The State & Labor in Modern America

Rating:
Summary: A Revisionist look at the Tripartite Relationship
Review: In a revisionist look at labor history in the 20th century, Melvyn Dubofsky counters the typical claim that government has played a repressive role in government-union-capital relationships. His argument, not accepted by many labor scholars, is that labor benefitted in the long-run through the states intervention -- atempting to diffuse the potential revolutionary zeal of the masses by appeasing them with small gains.

Dubofsky's methodology launches a liberal attack on Marxist thinkers and activists by challenging the view that government is a tool of capital to hold workers in check. His work points out that unions gained when the people organized and threatened militantcy. Government sought to appease labor through putting pressure on capital. However, when labor crossed the line actually becoming militant and acting out against the states authority, government sided with capital -- an action more in line with providing the economic stability everyone needs.

Labor history in a raw sense is both shocking and appalling. His account of labor history is packed with detail, and historical accounts which sometimes get in the way of his thesis.