Small dealers and worthy men: the politics of scale from Bryan to Nader

本研究旨在考察1900年以来美国民主文化与经济规模之间的关系。一个沉浸在极端个人主义的边疆神话中，并深深植根于民主原则的文化中的民族，是如何适应现代工业经济的大规模和高度复杂性的？这个问题对于任何理解20世纪美国历史的人来说都是至关重要的，但从目前的有利位置来看，在2008- 2009年金融危机之后，回答这个问题的必要性可能比以往任何时候都更加迫切。在我们这个银行“大到不能倒”的时代，迫切需要对我所说的“规模政治”有更深入的历史理解。该项目通过一系列以传记为基础、按时间顺序排列的案例研究，解决了美国现代史上的规模问题。这些研究都是基于一个关键人物，他的政治运作方式是以对集中经济权力的反感为前提的。它以农业民粹主义者威廉·詹宁斯·布莱恩在世纪之交的全球旅行开始，以消费者权益倡导者拉尔夫·纳德在20世纪60年代对通用汽车和其他汽车制造商的十字军东征结束。有两件事将布莱恩与纳德，以及本研究所依据的所有其他人物和更广泛的运动联系起来。首先，他们有一个共同的信念，即大规模的经济力量与美国的民主是不相容的，尤其是当这种力量集中在少数大公司手中的时候。其次，他们展示了自己有能力在政治上参与进来，有时还能动员大批美国民众，发起各种反对大企业规模和影响力的运动。这项研究的目的不是确定个别政治家是成功还是失败，而是通过案例研究来更广泛地阐明20世纪美国人是如何驾驭并接受规模政治的。该项目的主要成果将是一本书手稿，为绘制和理解美国历史上的规模政治提供了一种新的方式。这将对学者、学生和其他渴望了解美国现代史轮廓的人有直接的帮助；更间接的是，通过它对读者的影响以及作为项目设计中固有的传播活动的结果，它将有助于认识现代美国政治文化的复杂性。从更广泛的意义上讲，这里提出的研究也许可以被视为一项更广泛的努力的一部分，几代美国历史学家都参与其中，以理解和解释美国强烈的民粹主义政治文化之间的尴尬关系，一方面，它对权力集中的明显怀疑，另一方面，它作为世界上最典型的资本主义国家的地位，它最积极的企业文化的拥护者和出口商。这些都是值得历史学家探讨的重要问题，当然，它们也在我们当代的政治中产生了共鸣，而不仅仅是在英国和美国。这项研究将于2月至10月进行。2012年，他将支付为期一周的访问国会图书馆的费用，在那里将完成手稿的档案工作，并从教学中解脱出来，以便研究人员可以将大部分精力投入到写作中。此外，它还包括传播，使历史学家和其他学者了解研究成果，以及影响活动-包括博客，南约克郡地区政治活动家的规模政治研讨会，以及一个或多个智囊团参与的公共活动-进行交流，并创造与学术界以外的个人和团体互动的机会。

The proposed research investigates the relationship between democratic culture and economic scale in the United States since 1900. How did a people steeped in the fiercely individualistic mythology of the frontier, and embedded in a culture powerfully infused by democratic principles, adjust to the large scale and great complexity of the modern industrial economy? This question is fundamental to any understanding of twentieth-century American history, but from the present vantage point-in the wake of the 2008-9 financial crisis-the need to answer it is, perhaps, more urgent than ever. In our age of 'too big to fail' banks there is a pressing need for a greater historical understanding of what I term 'the politics of scale'.This project addresses the problem of scale in modern US history through a series of biographically-anchored and chronologically-ordered case studies. Each of these studies is based on a key individual whose political modus operandi was premised upon antipathy to concentrated economic power. It begins with the turn-of-the-century global travels of agrarian populist William Jennings Bryan, and ends with consumer advocate Ralph Nader's crusades against General Motors and other auto manufacturers in the 1960s. Two things connect Bryan to Nader, and to all the other figures and wider movements on which this study is based. The first is that they shared a conviction that large-scale economic power is incompatible with American democracy, especially when that power is concentrated in the hands of a few big corporations. The second is that they showed themselves capable of politically engaging, and on occasion mobilising, large swathes of the American people in their various crusades against the size and influence of big business. The purpose of the research is not to establish whether individual politicians succeeded or failed, but through case studies to illuminate more widely how twentieth-century Americans navigated and came to terms with the politics of scale.The principal outcome of the project will be a book manuscript setting out a new way of mapping and understanding the politics of scale in American history. This will be of direct use to academics, students, and others eager to understand the contours of modern US history; more indirectly, through its influence on its readers and as a result of the dissemination activities built-in to the design of the project, it will contribute to an awareness of the complexity of modern American political culture. In a larger sense still, perhaps, the research proposed here can be seen as part of a broader effort, in which generations of US historians have been involved, to understand and explain the awkward relationship between America's fiercely populist political culture on the one hand, with its marked suspicion of concentrated power, and, on the other hand, its status as the world's most prototypically capitalistic nation, its most aggressive champion and exporter of corporate culture. These are important matters for historians to probe, but of course they also resonate in our contemporary politics, and not only in Britain and the United States.The research will take place from Feb.-Oct. 2012 and will pay for a one-week visit to the Library of Congress, where archival work for the manuscript will be completed, and for relief from teaching so that the researcher can devote the bulk of his efforts to writing. In addition it incorporates dissemination, to make historians and other academics aware of the research findings, and impact activities-including a blog, a workshop on the politics of scale for political activists in the South Yorkshire region, and a public event with the involvement of one or more think-tanks-to communicate, and create opportunities to interact with, individuals and groups outside academia.