Worker Insurgency, Radical Organization, and New Deal Labor Legislation

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 1257-1282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Goldfield
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
National Labor Relations Act ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
The New Deal

Debates over the reasons for the passage of class legislation during the New Deal era have been of continuing interest to social scientists. Of special importance has been the problem of explaining the passage of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), often considered the most significant and radical bill of the period. In this article, I examine the influence of worker insurgency and radical organization on the passage and final form of the NLRA. I argue that other analytic approaches fail to take into account the importance of this influence and the degree to which it constrained and structured the responses of key political actors. I conclude that the theories that downplay the importance of worker insurgency and radical organization are both wrong in the particulars and suspect as general theories; this applies especially to the perspective that emphasizes the autonomy of the state from societal forces.

Explaining New Deal Labor Policy

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 1297-1315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Skocpol ◽  
Kenneth Finegold ◽  
Michael Goldfield
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Deal ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Labor Relations ◽  
Labor Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Labor Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Recovery ◽  
National Labor Relations Act

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 represented a turning point in modern labor relations policy in the United States. In the December 1989 issue of this Review, Michael Goldfield examined the effects of worker insurgency and radical organization on the enactment of the new labor law and rejected theories that emphasized the autonomy of the state from societal forces. In this Controversy, Theda Skocpol and Kenneth Finegold argue that the growing strength of liberal Democrats in Congress following the 1934 election and the failure of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) as an economic recovery measure provided the most important causes for the passage of the NLRA in mid-1935. In response Goldfield argues that the results of the 1934 election were themselves influenced by the protest environment and that the passage of the NLRA was a foregone conclusion before the NIRA was struck down.

A “Right Not to Starve”

2019 ◽  
pp. 252-274
Author(s):  
Sylvie Laurent
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
The State ◽  
Welfare Rights ◽  
The New Deal ◽  
American State

This chapter will address King’s reasoning on the role and purpose of the modern American state in guaranteeing economic security and wellbeing for all. King argued, like welfare rights activists, that these were fundamental social obligations to the state. This chapter will show how his Scandinavian- inspired proposals demonstrate that King was willing to build on the New Deal

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Nina Silber
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
New Deal ◽  
State Building ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Central Objective ◽  
Familial Influences ◽  
The New Deal

This introduction lays out the book’s central objective: to explore why Americans returned to the Civil War throughout the New Deal years. The Civil War offered a prism for exploring the emotional upheaval people experienced in light of the Depression; the political debates that swirled around the state-building initiatives of the New Deal; and struggles over race and civil rights. Also explored here is the evolution of this book, including personal and familial influences on the author.

Counting Americans

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Schor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Social History ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Racial Ideologies ◽  
Conflicting Demands ◽  
History Of

By telling how the US census classified and divided Americans by race and origin from the founding of the United States to World War II, this book shows how public statistics have been used to create an unequal representation of the nation. From the beginning, the census was a political undertaking, torn between the conflicting demands of the state, political actors, social scientists, businesses, and interest groups. Through the extensive archives of the Bureau of the Census, it traces the interactions that led to the adoption or rejection of changes in the ways different Americans were classified, as well as the changing meaning of seemingly stable categories over time. Census workers and directors by necessity constantly interpreted official categories in the field and in the offices. The difficulties they encountered, the mobilization and resistance of actors, the negotiations with the census, all tell a social history of the relation of the state to the population. Focusing in detail on slaves and their descendants, on racialized groups, and on immigrants, as well as on the troubled imposition of US racial categories upon the population of newly acquired territories, the book demonstrates that census-taking in the United States has been at its core a political undertaking shaped by racial ideologies that reflect its violent history of colonization, enslavement, segregation, and discrimination.

Politics and Markets: Corporate Money in American National Elections

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore J. Eismeier ◽  
Philip H. Pollock
Keyword(s):  
New Deal ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Campaign Finance ◽  
The State ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Business Influence ◽  
The New Deal

The current American debate about the relationship between business and government represents the most significant reopening of that issue since the New Deal. The debate is in part about government's role in the economy, but the issue of business's role in politics is being joined as well, joined in fact on several fronts. There are, of course, the polemics of corporations and their critics, in which business is cast alternately as victim and villain. The issue also divides more serious students of American politics and has fostered a wealth of theorizing about the role of the state. Finally, the issue of business influence pervades discussions about campaign finance.

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