Long Swings and Spatial Yardsticks: New Directions in American Labor History (2)

Abstract

In an earlier article in this Journal I described the attempts of lead ing American labor historians to establish a historcial critique of 'in dustrial pluralism', the dominant social scientific model of labor-capital relations in advanced capitalist societies for the last forty years. The foundations for their critique, I argued, were twofold: the pioneering work of Harry Braverman which analysed the transformations wrought by monopoly capitalism in the work process and in labor relations; and, at the same time, the increase in historical interest in the American working class stimulated by the new left's 'discovery' of the rank and file. On these bases, I concluded, American labor historians had begun to build 'an integrated explanation of the structure of economic, insti tutional and political power in capitalist society'.1 So far, the materials from which this integrated explanation is being constructed have been furnished predominantly by historians expert in the political and social history of American labor. Before it can become firmly established, however, such an explanation will also require contri butions addressing the American working class from the perspectives of economic history. Here, unfortunately, American labor historians have had less to contribute. Although their field was once dominated by the economic and institutional inquiries of scholars such as John R. Com mons and Selig Perlman, by the 1970s this orientation had been discarded in the move toward social history. One highly beneficial effect of this break with tradition was that it enabled American labor historians to