Japanese American Ethnicity: The Persistence of Community

3. The Petit Bourgeois Economic Accommodation

THREE The Petit Bourgeois Economic Accommodation In Chapter 2 we examined how Japanese ways of structuring social relationships affected the overall accommodation of the Issei immigrants . and their descendants, to American society in the early twentieth century. This chapter will focus on how these factors affected their economic accommodation. Specifically, we will examine how characteristic ways of structuring social relationships facilitated the entrance of the japanese into the small business or petit bourgeois niche. The japanese, like the jews and the Chinese, historically have been overrepresented in this type of economic activity (e.g., Goldscheider and Kobrin, 1980; Light, 1972). As is true of these other groups, the choice of this kind of economic accommodation was made in part because of their exclusion from other types ofeconomic activity. This option. however, would not have been possible without a supportive cultural and social organizational base in the ethnic community. In tum, the experience ofdisproportionate involvement in the petit bourgeois nic!te, as well as the absence of any substantial involvement in industrial laboring-class activities, has had profound consequences for both the structural assimilation and retention ofethnic community life amongJapanese Americans. 47 48 The Petit Bourgeois Economic Accommodation THE NATURE OF THE PETIT BOURGEOIS NICHE Bechhofer and Elliot have pointed out that the petite bourgeoisie fall outside the traditional classification of"capitalist" or "proletariat." They define them in the following way (1981:182-183): These are neither bourgeois nor proletarians. At the same time it is clear that they are unlike the routine white-collar workers in industry , commerce or public administration and they are different too from the bureaucratized professionals or salaried intelligentsia. The one thing they all have-the crucial thing-is petty productive property , and it is property with which they work themselves. It is their labour and very frequently that of their families and kin, that they mix with this property, and though a good many also become the employers of hired labour, the scale of that exploitation is typically very small and is an extension of, rather than a substitute for, their own labour. Traditionally, the petite bourgeoisie were viewed as a residual category in the stratification systems of capitalist societies. It was assumed by Marx, for example. that small producers would eventually be pushed into the working class as technological development and competition drove out less efficient and weaker producers (e.g., Bottomore and Rubel, 1956:188). In certain economic activities that continue to be highly labor intensive and low in remuneration, however, the petite bourgeoisie have persisted in advanced capitalist societies (Bonacich, 1980). They remain quite strong even in some socialist and communist economies (Bechhofer and Elliot, 1981). The petite bourgeoisie occupy a rather complex position in relation to both the working and the large capitalist classes. They are aware of their dependent status with regard to the large corporations but are also envious of the latter's success. At times, the petite bourgeoisie are mocked and at other times pandered to by those above them. During economic dislocations, the petite bourgeoisie may be praised by the upper classes because of the "buffer" function they perform in absorbing discontent from below (Blalock, I967:79-84). They may be resented by the working class for having more material goods or for exploiting workers in their shopkeeping roles (Bonacich, 1973). At the same time, they are sometimes romanticized by the laboring classes because their economic The Petit Bourgeois Economic Accommodation 49 adaptation is seen as a way ofescaping the drudgery ofworking-class life (Mayer. 1953). Mayer suggests that the peculiar position of the petite bourgeoisie results in strained relationships with other classes: "The lower middle class (i.e., the petite bourgeoisie] has a compliant but also strained relationship with the upper establishment, which it aspires to and resents. Its relations with those 'beneath' it-the underclass of essentially unskilled and ethnically disadvantaged trapped workers-are becoming increasingly strained as wen" (1975:423). The unique position of the petite bourgeoisie is also reflected in a constellation of values setting them apart from both the proletariat and the large capitalist classes. At the core of these values is a distinctive kind of "rugged individualism" distrustful of both big business and big labor and extolling the virtues of hard work, thrift, and achievement (e.g., Lipset, 1981:131-135; Szymanski, 1978:82-83). These values, as we will illustrate later, play a crucial role in the upward...