Trade Union Conflict and Agreement with American Ideology

John R. Commons and Associates, History of Labor in the United States (New York: Macmillan Co., 1918), I, Part II, 159–160.

Commons John R. , “Labor Movement,” in Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930), IV, 682.

See, for instance, Taft Phillip , “A Rereading of Selig Perlman's ‘A Theory of the Labor Movement,’” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, October 1950, or, Harbison Frederick H. , “Collective Bargaining and American Capitalism” in Industrial Conflict, Kornhauser Arthur Dubin Robert Ross Arthur M. , eds. (McGraw-Hill, 1954). In his textbook, Labor Economics and Labor Relations (2nd ed.; New York: Prentice-Hall, 1954), Lloyd G. Reynolds states that the trade union movement “is a movement without ideology,” which actually suggests that the ideology of unionism conforms so closely to the ideology of the society at large that it is difficult to detect any appreciable difference between the two.

Taft , op. cit., p. 75.

See, for instance, Hoxie Robert , Trade Unionism in the United States (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1923), p. 229. We must realize also that there is no constitutional guarantee of freedom of association.

Bell Daniel , “Industrial Conflict and Public Opinion,” in Industrial Conflict, op. cit., p. 247.

There may be some question as to whether or not the outlines of the philosophy of middle class democracy and the free enterprise system to be developed below are really valid descriptions of contemporary ideology. The contention here is that they are. As C. Wright Mills says: “As an economic fact, the old independent entrepreneur lives on a small island in a big new world; yet as an ideological figment and a political force he has persisted as if he inhabited an entire continent.” White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), p. 34. But in the discussion that follows, it should not be construed that the groups adhering to these values always employ them directly in their day-to-day lives. As Robert and Helen Lynd say, “Often quite the contrary is the case. But these are the values in the name of which it (Middletown) acts, the symbols which can be counted on to secure emotional response, the banners under which it marches,” Middletown in Transition (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1937), p. 403. The fact that in many cases the actions of groups belie their words is common when one enters the world of value systems and human behavior. But the words are a force to be reckoned with, nevertheless, especially in periods of crisis, and are surprisingly resistant to the changing objective realities of life. The Lynds report that the Great Depression appeared to reaffirm the values of Middletown. The experiences of our society since then cannot have diluted them much in twenty-seven years.

For the purposes of this discussion, white collar and clerical workers, farmers, professionals, entrepreneurs of all stripes and managerial groups are included in the middle class even though it is recognized that on many issues these groups can be expected to differ. These are the groups who adhere most closely to the ideology developed below. But it must also be recognized that all groups in society give obeisance to these values or elements of them to varying degrees.

Sec McCloskcy Robert G. , American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1951), p. 6.

A simple enumeration of the titles of some of the books by Horatio Alger, the “Aesop of the American Dream,” is suggestive of the degree to which these profound doctrines have been converted into folklore and have infiltrated the conscious and unconscious of the American scene. The below are illustrative: Do and Dare; or, a brave boy's fight for fortune; Helping Himself; or, Grant Thornton's ambition; Luck and Pluck; or, John Oakley's inheritance; or, Sink or Swim; or, Brave and Bold. Something like 200 million copies of Alger's books have been published.

Most of the following is based on Laski's Harold The Rise of Liberalism (New York: Harper Bros., 1936); Rossiter's Clinton Conservatism in America (New York: Knopf, 1955); MeCloskey's Robert C. American Conservatism in the Age of Enterprise; F. X. Sutton and others, The American Business Creed (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956); and Lynd Robert S. Lynd Helen Merrill , Middletown in Transition, especially chapter XII, “The Middletown Spirit.”

Thus, when a program calling for a modicum of income redistribution, such as public education, was advocated by a man like the English historian Macaulay, it was justified on the ground that such education could be mainly used to instill the proper respect for private property into the children of the lower classes. William Graham Sumner would not even defend public education, holding in his essay, “What the Social Classes Owe Each Other,” that all a workman really needed for advancement in the American continent overbrimming with opportunity were his two strong hands.

If the individual is the best and only judge of his economic interests, a strong suspicion is generated that he has to also be the best judge of his social and political interests. Earlier writers such as Adam Smith had a more benign view of the human being and relied on his intuitive moral sense and sympathy to guide him in these areas. However, a conservative orientation toward the human being wove itself into the classical liberal doctrine, men like John Adams expressing it in America, which suggested that men's natural proclivities were not to be fully trusted. Thus, the doctrine of natural or inalienable rights was denied by the arrived social groups. One's rights are seen to be granted by historico-social evolution and are conditional upon the fulfillment of duty.

See Beard Charles A. , An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1952).

Sumner William Graham , “What the Social Classes Owe Each Other,” p. 20. The essence of this essay is that, in general, the social classes owe each other nothing.

Ibid.

Hofstadter Richard , Social Darwinism in American Thought (rev. ed.; Boston: Beacon Press, 1955), p. 57.

See Young Stanley , “The Question of Managerial Prerogatives,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, January 1963, p. 244. Here a writer has dissected the employment relation as it could occur in a classical liberal system.

Ibid.

For an atavistic expression of such precepts, see the writing of Sylvester Petro. Here we read a man who is not a moral relativist.

The managerial groups, those who have “power without property,” have been much more successful than the union groups in invoking the above ideology or particular strands of it to preserve their private interests and give them increased bargaining power vis-à-vis the social groups challenging their power. They have also been more successful in gaining the support of other middle class groups, even to achieve ends inimical to the latter's direct economic interests.

C. Wright Mills notes that as long as political freedom is based on property and this property is widely distributed, economic security does not contradict the freedom of others in the system. Political freedom and economic security based on private property are united. But given aggregations of economic power, such is no longer the case. Such aggregations of power give one control over the economic security of others, their jobs, thus limiting their economic and political freedom. White Collar, p. 58.

Higgins Rev. George G. , “Union Attitudes Toward Economic and Social Roles of the State,” in Interpreting the Labor Movement (Industrial and Labor Relations Association), p. 151.