The State & Labor in Modern America

by Dubofsky, Melvyn

• ISBN13: 9780807844366
• ISBN10: 0807844365
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

In this important new book, Melvyn Dubofsky traces the relationship between the American labor movement and the federal government from the 1870s until the present. His is the only book to focus specifically on the 'labor question' as a lens through which to view more clearly the basic political, economic, and social forces that have divided citizens throughout the industrial era. Many scholars contend that the state has acted to suppress trade union autonomy and democracy, as well as rank-and-file militancy, in the interest of social stability and conclude that the law has rendered unions the servants of capital and the state. In contrast, Dubofsky argues that the relationship between the state and labor is far more complex and that workers and their unions have gained from positive state intervention at particular junctures in American history. He focuses on six such periods when, in varying combinations, popular politics, administrative policy formation, and union influence on the legislative and executive branches operated to promote stability by furthering the interests of workers and their organizations.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: State and Society in Modern United States History	p. xi
Laissez-Faire and the Origins of Federal Intervention, 1873-1900	p. 1
The Progressive Approach: from Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson, 1900-1916	p. 37
World War and the Positive State, 1917-1920	p. 61
Interregnum: the State as ""Neutral,"" 1921-1932	p. 83
The New Deal Labor Revolution, Part 1, 1933-1936	p. 107
The New Deal Labor Revolution, Part 2, 1937-1941	p. 137
War and the Creation of a New Industrial State, 1940-1946	p. 169
An Almost Perfect Machine: Industrial Relations Policy in an Age of Affluence, 1947-1973	p. 197
Conclusion	p. 233
Notes	p. 239
Cases Cited	p. 275
Bibliography	p. 279
Index	p. 305
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