First, please forgive a little self-congratulatory note: I noted that the Tea Partiers were the New Jacksonians more than three years ago, and, since then, everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon (see here, here, here, and here). Now that David Walker Howe, Dean of Jacksonian historians, has given his imprimatur to this analogy, it can be deemed to be official: The Tea Partiers, in their dislike of big financial institutions, cultural elites, and the dependent poor resemble no group so much as the middling gentry who idolized Old Hickory after he denounced the Second Bank of the United States and espoused “hard money” and federal parsimony as non-negotiable ideologies. But here is a small perplexity: Why has not this Jacksonian impulse been harnessed for anti-corporate ends? The Jacksonians loathed corporations as sources of special privileges. As individual proprietors, they feared corporate economic power; As state-bank “enterprisers” or debtors, they hated the competition or control of Nicholas Biddle’s “Monster Bank.” Slade and Erskowitz showed long ago that Jacksonian Democrats voted consistently against corporate privileges.
But where is the anti-corporate zeal among our new Jacksonians? True, they dislike Bernanke, our modern-day Biddle. But I see little evidence that they have signed on to other anti-corporate movements – for instance, the spate of attacks on corporate personality in the wake of Citizens United. Indeed, they seem practically Whiggish
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I’d suggest that today it makes far less sense for neo-Jacksonians to be “anti-corporation” in a thoroughgoing way than it would have in Jacksonian times. While there were some general incorporation statutes back then, they were still comparatively limited in scope, meaning that corporations were largely the province of the politically connected business elites. Today literally anyone can start a corporation with the wave of a pen, and more importantly, many do. Small businesses are corporations just as GM is, which means that “corporation” is just another way of saying “business.” What distinguishes GM from the family business isn’t that one is a corporation and one isn’t, but that one has and uses political pull to skew the system in its favor, and one can’t. The Jacksonian impulse isn’t against business per se, but against partnerships between the federal government and business interests that concentrate financial and political power. The corporate form of organization is no longer as good a proxy for that phenomenon, so it makes sense that TPers wouldn’t be rabidly anti corporate per se.
Posted by: Chris Newman | Aug 4, 2011 1:16:59 PM
I think Matt hits on the key point — for all of its supposed populism — even, if you will, Jacksonian populism — the real organizational money behind the core Tea Party groups is from corporations, channeled through faux-populists like Dick Armey. The Tea Party is more of a construct these days than an actual movement, as witnessed by the pathetic turnout of any of their recent rallies. Today, those claiming the Tea Party imprimatur tend to be anti-regulatory, corporate funded GOP politicians.
Posted by: Douglas Carver | Aug 4, 2011 9:59:44 AM
Rick, I think your point is a great one, and frankly I think the distinction is largely media-driven. If you ask your average Tea Party sympathizer, I’ll bet you’d hear a lot of anger and distrust at big banks and the big automakers. But the politicians and commentators who have latched onto the Tea Party, and the donors who have funded much of the infrastructure, tend to be less interested in this aspect of Jacksonianism.
Posted by: Matt Bodie | Aug 3, 2011 2:37:22 PM
Fair enough, Joel: The Tea Partiers were at their Jacksonian best in their voting against the bailout. But the original Jacksonians presumed that gigantic corporate size was prima facie evidence of some hidden governmentally conferred advantage (tariffs, chartered monopoly rights, federal deposits — some privilege that the rest of us did not get). The original Jacksonians, in short, were, like Brandeis (a guy raised by Kentucky anti-Kansas-and-Nebraska Democrats), fearful of the curse of bigness and assumed that bigness must be the result of some defect in the economic system.
I just do not see this presumptive dislike of corporate bigness among the Tea Party folks.
Posted by: Rick Hills | Aug 3, 2011 12:20:48 PM
“The Jacksonians were largely small proprietors, but they nevertheless despised insurance companies, banks, and railroads because they believed that these behemoths derived their wealth through special, government-conferred privileges.”
Oh, they hate “special, government-conferred privileges” alright. Just ask them how they feel about TARP and Government Motors.
But, if you think about it, without any “special” treatment from the gov’t at “big corporation” is just a small business that made good. The entrepreneur, having been urged to compete, must not be turned-upon when he wins.
Posted by: Joel | Aug 3, 2011 12:15:20 PM
But there is no inconsistency between being in favor of small business and against giant corporations! The Jacksonians were largely small proprietors, but they nevertheless despised insurance companies, banks, and railroads because they believed that these behemoths derived their wealth through special, government-conferred privileges.
The notion that “business” is one big happy family that should stick together was exploded by Robert Wiebe, Businessmen and Reform: A Study of the Progressive Movement. The National Association of Manufacturers in the early 20th century used to denounce unions and support the open shop — but they also called for tougher enforcement of the antitrust laws against the monopolies and denounced Rockefeller as well.
The trend of populist conservative sycophancy towards corporate bigs is really the most disappointing aspect of the Tea Partiers. I can tolerate and even applaud economic luddites for their vigor and sincerity: It is hard to stomach their obsequiousness to the Koch Brothers.
Posted by: Rick Hills | Aug 3, 2011 11:55:03 AM
There is some of the anti-corporate spirit running among the Tea Party – one would note that “big financial institutions” are (for the most part?) corporations. And, the reasons for the dislike of those institutions are in some ways similar to the general Jacksonian dislike.
With that said, the majority of the Tea Party-ers’ concern has been with recent expansion of the federal government. It is possible that the general anti-corporate element is more quiet against the noisy background of the ire with the federal government. In addition, I suspect many members of the Tea Party are small business owners themselves (usually in some sort of incorporated form)and likely feel that if they were anti-corporate in some way beyond anger at specific wrongdoing (e.g., unethical financial companies), it would result in intellectual incoherency.
Posted by: Jonathan | Aug 3, 2011 11:40:00 AM