>> You're overlooking a crucial difference. In the Midwest industrial
>> states, union density
>
> I'm not overlooking that at all. But you originally wrote as if (or
> appeared to be writing as if?) the rise in hegemony was a mystery.
> Put in these terms, it wouldn't be a mystery at all. You would simply
> be saying that unions, for all their faults, are a counterhegemonic
> institution, and now that they are a shadow of their former extent,
> there is proportionately less counterhegemony.
Yeah, that's true, I sort of unwittingly offered a pretty straightforward answer to my own question. Still, something seems different between these two cases....
SA