Well, I appreciate the post, Frank, but I'm not at all certain just where to grab a piece of it for conversation.
Let me simply go back to my point. There is a view of the late 19th century and early 20th century British and US history that emphasizes either a dynamics within capitalism that improves the lot of workers or a kind of "natural" evolution. Perhaps you favor that latter. The name I associate with it is the grand old man of British sociology, T. H. Marshall.
I think both views are wrong. Rather, if we were to dig around in this issue for a while, and I'm definitely not suggesting we do for fear of boring everyone else on the thread, if we were to dig around in that history, we would run across a violent history of union clashes with companies, states, and, in some cases, the federal governments. Two of the outcomes of those struggles were an expanded franchise and union organizing rights. They were not products of benevolent business practices or benevolent governments.
I think Marx missed that possibility. But I don't think it was possible for him to see it given the structural power configurations of mid 19th century England.
For my money, those changes were the changes that made the difference. |
