American Individualism

by Herbert Hoover, George Nash

In late 1921, then secretary of commerce Herbert Hoover decided to distill from his experiences a coherent understanding of the American experiment he cherished. The result was the 1922 book American Individualism. In it, Hoover expounded and vigorously defended what has come to be called American exceptionalism: the set of beliefs and values that still makes America unique. He argued that America can make steady, sure progress if we preserve our individualism, preserve and stimulate the initiative of our people, insist on and maintain the safeguards to equality of opportunity, and honor service as a part of our national character. American Individualism asserts that equal opportunity for individuals to develop their abilities is "the sole source of progress" and the fundamental impulse behind American civilization for three—now four—centuries. More than ninety years have passed since this book was first published; it is clear, in retrospect, that the volume was partly motivated by the political controversies of the time. But American Individualism is not simply a product of a dim and receding past. To a considerable degree the ideological battles of Hoover's era are the battles of our own, and the interpretations we make of our past—particularly the years between 1921 and 1933—will mold our perspective on the crises of the present.

Genres: Politics, History, Philosophy

101 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1922

About the author

Herbert Clark Hoover, the 31st President of the United States (1929–1933), was a mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted government intervention under the rubric "economic modernization". In the presidential election of 1928 Hoover easily won the Republican nomination. The nation was prosperous and optimistic, leading to a landslide for Hoover over the Democrat Al Smith, whom many voters distrusted on account of his Roman Catholicism. Hoover deeply believed in the Efficiency Movement (a major component of the Progressive Era), arguing that a technical solution existed for every social and economic problem. That position was challenged by the Great Depression, which began in 1929, the first year of his presidency. He tried to combat the Depression with volunteer efforts and government action, none of which produced economic recovery during his term. The consensus among historians is that Hoover's defeat in the 1932 election was caused primarily by failure to end the downward spiral into deep Depression, compounded by popular opposition to prohibition. Other electoral liabilities were Hoover's lack of charisma in relating to voters, and his poor skills in working with politicians.

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Herbert Hoover is one of the most underrated men in American history. Remembered primarily for his catastrophic presidency, in which the false legend of Hoover as the architect of the Great Depression and an unflinching advocate of laissez faire was born, Hoover the man was much more complicated and accomplished. A highly successful mining engineer and businessman, a philanthropist whose efforts saved tens of millions of lives during and after World War I, and a dutiful public servant with a sincere desire to expand equality of opportunity, Hoover's efforts across a broad variety of endeavors and a multiplicity of calamities earned him the moniker, The Great Humanitarian. Well-read and well-traveled, Hoover's perspective on domestic and worldwide issues were carefully considered, causing Russell Kirk to remark that Hoover was the "last president to do his own thinking." Hoover used this learning and experience to publish over a dozen books on topics ranging from mining and fishing to government policies, foreign and domestic.

American Individualism represented Hoover's first foray into political writing, though at a mere 60 pages to call this a book is a bit of a stretch. Written in 1922, during Hoover's early tenure in the Harding Administration, in which his boundless energy earned him the unofficial title of "Secretary of Commerce, and Under Secretary of Everything Else," American Individualism appeared during a uniquely volatile period in history, at home and abroad. It wasn't just the world war that had shaken civilization. Revolution and radical new theories proliferated in Europe, and their tentacles threatened to cross the Atlantic at a time when America was beset by economic depression and domestic upheaval. American Individualism was Hoover's attempt to articulate the American creed and reinforce it in the minds of the American people. Hoover labeled this creed "American individualism."

This individualism, what Hoover would variously label liberalism and then conservatism, was distinct, he thought, from the individualism of Europe, which placed people into distinct, rigid categories of class. American individualism, by comparison, did not place such arbitrary limits on human achievement, leaving the individual free to rise to the level he could earn via his talent, intelligence, thrift, and industriousness. That it did so imperfectly was not in Hoover's mind evidence of an error in principle, and in fact that the American system could be criticized was one of its strengths, for with criticism can come improvement. This, too, was unique to America, explained Hoover, because "while some accredit the exposures of failure in our government and business as evidence of standards of a lower order," the existence of standards implies efforts to meet them. Hoover wrote that while Americans "do wash our dirty linen in public most others never wash it."

Hoover's was no egalitarian theory, as he recognized that different talents would lead to different outcomes. Indeed, Hoover regarded socialism as the negation of true American individualism. Still, he believed that part of the American creed was an ethic of service, to country and to countryman, and that true progress would confer a kind of noblesse oblige on its beneficiaries.

Having explained in the first chapter his definition of American-style individualism, Hoover spends the rest of the tract exploring its philosophical, social, economic, and political implications and supports. These chapters reveal the dichotomy of Hoover's mind: essentially conservative, but with the Progressive's faith in progress, education, and the possibilities of government regulation. Some of this is simply a function of the period in which Hoover was writing, when industrialism was both new enough to constitute a force for growth and old enough to have revealed its more deleterious aspects. Hoover was by no means unique in considering new theories of government in response to these developments, and even Calvin Coolidge, that vaunted proponent of the free market, fiddled with Progressive ideas in response to industrialization.

