Confronting American labor : the New Left dilemma / Jeffrey W. Coker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Coker, Jeffrey W.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Labor movement--United States--History.

Labor movement.

Socialism--United States--History.

Socialism.

New Left--United States--History.

New Left.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (227 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Columbia : University of Missouri Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Confronting American Labor traces the development of the American left, from the Depression era through the Cold War, by examining four representative intellectuals who grappled with the difficult question of labor's role in society. Since the time of Marx, leftists have raised over and over the question of how an intelligentsia might participate in a movement carried out by the working class. Their modus operandi was to champion those who suffered injustice at the hands of the powerful. From the late nineteenth through much of the twentieth century, this meant a focus on the industrial worker. The Great Depression was a time of remarkable consensus among leftist intellectuals, who often interpreted worker militancy as the harbinger of impending radical change. While most Americans waited out the crisis, listening to the assurances of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Marxian left was convinced that the crisis was systemic. Intellectuals who came of age during the Depression developed the view that the labor movement in America was to be the organizing base for a proletariat. Moreover, many came from working-class backgrounds that contributed to their support of labor.

Contents:

Labor and the search for American socialism

The exceptionalism of American labor

The intellectual's role in the workers' movement

Abandonment of the "labor metaphysic"

The promise of insurgent labor

New lefts, new insurgents

The new labor history and the revival of the proletariat

The historian's search for power.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 189-201) and index.

ISBN:

0-8262-6357-7

OCLC:

54761081