Abstract
This chapter explores how what David Potter called “the American cult of equality and individualism” prevents Americans forming a realistic understanding of their society. In particular, individualism blocks the perception of grossly unequal power ratios. Drawing upon the work of Charles Perrow, the chapter discusses the growth in the United States of large-scale organisations of many sorts and their effects on people’s habitus. It concludes by relating American individualism to what Norbert Elias called the homo clausus mode of self-experience.
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Mennell, S. (2017). Organisations and American Collective Self-Understanding. In: Connolly, J., Dolan, P. (eds) The Social Organisation of Marketing. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51571-7_8
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