Louis Hartz Strengths And Weaknesses

Since the political development of America numerous political philosophers have tried to grasp what factors influenced the foundation of the United States. Political academics such as Louis Hartz, Gordon Wood and Rogers Smith all attempt to give their outlook on how contemporary America came to be. All three philosophers, Hartz, Wood and Smith, have varying strengths and weaknesses to their opinion of the forces that influenced the American founding fathers. However, it is Louis Hartz and Rogers Smith that most acutely describes the formation of the United States of America.

Born in 1919, Louis Hartz was an American political theorist who studied the founding of The United States. Hartz most notable claim regarding America’s foundation

is his assertion that the U.S. has a “liberal consensus.” Hartz believes that America was founded upon a liberal tradition that stresses the importance of the individual. His idea of the liberal consensus revolves around the fact that there is a universal belief that liberal ideals are supreme and the consensus is that they are the one and only way to govern. Of these ideals are rights such as private property, equality under the law, liberty, and freedom of religion and the importance of a democratic government body. Hartz believes that this uniformity of belief steams from the inherent absence of feudalism through the history of America. He states that “when there is a feudalist society, we see the emergence of socialism.” Socialism is in theory the polar opposite of the liberalism Hartz believes is inherent in a majority of American constituents. However, it is pretty clear that Hartz does believe that this uniformity of belief is incredibly problematic. He states “There is always a problem when any philosophy is seen as natural and obvious.” This statement is extremely true. This unchallenged political spectrum can lead to a blindness to policy alternatives, a heighted fear of social disharmony and also a challenge to understand other societies political tradition which is not your own. The society Hartz describes reminds me very much of the dystopian states that are within the stories of 1984 and Anthem where there is actually a no form of individualism and a conformity of all ideas. For America to become one of those states it must continue to grow, Louis Hartz’s “liberal consensus” must become obsolete and we must live within a nation of infinite ideas, cultures and ultimately possibilities.
Along with Hartz, Gordon Wood, is a 20th century American political thinker who challenged accepted ideas of the founding of the United States.

Wood challenges Hartz assertion of the “liberal consensus” during the founding era of America. He believes that the republican tradition influenced the framers much more than the liberal. Republican tradition follows the idea that the greatest way to experience liberty is to succeed certain rights to the government for a greater good. This requires citizens to have a civic virtue, meaning to participate in politics from the local to national level. From this Wood’s concludes that classical republicanism fails in the 1780s allowing liberalism to become the dominant political theory within the United States. This however is not the case. The first set of laws of regarding a governing body in America was The Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation had many issues, the foremost was that it lacked a weak central government which gave many rights away to states and individual citizens. This does not sound like the republican tradition Woods describes America to be founded upon. The framers where inherently scared of republican tradition in which would take rights away from individuals for the reason that they lived under the tyrannous reign of a monarch for their whole lives. Wood’s assertion that America was founded upon republican tradition over liberal I find completely

inaccurate.
Following both Hartz and Wood is Rogers Smith, a contemporary American political scientist who too tackled the framing of the United States. Smith agrees with both Hartz and Woods that both liberal and republican tradition play a major role in American poltical history but he also brings in another tradition, Ascriptive Inegalitarian ideologies. This theology is the belief that those on top of the hierarchy deserve more rights than those on the bottom of this hierarchy. Smith argues that we spent a great deal of time trying to make these ideologies compatible with the American creed, yet at the same time discriminate against minorities, women, and those of other sexual orientation. He concludes by stating if we speak out American culture we can not only speak about liberalism and republicanism but also the discriminatory process of Ascriptive Inegalitarian beliefs. Rogers is completely right asserting the fact that America is inherently hypocritical in its very foundation. These inegalitarian beliefs are at the core of what the American foundation truly was and at the core still is today.
Hartz, Wood, and Rogers all take on the very foundation of America in unique outlooks. However it is Hartz and Rogers who most accurately describe the condition of which America was created upon. At a glance America was intended to be built with liberal principals that give everyone and anyone a fair and equal chance of success. However, when you peel back the curtain a huge discriminatory state against those not white males owning land was the true intention of the nation that was created.