Skilled Workers' Solidarity

The American Experience in Comparative Perspective

Antoine Joseph

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135578848
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A comparative historical analysis of capitalist democracy, focusing on development in the United States and offering comparisons with other Western nations.

CHAPTER 1

Modes of Class Formation

When those using inductive approaches to class formation (usually historians and sociologists) and those using deductive interpretations (typically political scientists but also economists and some sociologists) analyze class and class formation, they at times seem to be discussing different subjects. We would expect that analyses of the ways individuals engage in class action would be a fruitful area for cross-disciplinary fertilization and interaction. Yet scholars with differing approaches rarely seem to be referring to the same dynamic.

Marx is partly responsible for this contemporary Tower of Babel, having left relatively unexamined the interrelations between class position and class action. He treated what we have come to regard as an extraordinarily complex problem simply and even inconsistently. At times he argued as though similarity of interests was sufficient to motivate collective action. The view that class action would inevitably and inexorably follow the growth of proletarians was an essential aspect of the worldview of classical Marxism (Colletti, 1972).

But Marx expressed an alternative view as well. His analysis of the capitalist's antagonism to reductions in the working day anticipated rational choice theory, in that organization was seen as a prerequisite to working-class collective action.

The first attempts of workers to associate among themselves always take place in the form of combinations. Large-scale industry concentrates in one place a crowd of people unknown to one another. Competition divides their interests. But the maintenance of wages, this common interest which they have against their boss, unites them in a common thought of resistance—combination. Thus combination always has a double aim, that of stopping competition among the workers, so they can carry on general competition with the capitalist. (Marx, 1963:172)

However, this account of the transformation of a class in itself into a class for itself left out a microfoundation for class formation. Historians usually avoid this missing step by emphasizing the most visible forms of collective action in which, because of their apparent spontaneity, it is most difficult to perceive a rational component. They, consequently, often presume that spontaneous uprisings capture the essence of working-class collective action.¹

E. P. Thompson's influence has led many historians to emphasize the voluntaristic aspects of class consciousness, arguing that classes are the effects of struggles. Clearly, class action includes structure and agency. But the respective roles of each is often ambiguous. Often implicit is an assumption that the role of structural determinants is settled once the context of capitalist social relations is specified. Capitalist societies share (by definition) production relations, but this fact does not exhaust the relevant structural determinants of class formation (defining structural as those things beyond the immediate reach of actors individual or collective); it only introduces it. Differences in national structures include economic, political, and social factors and their historical antecedents.

The analysis of this chapter aims to reconcile two contrasting approaches to class formation synthesizing the useful insights of the social history perspective within a framework that can explain the central tendencies in the historical development of labor movements in capitalist democracies. Based on nineteenth- and twentieth-century aggregate cross-sectional and cross-national data, I will argue that alternative modes of class formation can be deduced from the historical development of labor movements. Modes of class formation are the product of distinctive social structural environments. Labor militancy is the key variable distinguishing more particularistic and more universalistic labor movements. The distinction between particularistic and universalistic labor movements also reflects their use of contrasting strategies. Labor movement particularism, represented by higher strike rates in recent years, is strongest where the lag of democratization after industrialization is slight and industrialization commenced relatively early, while a substantial lag in democratization after industrialization and late industrialization are characteristics associated with low militancy and the development of solidaristic labor movements.²

STRATEGY AND STRUCTURE IN CLASS FORMATION

Marx's account of the transformation of a class in itself into a class has long been considered underspecified. Recently, analysts have sought to partially fill in the gaps with a microfoundation, thereby integrating class analysis into theories of strategic interactions. However, the notion that working-class organization hinges on rational action contradicts a common theme of the class formation literature which assumes that the motives for organizing are extrarational (Roemer, 1978; Booth, 1978; Offe and Wiesenthal, 1980). The argument is thereby made that any logic of collective action based upon the premises of utilitarian individualism cannot apply to workers because their very existence as workers imposes a collectively oriented understanding of interests. In a now classic analysis, Offe and Wiesenthal (1980) argued that there were two logics of collective action and the use of one (an essentially nonutilitarian logic) was a prerequisite to solidarity.³ Hence, workers behave according to a sense of group identity rather than individual rationality.

