A Dissenting Opinion on …: “Trade Union Conflict and Agreement with American Ideology”

For a succinct statement, see the address by W. Willard Wirtz before the National Academy of Arbitrators (Chicago: USDL News Release 5604, February 1963). For a biting commentary on the role of the corporate conscience and the futility of regulating the behavior of private pressure groups by admonitions, see Lewis Ben W. , “Economics by Admonition,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, Vol. XLIX, No. 2 (May, 1959), 384–398.

Niebuhr Reinhold , “The Eisenhower Doctrine,” The New Leader, Vol. XL, No. 5 (February 4, 1957), 9.

Schlesinger Arthur Jr. , Introduction to Harry K. Girvetz's The Evolution of Liberalism (New York: Collier Books, 1963), p. 17.

Ibid., p. 23.

Schapiro J. Salwyn , Liberalism: Its Meaning and History (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1958), p. 38.

The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959), p. 300.

As quoted by Kluckhohn Clyde , Mirror for Man (New York: Whittlesey House, 1949), p. 181.

Ibid., p. 192.

Authority and the Individual (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949), p. 61.

History as a System and Other Essays Toward a Philosophy of History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1962), p. 217. In another work, Ortega y Gasset explains: “Liberalism—it is well to recall this today—is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak… . It is a discipline too difficult and complex to take firm root on earth. Share our existence with the enemy! Govern with the opposition! Is not such a form of tenderness beginning to seem incomprehensible? … In almost all [countries], a homogeneous mass weighs on public authority and crushes down, annihilates every opposing group. The mass … does not wish to share life with those who are not of it” (The Revolt of the Masses [New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1930], pp. 83–84).

As quoted by Benedict Ruth , Patterns of Culture (New York: Mentor Books, 1934), p. 213. In The Division of Labor in Society, Emile Durkeim stresses that “Individuals are much more a product of common life than determinants of it” ([New York: Macmillan Co., 1933], p. 338). Writing of the personal significance of the individual in our society, C. G. Jung concedes that it is difficult to deny that the individual is really an “interchangeable unit of infinitesimal importance.” He explains: “Looked at rationally and from outside, that is exactly what he is, and from this point of view it seems positively absurd to go on talking about the value or meaning of the individual. Indeed, one can hardly imagine how one ever came to endow individual human life with so much dignity when the truth to the contrary is as plain as the palm of your hand” (The Undiscovered Self [New York: Mentor Books, 1961], p. 24).

In 1913 an alarmed Woodrow Wilson declared: “If monopoly persists, monopoly will always sit at the helm of the government. I do not expect to see monopoly restrain itself. If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it” (The New Freedom [New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1913], p. 286). President Roosevelt, in his message to Congress requesting the establishment of the T.N.E.C., observed: “… the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself… . Big business collectivism in industry compels an ultimate collectivism in government” (Message from the President of the United States, [transmitting recommendations relative to strengthening and enforcement of antitrust laws], S. Doc. 173, 75th Cong. 3d sess., 1938, pp. 1; 6).

As described by Latham Earl , The Group Basis of Politics, A Study of Basing Point Legislation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1952), p. 49.

Both views are discussed in Russell Bertrand , A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945), chap. X.

For discussion of the crisis or disaster theories, see Dunlop John T. , “The Development of Labor Organization,” in Insights Into Labor Issues, Lester Richard A. Shister Joseph , eds. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1948) and Bernstein Irving , “The Growth of American Unions,” American Economic Review, Vol. XLIV, No. 3 (June, 1954). For critical analysis, see Rezler Julius , Union Growth Reconsidered: A Critical Analysis of Recent Growth Theories (New York: Kossuth Foundation, 1961).

Galbraith John K. , Economics and the Art of Controversy (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1955).

Douglas Ann , Industrial Peacemaking (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962); see also Blum Albert A. , “Collective Bargaining: Ritual or Reality?” Harvard Business Review, November-December, 1961, pp. 63–69.

This is not to deny that the demands of organized labor narrow managerial prerogatives. But union efforts to increase wages and improve working conditions are the major “ends” of the union movement's conscious ideology; it is certainly not a device intended to achieve the purpose of reducing property rights. Indeed, a convincing case can be built for the proposition that it is the conservatism of organized labor, not its ideologic radicalism, that is proving disruptive to capitalism. Charles Lindblom, a proponent of this thesis, has concluded that American unionism is as revolutionary in consequence as it is conservative in intention. He observes: “Paradoxically, the wage earner in the United States is far from being a radical. He has not identified the competitive price system as the source of his difficulties because he carries no such abstraction in his mind” (Unions and Capitalism [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949], p. 13).

Simons Henry C. , Economic Policy for a Free Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), particularly chapter 2. Simons explains, “The representation of laissez faire as a merely do-nothing policy is unfortunate and misleading. It is an obvious responsibility of the state under this policy to maintain the kind of legal and institutional framework within which competition can function effectively as an agency of control” (p. 42).

In other words, the “objective reality” of poverty may not necessarily establish a class consciousness. Similarly, the common experience of prosperity may not destroy the sources of conflict within society. As Ralf Dahrendorf has argued, “Even if every worker owns a car, a house, and whatever comforts of civilization there are, the roots of industrial class conflict are not only not eliminated, but hardly touched” (Class and Conflict in Industrial Society [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1959], p. 254).

Chinoy E. , Automobile Workers and the American Dream (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1955).

Keynes J. M. , The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1920), p. 20.

Berle Adolf A. Jr. , The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1954), p. 39.

Bendix Reinhard , Work and Authority in Industry (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1956), p. 1.

Dahrendorf , op. cit., p. 251.

Ibid., p. 247. He adds: “If a person occupies a position of domination in an enterprise, it is irrelevant in principle whether his authority is based on property, election by a board of directors, or appointment by a government agency” (p. 254).

Lynd Robert S. , “Power in American Society as Resource and Problem,” in Problems of Power in American Democracy, Kornhauser Arthur , ed. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1957), p. 35. Robert Michels makes the same point: “The dangers of organization cannot be eliminated by simply suppressing the organization, any more than we can prevent intoxication of the blood or disease of the circulation by withdrawing the blood from the vessels” (Political Parties, trans. by Edin Paul Cedar [London: Jarrold and Sons, 1915], p. 362).