The War On Labor And The Left: Understanding America's Unique Conservatism

by Sexton,Patricia Cayo

• ISBN13: 9780813310633
• ISBN10: 0813310636
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1992-06-05
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In all countries, labor has "war stories" to tell, but none are so violent as those of American labor. Since the 1870s at least 700 workers have been killed and thousands seriously injured in labor disputes. Nowhere but in this country have employers so actively fought back against strikes through the use of "scabs," surveillance, and mercenary armies.Although much of the violence occurred decades ago, author Patricia Sexton contends that this rich history sheds light on questions that still plague observers of the American political system: Why has the United States been more conservative in its domestic policies than other Western democracies? Why is it almost alone among them in lacking a mass labor or democratic socialist partyor the kind of social policies favored by such parties? And why has American labor unionism been in serious decline in recent decades?The most familiar answers to these questions involve consensus explanations of what has come to be known as American exceptionalism. America is conservative, observers say, because its citizens have "loved" capitalism and supported its political policies wholeheartedly or because the nation's open frontier and early voting rights reduced dissent and class consciousness. Other explanations focus on various internal constraints said to be unique to the American working class or its organizations, such as conflict among diverse immigrants, the sectarianism and blunders of leftist groups, and the conservatism or incompetence of labor union leadership. All of these are said to have prevented labor from carrying out successful conflicts with employers and economic leaders.According to Sexton, these arguments ignore the remarkable record in American history of labor-left struggles: the violent suppression of industrial unionism prior to the 1930s, legal and forceful repression of trade unionism, and destruction by various means of left-leaning unions and political organizations. Her book explores instead a neglected explanation of American conservatismthat of a literal war on labor, waged by unusually powerful economic entities using repressive strategies, often backed by police and sometimes by federal forces.The details of this violent history, familiar to labor historians, are recounted here in a new perspective emphasizing the impact on workers of conflict sustained over many years. But the book is much more than a reinterpretation of this history. Patricia Sexton shows how the use of power and repression has played out as well in our institutions of law and government, in economic policies, and in the media. Making these links and showing how America's conservatism is unique among other Western democracies is the contribution of this ambitious book. For only by coming to terms with this history of repression and its legacy can we fully understand America's conservatism today.

Author Biography

Patricia Cayo Sexton is professor of sociology at New York University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(10)
Part I Conservatism and Union Decline	11	(42)
Conservatism and the War on Labor	13	(16)
Consensus, Constraints, Conflict	29	(16)
Unions and Leaders	45	(8)
Part II Unionism: Strategies of Repression	53	(68)
Employers, Mercenaries, and Armed Force	55	(12)
The Legal System: ``We Are the Law''	67	(10)
Steel: 1892 and 1919	77	(24)
Critical Conflicts: Railway, Craft, and Industrial Unionism	101	(20)
Part III Labor-left Politics: Strategies of Repression	121	(82)
Socialists and Sedition: The World War I Era	123	(17)
Un-Americanism: World War II and Cold War Eras	140	(22)
Peculiarities of the American Political System	162	(19)
Labor-left Politics	181	(22)
Part IV Strategies of Economic Manipulation and Violence	203	(40)
Subtler Technologies of Subjection: Managing Workers	205	(13)
Labor Law, the NLRB, and Gentrified Union Busters	218	(9)
Macroeconomic and Political Manipulations	227	(16)
Part V The Power to Repress	243	(36)
That Peculiar Institution, American Capitalism	245	(15)
The Media Monopoly	260	(14)
Reprise and Prospects	274	(5)
Notes	279	(30)
About the Book and Author	309	(2)
Index	311