Yet a theoretical gap often separates formally derived conclusions regarding processes of class formation and substantive analyses set in a particular setting. The present analysis will attempt to fill in this void, by integrating structural forces into a model showing that national labor movements are formed as the product of strategies and structures. An invaluable framework for macro-level theories of strategic interaction is found in Mancur Olson's work, most notably The Rise and Decline of Nations (1982). He argues that organized interest groups diverge between broad and inclusive organizing strategies versus narrow and exclusive ones. Olson argues that broad, encompassing interest groups are difficult to create but superior in general welfare to narrower interest groups. The latter are more easily created, but are more likely to pursue limited gains at high cost to the general welfare.

Extrapolating from Olson's model, this principle can be applied to the formation of the labor movements of the longterm capitalist democracies of North America and Western Europe. The argument is that labor movements gravitate between narrow and exclusive representations of interests versus broad and encompassing interest representations. Organizations at the narrow and exclusive end of the spectrum commonly use strategies of collective organization based on mechanisms of closure to create privileged niches. In many cases they consist of rent-seeking distributional coalitions in search of the minimal size necessary for winning (Riker, 1967). Such strategies exploit fissures in solidarism to defend the interests of the few against those of the many.

Perhaps the purest expression of particularism is to be found in restrictive craft unions of skilled workers. The limitations of this strategy lie in the possibility that homogenizing influences will erode differences between labor segments and that the power of small groups will be insufficient to attain desired ends. Labor movements in this type of environment show strongly particularistic tendencies, and consist of fragmented constituencies.

At the other end of the spectrum are labor movements employing collective action strategies based upon universalistic solidarism, protecting the interests of the many, albeit possibly at some cost to particular groups. Their similarities make the closure strategem unfeasible. Here successful collective action is based on the exploitation of a broadly encompassing solidarity. The chief limitation of solidarism lies in its vulnerability, that similarities will be undermined by heterogeneity, and since heterogeneity can never be entirely eliminated, solidarism is threatened by the prospect that the well off will prefer protection of their distinctive agendas, at the expense of their weaker brethren.⁴ Organizationally, internally heterogeneous unions that either cannot or will not redirect some of the bargaining power of stronger members to weaker ones end up allowing market forces to widen disparities between differentially privileged member groups. Such differentiation (if unchecked) will eventually lead to a disintegration of their power as collective actors (Streeck, 1984:292).⁵

Variations among cases reflect variations in the set of institutional structures: economic, political, and sociological. The differences between these alternative patterns of class formation are based on conditions existing during those periods in which the working class emerges as a collective actor. Consequently, distinct modes of class formation are the product of variations in social structural environments and their historical antecedents, as encountered by labor movements during industrializing eras.

THE STRUCTURAL CONSTRAINTS ON SOLIDARISM

Environments facilitate different types of solidarism by fragmenting or solidifying constituencies. This section considers those factors that arguably have had considerable impact on the characteristics of solidarism. While the factors considered here do not exhaust the range of possibile influences, they are most relevant to the present analysis: (1) the extent to which immigration promotes the internal fragmentation of labor; (2) the timing and tempo of industrialization; (3) the general pattern of trade relations; and (4) the relative proximity of democratization to industrialization. The variables used in this analysis will be discussed here. But the techniques used in their operationalization are to be found in Appendix A.

1. The extent of internal fragmentation: While societies always have some internal cleavages, given the multiplicity of dimensions along which differences can crystallize, such divisions are more salient in some cases than in others. The social consequences of such divisions are not innate (that is, they are not simply the product of the existence of heterogeneity) but result from the instrumental and situational uses to which such divisions have been put (Przeworski and Sprague, 1982). Race, religion, language, and region can be either significant or insignificant impediments to solidarity depending on the context in which they take place. National working classes are often products of a patchwork of heterogeneous groups fused into blocs by historical development.

