During real economic booms labor markets become very tight thereby placing workers in a very strong bargaining position in relation to capital. Hence, as Carrol says, it's precisely during such times that labor militancy increases because unions are now better situated to win their demands through use of the means available to them like strike actions.
Under such conditions, it's rather unlikely that a president like Ronald Reagan would have attempted to bust a union like PATCO. This also gets at what is almost surely one of the chief functions of recessions in capitalist economies which is to discipline the working class.
And concerning political instability and outbreaks of revolutionary unrest, it was Alexis de Tocqueville's view,that revolutions usually occurred when a long period of improving conditions was suddenly broken either by an economic crisis (or as in the case of Russia) by military defeat. The experience of improving conditions having had the effect of strengthening the masses' confidence that their lot in could be improved and hence was not something to be passively accepted as preordained by God or nature. While on the other hand the experience of a sudden reversal of these gains by economic crisis or war convincing the masses that hope for restoration of their past gains could only come through the overthrow of the status quo.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant http://www.foxymath.com Learn or Review Basic Math
---------- Original Message ---------- From: "Carrol Cox" <cbcox at ilstu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Contradictions of contemporary working class consciousness Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2013 07:52:07 -0500
"This is mainly a consequence of the construction of the social safety net and collective bargaining system and the steady improvement in living standards in the wake of the economic depression and political instability of the 30's. This in turn has allowed union leaders to retain the loyalty of the majority of their active and passive members and to easily fend off challenges from left activists seeking a more radical direction. Where there have been rank-and-file rebellions, these have typically resulted in elevating leaders who have inevitably shared the worldview and replicated the behaviour of the faction which they replaced. The more recent decline in real wages and job security as a result of organizational and technological change and!
outsourcing has made workers less rather than more inclined to join unions and challenge their employers."
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Perhaps. But at least consider the possibility of exactly the reverse being true. Working-class militancy increased in the 1960s and early 1970s; it has decreased as conditions have worsened. It seems mere dogmatism rather than real historical analysis to assume that higher living standards promote satisfaction, lower living standards the opposite.
Militancy requires free time.
Carrol
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