Suchergebnisse

"Why is the United States the only advanced capitalist country with no labor party? This question is one of the great enduring puzzles of American political development, and it lies at the heart of a fundamental debate about the nature of American society. Tackling this debate head-on, Robin Archer puts forward a new explanation for why there is no American labor party - an explanation that suggests that much of the conventional wisdom about "American exceptionalism" is untenable." "Conventional explanations rely on comparison with Europe, Archer challenges these explanations by comparing the United States with its most similar New World counterpart - Australia. This comparison is particularly revealing, not only because the United States and Australia share many fundamental historical, political, and social characteristics, but also because Australian unions established a labor party in the late nineteenth century, just when American unions, against a common backdrop of industrial defeat and depression, came closest to doing something similar." "Archer examines each of the factors that could help explain the American outcome, and his systematic comparison yields unexpected conclusions. He argues that prosperity, democracy, liberalism, and racial hostility often promoted the very changes they are said to have obstructed. And he shows that it was not these characteristics that left the United States without a labor party, but, rather, the powerful impact of repression, religion, and political sectarianism."--Jacket.

The author argues that by pursuing economic democracy, socialism can return to the heart of political life in advanced capitalist countries. He demonstrates that there is both a moral case for economic democracy and a feasible strategy for achieving it.

AbstractThe outbreak of the First World War is one of the great formative events of modern times. Yet during its centenary, there was surprisingly little attention to how uncertain entry into the war was in the English‐speaking world or how finely balanced the forces for and against intervention were. This article examines the role of appeals to honour in the decision for war. It begins by exploring the role of these appeals in convincing radical liberals to accept British intervention – something they had been successfully blocking just days earlier – before examining parallel appeals in the United States and Australia. It then considers why the language of honour was effective, and whether it still plays a role a century later, before concluding with some possible centennial lessons.

A unique struggle over conscription was a defining characteristic of the Australian experience of the Great War. The labour movement was at the center of opposition to conscription, and arguments from liberty were central to its stance. But anti‐conscriptionists had to make their arguments in an environment shaped by powerful competing appeals to loyalty. This article examines the ways in which labour anti‐conscriptionists sought to minimise the impact of these loyalist appeals, while pressing ahead with their central liberal arguments. Two ways of interpreting these arguments enabled them to do this. The first emphasised the Britishness of the liberal tradition and the close relationship between conscription and "continental despotism". The second emphasised the affinity between the liberal tradition and the New World and drew on other comparisons, especially with North America.