First Class of American Sociology in Newport RI
The two French arrive in Newport on 9 May 1831 at 8 o'clock in the evening. The next day, they get up with the sun to visit the port city of 16,000 inhabitants. Beaumont quickly made a discovery that he shared in a letter to his family in France. « This people is entirely devoted to trade and business. This small town has 4 or 5 banks, and it’s the same in every US city. This is proof that these people have a commercial fibre.” The wealth of people was based on an intense maritime activity with trade and export of rum, candles, fish, furniture and money.
The city (24,585 inhabitants in 2024) now has 6 banks. Median household income is $81.330 (dated 2023) versus US$80.610 national median, over 50% earning less than $75,000.
On the ship Le Havre, which had transported them to America, Tocqueville had met Peter Schermerhorn, a wealthy merchant. “He told me that an essential feature of the American character is this greed to become rich and to achieve it by all means possible” (ibid, p. 29)
Wanting to become rich requires a hereditary discipline. A friend from my Columbia U year in NYC had caught me picking up the coins of a penny forgotten on the pavement. “My grandparents and parents always told me that this is the beginning of fortune,” she said with a smile. The saying exists in all latitudes, but it is not perhaps put into practice with the same fervour, the same vigilance close to the catchall. In the US. Laurie, the young woman, readily conceded that her degree from a great university of New York would allow her to access fortune more quickly with the guarantee in the long run of a six-figure salary, but nothing did, she sacrificed to the family ritual., picking up penny coins.
Capitalism is triumphant in Newport, as it is everywhere in the country. Why this appetite, this talent for business? The German sociologist Max Weber had attempted an hypothesis in his masterpiece, Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber explains that the Protestant ethic encouraged behaviors such as discipline, hard work, and saving, which were conducive to economic development and capital accumulation. These values have helped create an environment conducive to the rise of capitalism in Protestant countries such as the Netherlands, England and the United States.
This thesis has been widely debated and criticized. Some scholars believe that Protestantism was only one factor in the rise of capitalism. Others noted that some Italian Catholic cities had developed flourishing capitalism, sometimes even before the Reformation.
The thorny question of capitalism and ethics (religious morality or not) remains.
On the ship Le Havre, Peter Schermerhorn told Tocqueville that » an essential feature of the American character is this greed to become rich and to achieve it by all means possible”. A true confession.The predators and financial scandals are defiling the economic history of the United States. Enron (2001), Bernie Madoff Ponzi (2008), WorldCom (2002), Lehman Brothers (2008), FTX Cryptocurrency (2022), Theranos (2015) are all names that carry scandals. Banks are not immune to federal wrath, including BNP Paribas, which pleaded guilty in 2014 for using the US financial system to finance operations in Iran, Sudan and Cuba, countries that are subject to economic sanctions by the US authorities for “promoting terrorism”. To continue working in the US, a key financial hub, the French bank had to pay $9 billion, the largest fine imposed at the time, and be subject to a probationary period of 5 years for these illegal transactions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA). Other banks have been convicted for the same reason, Standard Chartered (2012), and
My American director of thesis was convinced that capitalism carries ethics. And he counted in the law to defend it with all the agencies to carry on that task. He believes that capitalism carries common rules of fairness in the daily life. We were atending a conference in Qatar and he was upset that merchants in the souk change the price at will adapting to the profile of the customers ffirgetting that the Americann air companies have implemented on internet reservaton that kind of flexibily jusstified in a way by the supply/demlan golxden rule.
Howard Zinn, the American historian, often critiqued capitalism on an ethical standpoint. He believed that capitalism inherently creates and perpetuates inequality, which he saw as fundamentaly unethical.