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Profit Over Class: A Study in American Industrial Espionage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

R. Jeffreys-Jones
R. Jeffreys-Jones
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

My students at the University of Edinburgh often ask me, why have Americans been so anti-socialist? Some of them perplexedly refer to the rarity of class conflicts, as, say, Clydesiders would define them, in United States history. They remain unconvinced by ‘class’ or ‘economic’ interpretations of the American past. They underline the paradox by recalling the comparative weakness, in the long term, of organized American socialism. Still, they point out, there has been a good deal of anti-socialist, anti-communist rhetoric across the Atlantic. Is mere any explanation for what, on the face of it, seems to be a ranting in the void?

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , December 1972 , pp. 233 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

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