Further, there is a sense in which Hoover's idea have a renewed relevance in our day. His suggestion, for instance, that government's role is that of an umpire which ensures a level playing field finds resonance in an age in which Big Tech and woke capitalism threaten to create new social strata based on adherence to popular social dogma. Clearly, Hoover's concern that economic centralization is as dangerous as political centralization has not yet been assuaged.

At the book's close, Hoover reiterates his essential conservatism, writing of the necessity to link "the future with the past," but also advising that the task at hand is the "inspiration to construction." He cautions here against falling into the equally perverse traps of radicalism one hand and a mere reacationism on the other. The problems of 1922 and 2021, it seems, are not entirely unrelated, and just as Hoover sought imaginative solutions to problems of his day, so today do we need a renewed focus on reconciling permanence and change.

While the creed of American individualism has undergone alterations since Hoover wrote this pamphlet, and indeed endured significant change in the interval between its writing and his death, American Individualism reveals the mind of a man sincerely working to both preserve and renew - in other words, the kind of man we desperately need in our public life today.

[John Yelverton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really amazing little book that strikes home and rings true nearly one hundred years after it was written in 1922. Herbert Hoover really had his finger on the pulse of the human condition, though a couple of his conclusions are a little off. On the whole though, it's really an amazing read.

[Jdb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little pamphlet written by Herbert Hoover in 1922 after returning to U.S. from his relief projects for war torn Europe. He sets forth his political philosophy that government’s purpose is to give every citizen the opportunity to succeed up to his abilities and efforts. This formed the philosophical basis for 20th century conservative movement exemplified by William F. Buckley Jr and Ronald Reagan. Herbert is probably rolling over in his grave at the new ‘Orange Man Distortion’ version of conservatism.

[Jeremy Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, but intellectually conservative essay from a former president that demonstrates, rather tragically, how anti-intellectual conservatives have become in an effort to achieve and sustain power rather than stand on principles of an honest merit. Herbert Hoover rightly falls into a category of “worst” presidents (1928-1932) because he failed to see a way out of a collapsing depression and Americans needed swift action to restore the balance. Enter the great FDR. Nevertheless, Hoover remains the last philosophically and intellectually conservative president to hold the White House. And this little book is a brilliantly written definition for the title it holds, that individuals are the root of American greatness, rather than governments and institutions. Conservatives of late have lost the moral high ground to carry the kind of honest argument a man like Hoover made in the 1920s. He ended with a foretelling of conservative devolution...

“We can not afford to rest at ease in the comfortable assumption that right ideas always prevail by some virtue of their own. In the long run they do. But there can be and there have been periods of centuries when the world slumped back into darkness merely because great masses of men became impregnated with wrong ideas.”

[Andrew McHenry · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really helpful to read a biography of Hoover in order to set the context for this essay. His philosophy of American life/ethos derives naturally from his own experience of being orphaned (with his siblings) in childhood, with life affording him opportunities to excel and develop his individual potential in spite of this. He viewed individual opportunity as essential to the health of the nation, and both intrinsic and unique to the American version of it -- which (in contrast to European strands) is not hindered by a caste system of dukes and earls. His voice serves as a good call for equality of opportunity. It needs to be taken with an awareness of the excess of American individualism today, where it's easy to lose sight of collective/group impacts on both good and bad accomplishment, as well as the collective forces that would stand to limit individual development.

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

"American Individualism" is the then-secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover's effort to staunch the growing support at the time for other economic or political systems by addressing them on philosophical grounds. Hoover identified the core ethos of America — its driving force as he saw it — and set out why these firm foundations ought not to be abandoned in favor of the uncertain promises of revolutionaries. American Individualism is an important document, not only for its historical value, but as a piece of political philosophy in its own right.

[Dr Janice Flux · Rating 2 out of 5]

I can't believe I read this whole thing. Luckily it's short.

[Maeve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very short but good philosophy and a snapshot in American history. Courtesy of Emma and the sisterhood of traveling books : )

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brief motivational book by President Hoover about why the American spirit is superior to Socialism.

[Zachary]

Wasted.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great look int to the philosophy of Hoover, and it reminded me of some of the things Reagan said.

The writing was amazingly good. It was a joy to read if for nothing else then the masterful way he used words.

His section on faith spoke only in general terms, ans I also don't feel that faith was a large enough basis for his theories, but I read it to understand his views, not to base my own views on (a good stand-point when reading any political book).

If you want to understand Hoover better, or read an inspiring and masterfully written pamphlet, I recommend this one.

[David Haws · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see that some of my friends have been reading the Federalist papers. Herbert Hoover has been much maligned, but he was well educated, and a decent writer. I think this is a must-read for anyone interested in conservative American ideology.

His The Challenge to Liberty (1934) is also good, as is his autobiography (especially the first volume).