70
WILLIAM APPLEMAN WILLIAMS
consciousness. A farmer may be small potatoes
in
statistical terms, but if
he sees himself as a commercial farmer then he responds to - and even
mimics - the arguments and policies of the statistically significant fanner.
But his point about "subsistence farmers, migrant farm laborers,
tenant farmers, sharecroppers" and "the black farm population" is
im–
portant. All I can say is that I did the best I could with my energy,
my economic resources and my time. I grant it was not enough. I would
suggest, however, that the subsistence farmers, at least as I encountered
them, inclined very strongly to think and act in terms of their aspira–
tions - they wanted to become successful commercial farmers. The
same holds for the man just emerging from subsistence (Zinn's producer
for the village) and for the tenants and sharecroppers I encountered.
Whatever my differences with Zinn, he does understand and ac–
knowledge that I am at least struggling with the problem of the inter–
relationship between ideas and economics. Not so with Arthur Schle–
singer, Jr. The difficulties of a dialogue with him (he who is
so
con–
cerned about words and style) are nicely revealed by his misplaced italics
in making the charge that I reduce everything to one thing. He stresses
the
The
in the title of my book, whereas the actionable letter is the
s
on
Roots.
But let us consider the grand judgment itself (p. 507) : "Professor
Williams insists that imperialism is totally reducible to economic mo–
tives." A sense of humor is essential equipment for reading Schlesinger,
for it enables one to keep much of his hyperbole and verbal gingerbread
in perspective. But in cases like this humor is not enough: the issue
involves his failure to understand what he has read.
If
his statement
means anything, it asserts that I explain
all
expansionist ideas and ac–
tions by tracing them back to some individual's drive to make, maintain
or increase his profits - or to avoid a loss.
No doubt of it, I have accounted for various foreign policy pro–
posals and actions in such terms, and I see no reason to hedge or
retract those analyses or interpretations. But I have also written pages
on "The Imperialism of Idealism" as an important element in under–
standing American foreign relations, I have been damned with a fervor
equal to Schlesinger's for being an idealist instead of a materialist, and
in the book under discussion have gone into considerable detail to show
how, as he phrases it (p. 506), a "confusion of a belief in free markets
with a belief in freedom" developed in American history.
Perhaps Schlesinger's misconception can be illustrated by consider–
ing one of his specifics. He asserts (p. 509) that I try "to force the
Populist platform of 1892 into the overseas-markets straitjacket." First,
a review of my position as I presented it in
The Roots
(perhaps
