Noam Chomsky - Turning the Tide U.S. intervention in

The Challenge Ahead
1.2 The Attack against Labor
Classics in Politics: Turning the Tide Noam Chomsky
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A counterpart to the campaign to stamp out heresy was a sharp attack
against labor. Edsall observes that
In advanced Western democracies both on this continent and in
Europe there is a direct and demonstrable correlation between
government commitment to domestic social spending and the
strength of the trade union movement. There exists in no Western
democracy any other major organization cutting across racial and
ethnic lines that can defend progressive distributional policies of
both taxation and spending . . . Without a strong labor movement,
there is no broad-based institution in American society equipped
to represent the interests of those in the working and lower-middle
classes in the formulation of economic policy.
In short, unions are unique within capitalist democracy in providing
some way for people of limited resources to enter meaningfully into the
political system, and therefore they too must be “rendered impotent” to
guard against the threat of democracy. The attack on labor involved a
variety of means, including illegal firings to undercut free union elections
(business “found the sanctions for fighting unions through illegal tactics
worth the price”) and other measures, with considerable assistance from
the labor bureaucracy. Reagan’s 1981-82 recession had a notable
impact in this regard. Like the revival of military escalation, the attack
on social legislation began in the latter part of the Carter presidency,
taking flight under Reagan along with the assault against the labor
movement. 11
Thomas Ferguson and Joel Rogers review the effects of the first four
years of these endeavors. Average first-year wage increases in major