of Canada (Series 4) 14 (1976), 1955;Google ScholarWinn, Conrad and McMenemy, John, Political Parties in Canada (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1976);Google ScholarChristian, William, “Ideology and Canadian Politics,” in Redekop, John H. (ed.), Approaches to Canadian Politics (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1978);Google ScholarBell, David and Tepperman, Lome, The Roots of Disunity: A Look at Canadian Political Culture (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979);Google ScholarLipset, Seymour Martin, “Historical Traditions and National Characteristics: A Comparative Analysis of Canada and the United States,” Canadian Journal of Sociology 11 (1986), 113–55;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Smith, Peter J., “The Ideological Origins of Canadian Confederation,” this JOURNAL 20 (1987), 329Google Scholar.

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7 Another is those “aspects of our original life in the Puritan colonies and the South”—theocracy and slavery?—that are not well described as liberal, even when the term is used “in the classic Lockian sense.” Fortunately liberal is an even vaguer term than feudal. Its precise meaning presents no “insuperable barrier” to the “large generalization” Hartz favours (LTA, 4)

8 Compare McRae, “Hartz's Concept of the Fragment Society,” 21.

9 Soderlund, Nelson and Wagenberg refer to “an ideological conflict totally out of keeping with the coherence which should characterize the elite of a fragment culture such as that of mid-nineteenth century French Canada, which Hartz cites as an exemplary case of the purity of fragment cultures.” They add that Hartzians, “harnessed to an a priori theory ... want to stress the ephemeral aspects of liberalism in Quebec” (“Critique of the Hartz Theory,” 81, 82). Compare Wise, “Liberal Consensus or Ideological Battleground,” 9–11.

10 Soderlund, Compare, Nelson and Wagenberg, “Critique of the Hartz Theory,” 67Google Scholar.

11 Preece, Compare, “Liberal-Conservatism and Feudalism,” 137Google Scholar.

12 Horowitz, Compare, “Notes,” 383–85Google Scholar.

13 McRae, Compare, “Hartz's Concept of the Fragment Society,” 2123Google Scholar, and Horowitz, , “Notes,” 387–88Google Scholar.

14 It would be improper to anticipate the results of such an investigation, but one cannot help having hunches or working hypotheses. Mine would be as follows: politics makes strange bedfellows, but only from a very odd angle do the clearest spokesmen of the “tory” or pre-modern outlook and modern radical egalitarians seem to be expressing essentially the same ideas. While some similarities can no doubt be found, the differences are basic, significant, and important.

15 At one point Horowitz lists five things that he claims are explained by Canada's touch of toryism (“CLS,” 150; CLP, 9). The first, second, and fifth items on the list are really just the explanatory factor itself in different words, but the fourth item is clearly distinct: “(d) the presence of an influential and legitimate socialist movement in English Canada as contrasted with the illegitimacy and early death of American socialism.” Connected with this is “(c) the ambivalent centrist character of left-wing liberalism [ i.e., the Liberal party] in Canada as contrasted with the unambiguously leftist position of left-wing liberalism in the United States [ i.e., the left wing of the Democratic party].” The connection is: “King's Liberal Reform, since it had to answer attacks from the left as well as from the right, projected a notoriously ambivalent conservative-radical image” (“CLS,” 163; CLP, 31).

16 Preece, Compare, “Liberal-Conservatism and Feudalism,” 136–37Google Scholar.

17 Compare Wiseman, “Pattern of Prairie Politics.”

18 Preece, , “The Myth of the Red Tory,” and his “The Anglo-Saxon Conservative Tradition,” this JOURNAL 13 (1980), 332Google Scholar, and “The Political Wisdom of SirJohn, A. Macdonald,” this JOURNAL 17 (1984), 459–86Google Scholar. Compare Horowitz, “The ‘Myth’ of the Red Tory?”

19 Preece, , “The Myth of the Red Tory,” 8Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., 20.

21 Ibid., 15.

22 See Forbes, H. D. (ed.), Canadian Political Thought (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1985), 241–50Google Scholar. There is some interesting fine print in League for Social Reconstruction, Social Planning for Canada (Toronto: Nelson, 1935), 283:Google Scholar “The efficiency of a concern and the need for its services will be tested on a profit and loss basis. Generally speaking, enterprises which yield a large profit will be pushed, and those which involve a loss will be eliminated. Labour and investment will be applied where earnings are highest. Industry will be carried on in accordance with a rigorous examination of returns.”

