4 - The fall and rise of the American petty bourgeoisie

Summary

200 years ago Thomas Jefferson (1786 [1984: 580]) argued that the prospect of self-employment justified whatever depredations accompanied indentured service and wage labor: “So desirous are the poor of Europe to get to America, where they may better their condition, that, being unable to pay their passage, they will agree to serve two or three years on their arrival there, rather than not go. During the time of that service they are better fed, better clothed, and have lighter labour than while in Europe. Continuing to work for hire a few years longer, they buy a farm, marry, and enjoy all the sweets of a domestic society of their own.” In the middle of the nineteenth century Abraham Lincoln (1865 [1907: 50]) also saw self-employment as the natural route to individual prosperity: “The prudent penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while, and at length hires a new beginner to help him.” And even in the waning years of the twentieth century, in an era of large corporations and powerful governments, Ronald Reagan (Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Ronald Reagan 1983: 689) extols the virtues of self-employment.