What tends to set one national or religious or racial group of workers against another, is not so much occupational specialization in itself, as the tendency for one group to occupy, to seek to monopolize the more highly skilled, better paid and more desirable jobs. Such divisions and stratification occur even in nationally homogeneous working classes, but it is certain that they are enormously exacerbated when they coincide with divisions of language, color, religion or nationality. (Hobsbawm, 1984:54)

Immigration rates are used to assess the viability of split labor market strategems (Bonacich, 1972). While other studies have used the ethnic composition of populations, this factor does not necessarily translate into labor movement fragmentation (Stephens, 1986). Changes in immigration rates may more accurately detect the entry of new groups whose presence stratifies labor segments. High rates of immigration should exacerbate internal cleavages. Immigration also hampers collective action because of the lack of commitment most new immigrants have for longterm goals (Korpi and Shalev, 1979: 169; 1980:306).

Immigration is a response to, among other things, an excess of labor in a sending society and a shortage of labor in a receiving one. Such shortages are perhaps most (or at least perceived to be most) acute when relative labor productivity is high. In the absence of barriers to the migration of labor and capital, people will emigrate from areas in which labor productivity is lower and migrate to areas where labor productivity is higher, at least over the long run. Large-scale migrations allow migrants to sustain separate identities from indigenous workers, creating tensions between indigenous and migrant workers, fostering fragmentation.⁶ Immigration reduces solidarism in receiving societies, while aiding solidarism in the sending ones. High rates of immigration undermine solidarism, not least due to the efforts of indigenous labor to exploit antiimmigrant prejudices (Bonacich, 1972). Immigration may also hamper collective action due to the lack of commitment many new immigrants have for long-term goals, maintaining a sojourner's perspective (Korpi and Shalev, 1979:169; 1980:306).

High immigration rates also indicate (at least relative) labor shortages in the receiving society. At times, however, immigration occurs in spite of high unemployment, because immigrants will take jobs or work for wages deemed undesirable by and/or unsuitable for indigenous workers. Generally, then, labor's cohesion is typically weakened by immigration and strengthened by emigration.

International migration is not the only type of immigration that fragments labor. Regional or intranational migration may have the same consequences. However, problems of comparability and limitations in historical data make this impediment to unity difficult to assess. Moreover, one possible method of defining a nationstate is the area over which labor can freely move, or at minimum, where its movement is not significantly restricted by state action.⁷ Migration is rarely costfree; migrants consume both material and nonmaterial resources, while critical information about the location of opportunities is often difficult to acquire (Wright, 1986). While the costs of migration are often undervalued, such impediments are rarely decisive over long periods of time in spite of the considerable shortterm obstacles they create.

2. The timing and tempo of industrialization: Early industrialization undermines broad-ranging solidarism (Luebbert, 1987; Lorwin, 1958). In early industrialization the uniformity characteristic of later industrialization is usually absent, strengthening the position of craft trades. It is true that craft trades often practice forms of industrial solidarity during early periods of industrialization, especially within industrial districts (or impacted labor markets), but such broad-ranging patterns of industrial solidarity are often replaced by craft sectoral solidarity—solidarity within craft trades rather than between them (Ansell, 1993).⁸

Whereas gradual industrialization help...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• CHAPTER 1: Modes of Class Formation
• CHAPTER 2: Pathways to Capitalist Democracy: What Prevents Social Democracy?
• CHAPTER 3: The Formation of Class Fractions
• CHAPTER 4: The Logic of Particularism: Creating Solidarism among Skilled Workers
• CHAPTER 5: The Political Contours of Class Conflict in the Gilded Age
• CHAPTER 6: The Limits of Particularism: Labor Solidarism and Social Welfare in the United States
• CHAPTER 7: Homogeneous Labor and Class Formation
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• Bibliography
• Index