23 Again the fine print is interesting: “The achievement of socialist economic ‘equality’ does not preclude the payment of wages and salaries of differing amounts, within reasonable limits. It is both necessary and desirable that the more skilled and able workers should receive higher wage rates than those who are not so valuable to industry and therefore to the community. But a differential system of wages and salaries, sufficient to reward and to encourage initiative and ability adequately, ... might be such that no annual salary or wage, even for the highest official, would exceed $10,000, while the lowest, for an adult, would be at least $1,200. Within these limits there is ample room for a system of differential payments for all classes of workers” (ibid., 372–73).

24 See “A Socialist Takes Stock” (1956), in Forbes, (ed.), Canadian Political Thought, 290300Google Scholar.

25 Lipset, Compare, “Radicalism in North America,” 4146, 52–55Google Scholar, and Horowitz, , Canadian Labour in Politics, 33,35;Google Scholar “The young men who became New Dealers in the United States became CCFers in Canada In the United States, the liberal Democrats have absorbed the socialists.... The American socialists of the thirties have been aufgehoben in the Democratic party.” It is a curious and perhaps a significant fact that Michiel Horn deals with the relation of socialism to liberalism in Canada very briefly and without mentioning Hartz or Horowitz, (The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada, 1930–1942 [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980], 99–103)Google Scholar.

26 Gibbins and Nevitte, “Canadian Political Ideology.”

27 Ibid., 588.

28 Ibid., 589.

29 See Lipset, “Historical Traditions and National Characteristics,” for a recent review of much of the relevant literature.

30 Morton, W. L., “Canadian Conservatism Now” (1959), in Forbes (ed.), Canadian Political Thought, 305Google Scholar.

31 See Grant, George, Lament for a Nation (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965), 6874;Google Scholar also Technology and Empire (Toronto: Anansi, 1969), 68Google Scholar.

32 Horowitz, , Canadian Labour in Politics, 16, and “Notes,” 388–89Google Scholar. There is important detail relevant to this point in Tom Truman, “A Critique of Lipset's, Seymour M.Article ‘Value Differences, Absolute or Relative: The English-speaking Democracies,’” this JOURNAL 4 (1971), 497525Google Scholar.

33 Burks, R. V., The Dynamics of Communism in Eastern Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Pye, Lucian W., Guerilla Communism in Malaya: Its Social and Political Meaning (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956)Google Scholar. South Vietnam has been the graveyard of many simple theories, not least that it is easy to generalize about the politics of the Overseas Chinese. The main facts are summarized by Alexander, Garth, Silent Invasion: The Chinese in Southeast Asia (London: Macdonald, 1973), 123–27Google Scholar. I am grateful to Huynh Kim Khành for help on this point.

35 See especially Stanley Rothman and Lichter, S. Robert, Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and the New Left (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)Google Scholar, and the many studies cited there.

36 Levitt, Cyril, Children of Privilege: Student Revolt in the Sixties (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), 77Google Scholar.

37 Christian, Compare and Campbell, Political Parties and Ideologies, 209, 215–16Google Scholar.

38 “On the Fear of Nationalism,” in Forbes, (ed.), Canadian Political Thought, 364–68Google Scholar. In the following paragraphs so much is quoted from these few pages that I have dispensed with specific references.

39 Horowitz, Compare, “Notes,” 387Google Scholar.

40 “Tories, Socialists and the Demise of Canada” (1965), in Forbes, (ed.), Canadian Political Thought, 358Google Scholar.

41 Glazebrook, Compare, A History of Canadian Political ThoughtGoogle Scholar.

42 In the Preface to The Liberal Tradition in A merica Hartz wrote that he ‘ ‘cannot fail to associate this book with Benjamin F. Wright, my Harvard tutor, now President of Smith College, who years ago communicated to me a lasting interest in the comprehensive interpretation of American history” (LTA, vi). See in this connection Hartz's remarks about Puritanism as a “titanic explanatory force” (LTA, 23, 54); and Wright's books, A Source Book of American Political Theory (New York: Macmillan, 1929)Google Scholar and American Interpretations of Natural Law: A Study in the History of Political Thought (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931)Google Scholar. Just as Hartz's “feudalism” obscures the Catholicism of New France, his “liberalism” obscures the Puritanism of New England.

43 Lutz, Donald S., “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review 78 (1984), 189–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar, illustrates the danger.

44 One of the merits of Nelson Wiseman's “Hartzian” interpretation of the prairie provinces (“The Pattern of Prairie Politics”) is its un-Hartzian attention to relevant detail. See also Wiseman, , “An Historical Note on Religion and Parties on the Prairies,” Journal of Canadian Studies 16 (1981), 109–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.