Nineteenth-century Individualism And The Market Economy: Individualist Themes In Emerson, Thoreau, And Sumner Nineteenth-century Individualism And The Market Economy: Individualist Themes In Emerson, Thoreau, & Sumner

This book studies nineteenth-century American individualism and its relationship to the simultaneous rise of the market economy as articulated in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William Graham Sumner. The argument of the book is that these thinkers offer distinct visions of individualism that reflect their respective understandings of the market, and provide thoughtful and insightful perspectives upon the promise and peril of this economic and social order. Looking back to Emerson, Thoreau, and Sumner furnishes valuable insights about the history of American political and social thought, as well as about the complexity of one of the most basic and prevalent relationships of modern life: that between the individual and the institutional complex of the market. Acknowledgements 6 Contents 7 Chapter 1 Introduction—A Nation of Individuals and Markets 10 1.1 Individuals, Individuality, Individualism 14 1.2 Markets, Market Economy, Market Society 18 1.3 Ideas in Their Times and Places 23 References 29 Chapter 2 The Rise of the Market: Individuation and Integration in Antebellum America 32 2.1 The Era of the Individual 34 2.1.1 Tocqueville’s Shadow 35 2.1.2 Patterns of Individuation and Individualism 38 2.2 Individualism and the Market 51 2.2.1 From Markets to the Market 51 2.2.2 Individuals and the Antebellum Market 54 2.2.3 Individuals and Antebellum Culture 60 2.2.4 Pervasive, Ambiguous Individualism 69 References 73 Chapter 3 Emerson and Self-Reliance: Individualism Amidst the Market 79 3.1 Emerson’s Individualism: Self-Reliance as Self-Culture 82 3.2 Emerson Goes to Market: Reconciling “Self-Reliance” and “Power” with “Wealth” and “Success” 89 3.2.1 The Market as Opportunity 92 3.2.2 The Market as Adversary 106 3.3 An Ambivalent Individualism 122 References 127 Chapter 4 Thoreau and Deliberate Living: Individualism Against the Market 133 4.1 Thoreau’s Individualism: Self-Cultivation as Deliberate Living 137 4.1.1 An Emersonian Education 138 4.1.2 Minding One’s Own Business 142 4.2 Thoreau Against the Market 153 4.2.1 The Culture of Materialism 154 4.2.2 Becoming Tools of Our Tools 160 4.3 The Economics and Politics of Ordinary Actions 167 4.3.1 Self-Accounting 168 4.3.2 An Ethic of Responsible Individualism 171 References 179 Chapter 5 The Maturation of the Market: Industrial Society in the Gilded Age 184 5.1 From Civil War to a Gilded Age 185 5.2 The Contours of Industrial Society 187 5.2.1 Industrialization and Corporatization 188 5.2.2 Economic Life and Individual Agency 198 5.2.3 Domestic Life and Consumerism 207 5.2.4 Law, Politics, and the Struggle for Order 211 5.3 Crises of Individualism and the Market 220 References 223 Chapter 6 Sumner and Natural Struggle: Individualism Through the Market 228 6.1 “A Sound and Natural Social Order” 231 6.1.1 The Struggle for Existence 232 6.1.2 The Competition of Life 235 6.1.3 The Social Organism 238 6.2 Sumner’s Individualism: The Forgotten Man and Industrial Society 242 6.2.1 A Middle-Class Ethic 242 6.2.2 Defending Industrial Society 250 6.3 At Home in the Marketplace 266 References 273 Conclusion—Our Nineteenth-Century Inheritance 275 References 278 Index 279 Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Introduction—A Nation of Individuals and Markets (Luke Philip Plotica)....Pages 1-22 The Rise of the Market: Individuation and Integration in Antebellum America (Luke Philip Plotica)....Pages 23-69 Emerson and Self-Reliance: Individualism Amidst the Market (Luke Philip Plotica)....Pages 71-124 Thoreau and Deliberate Living: Individualism Against the Market (Luke Philip Plotica)....Pages 125-175 The Maturation of the Market: Industrial Society in the Gilded Age (Luke Philip Plotica)....Pages 177-220 Sumner and Natural Struggle: Individualism Through the Market (Luke Philip Plotica)....Pages 221-267 Back Matter ....Pages 269-275