* From: Paul
I was going to ask when the attack ever stopped? ;-) I see it more as one constant effort and largely by the "same" people, to undo the 30's/WWII - (just as much foreign economic policy today seeks to undo the 3rd world changes of the '60s.) Perhaps what has changed is less the players than "conditions". ^^^^ CB: Perhaps there is, like with most things, an ebb and flow of attacks. The article says "The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 signaled a sharpening corporate and government attack on labor." not that there was no class struggle going on before Reagan. Rather that Reagan's election signaled an increased attack as compared with the immediate previous period. Some say there was a move to the right under Carter, but usually without comparing Carter with Ford/Nixon. At any rate, there might still be seen a sharpening of the attack from Carter to Reagan. The PATCO union busting is usually cited as the emblem of the specific increase in attack on labor. The Federal Reserve move that everybody talks about occurs under Reagan. Reagan also marks a sharp reactionary direction in propaganda, sharply racist and all around rightwing, as compared with Carter. It is not unimportant that Reagan is a drum major for the rightwing agenda and Carter is not. That's a qualitative shift with Reagan. Reagan rallies masses ,including especially of workers, to rightwing ideology. Carter does not. That's an important difference. Note, however, that the Democrats still had the majorities in both houses of Congress under Reagan. They just acted like they "had" to do what Reagan said because he was supposedly so popular. I agree that this demonstrates and initiates the Democrats current role as having absolutely no spine for their alleged pro-people ideology, and demonstrates the phoniness of their pro-people mask. That shift to a weak persona too is new with Reaganism, but Lou and those who emphasize anti-Democratsing are completely correct to point to the Democrats turning into pussy cats under the new dispensation of Reagan. I have to say thinking about it that there has to be a conspiratorial or conscious aspect to the Democrats and Reps playing these two roles. The Democrats are not sucking up the social movements in the way that Carrol always says , they are not doing it in their sleep, unconsioiusly. To be that disciplined and deceptive implies knowing what you are doing. To pretend to be the party of the working class and to consistently cave and collaborate does not happen by accident. So, Tweedle Dee/Tweedle Dum is a conspiracy theory. But I'm not one to squawk "conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory !" myself. ^^^ ^^^^^^ Of course Jim is right about the move to the South in the 1950's (our first "3rd world"). But doesn't one have to date this move to the South with the passage of Taft-Hartley in 1947 (with lots of Democratic votes -- only 24 Senators and 107 Congressmen voted to uphold Truman's veto)? As we know, among its many provisions was the authorization for States to pass the "Right to Work" laws that is said to do so much to open up the South (and some of the West) to industrial investment. Indeed we can take it back another ten years since even though the Wagner Act was passed in 1935 the actual operation of the NLRB was held up locally in the courts for years http://www.nlrb.gov/nlrb/shared_files/brochures/60yrs_entirepub.asp. Really only WWII gave a sort of regimented respite. Otherwise, it has been one ongoing continuous attack. ^^^ CB: Sure but at different times the working class has more success at counter attacks, as in the 1930's. ^^^^^ Of course, as Lou points out, the attack gains more ground starting in the mid-70's as labor's opponents sense new opportunities. But is it really a new attack or just people taking advantage of new opportunities? ^^^^ CB: It's sort of a capitalist counterattack against the gains labor had made in the 1960s as a result of its class struggling (not that there is no capitalist attack then; it's always a struggle.) ^^^^^ I believe at least two key Carter economic advisors, Charles Schultze and Alfred Kahn, would be pleased if one said there actions under Carter were a bridge between 1920 neo-classical economics and the changes in later period. Of course Carter's Labor Secretary Ray Marshall (a labor economist from UT) representing the old liberal wing wouldn't fall in this category. But the best he could muster was a neutral stance during the coal strike (eight years later Thatcher used a coal strike to seize the day) and on his watch liberalism turned to away from an "organized labor" approach to a "human resources" approach. If the attack was unrelenting and the players largely unchanged, then what did change? Lou's point in dating the turning of the tide to the mid 70's of course has a political point (Carter before Reagan). But this also has some weight in terms of seeing the underlying economic forces that enabled the tide to turn so sharply. What I have a hard time sorting out is the subtle mix of public measures and economic "conditions" that produce these sort of changes. Paul Louis P and Jim D write: > > Actually, the attack on labor began under Jimmy Carter (just as the > > witch-hunt began under Truman.) > >it began much earlier, with the steady effort (starting in the 1950s) >by employers to avoid union contracts by moving to the U.S. South and >to reinterpret contracts in their favor where possible. > >For a long time, labor counteracted these efforts... but the union >leadership decided to sit on their laurels rather than to build up >their strength. When labor was strong, it could have influence on DP >politicians such as LBJ ...
