Work, Capitalism, and Democracy - (American Business, Politics, and Society) by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Conflicts over work, capitalism, and democracy defined the early twenty-first century. This book shows that those battles are rooted in how the meaning and nature of work, capitalism, and democracy changed during and after the New Deal. These chapters do not tell the familiar, tidy story of a Democratic coalition coming together in the 1930s only to be felled by conservative movements in the 1970s. This book instead stresses that the prosperity that many white American families enjoyed did not stop the fights over whose work would be recognized, how corporations would be regulated, and whose democratic rights would be protected, both on and off the job. Cultural representations of the ideal worker, legal battles over workplace rights, political standoffs over inflation policies, dire warnings against too much regulation, and abuses of the tax code indicate there never really was a consensus on how democratic the country, its economic system, and its workplaces would be. Backlash also does not seem the right word to describe the challenges left-leaning politicians, environmental activists, and immigrants faced in the late-twentieth century, when managing supply chains became far more lucrative than manufacturing the goods being shipped around the world. As such, this book stresses that using the broad categories of work, capitalism, and democracy to reinterrogate the past is the only way to understand today's conflicts over the future of how Americans will work, how capitalism will function, and how the country will be governed"--Publisher's description.

Book Synopsis

A collection of essays exploring the meaning of work, capitalism, and democracy in the past to shed light on the same conflicts today

Changes to the meaning and nature of work, capitalism, and democracy during and after the New Deal have been contested from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. Rather than rehashing the familiar, tidy story of a Democratic coalition coming together in the 1930s only to be felled by conservative movements in the 1970s, this volume instead emphasizes that the prosperity many white American families enjoyed did not stop the fights over whose work would be recognized, how corporations would be regulated, and whose democratic rights would be protected, both on and off the job. Cultural representations of the ideal worker, legal battles over workplace rights, political standoffs over inflation policies, dire warnings against too much regulation, and abuses of the tax code indicate there never really was a consensus on how democratic the country, its economic system, and its workplaces would be.

As the collected essays suggest, backlash does not seem the right word to describe the challenges left-leaning politicians, environmental activists, and immigrants faced in the late twentieth century, when managing supply chains became far more lucrative than manufacturing the goods being shipped around the world. Using the broad categories of work, capitalism, and democracy to reinterrogate the past, contributors contend, is the only way to understand today's conflicts over the future of how Americans will work, how capitalism will function, and how the country will be governed.

Contributors: Carl J. Bon Tempo, Daniel Geary, Shane Hamilton, Meg Jacobs, Nelson Lichtenstein, Reuel Schiller, Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, Samir Sonti, Joseph J. Thorndike, Jean-Christian Vinel, Leandra Zarnow.

Review Quotes

"Work, Capitalism, and Democracy is a powerful, debate-redefining collection woven from the insights of a stellar group of scholars. By showing how developments that reshaped the workplace, markets, and the state impacted each other, Shermer and her contributors direct our attention beyond the successive rise and fall of the New Deal and neoliberal orders, illuminating continuities and long-range dynamics that are even now rapidly remaking our world. This is essential reading for anyone who seeks to comprehend the roots of democracy's deepening crisis."-- "Joseph A. McCartin, Georgetown University"

"Work, Capitalism, and Democracy is an impressive collection of essays about labor and political economy, centered on the period from the New Deal through the end of the twentieth century. The level of scholarship is consistently high, with many of the chapters making significant new contributions to our understanding of this period."-- "Joshua B. Freeman, City University of New York"

About the Author

Elizabeth Tandy Shermer is Associate Professor of History at Loyola University. She is author of Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics and co-editor of The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology, and Imagination, both available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.