Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 33. The American Pattern of Individual Leadership and Mass Passivity - 3. Mass Passivity
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chapter 33. Leadership and Mass Passivity 715
ally speaking, the lower classes in America have been inarticulate and
powerless.
This is the more striking when the lower classes are compared with the
“Pullman class,” which had greater cultural homogeneity, more self-
confidence, and more of a tendency to pool its power than a similar class in
most other countries. There are closer ties and a more easy understanding
between upper class persons in the various professions and businesses in this
country than anywhere else. They travel more than in other countries;
being together on a Pullman train brings people together intimately. They
meet constantly for conferences. They are accustomed to being dynamic and
courageous and to taking big risks. They know how to cooperate and even
how to sacrifice for a common cause. They feel responsibility for the whole
nation, as they view its interests, partly because they usually have a long
line of American ancestry. The “Pullman class” has been fairly open to
talent from below and has contained a disproportionate amount of the
nation’s brains and courage. Its members have been willing and prepared
to take the leadership made so easy for them by the inertia of the masses.
For judging future possibilities, it is important to note that the era of
mass immigration has ended. The proportion of foreign-born white persons
in the population is decreasing from decade to decade: it was 12.5 per cent
in 1920, 10.9 per cent in 1930, but only 8.7 per cent in 1940.® The other
main factors behind the political inertia of the American masses—the open
frontier and the easy escape out of the lower classes—are also disappearing.
There is no longer any free land, and agriculture is depressed and likely to
remain depressed. The modern organization of American industry is not
favorable to small independent enterprise, and no lower class person can
accumulate the huge capital necessary to start a large enterprise. The con-
trol of production from Washington during the present War is inevitably
stepping up this movement to eradicate small independent business. The
growth and improvement of education and the trend toward professional-
ization in all desirable occupations also has helped to eliminate the “self-
made man” even in America. Ambitions for children are real, but they
cannot compensate entirely for the lessened possibilities for climbing of the
parents themselves.
The class barriers are thus becoming higher and more unyielding, at the
same time as the cultural heterogeneity within those barriers is continuously
decreasing. The masses receive a steadily improved general education and
keep a greater number of their own potential leaders. These trends might
make them active and articulate. For the time being, however, there are
only minor indications of such a change. If and when It comes, it is destined
to remake the entire public and social life of America.
The present observer is inclined to view the American pattern of individ-
ual leadership as a great strength ot this nation, but the passivity of the
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
