On Tue, Sep 2, 2025 at 06:23 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: > > Unlike previous historical periods, growing mass discontent hasn’t been > collectively expressed through the formation and growth of trade unions > and socialist parties. *Two factors are paramount* (1) Since the extension > of the universal franchise, street protest has been regularly absorbed and > channeled into electoral politics, and (2) The transition from an > industrial economy, with workers concentrated at the point of production, > to a service economy where they are fragmented and dispersed has been > mainly responsible for thwarting the formation of trade unions and other > forms of working class organization.
*Nope.* (1) The franchise was already universal in the 1930s as a matter of law (the exception in fact being the race barrier in the South, particularly the rural South). That was the decade when industrial trade unions triumphed, so this "factor" of Gandall's is pretty shabby for explanation. (2) Teachers unionized in the latter half of the twentieth century. They were dispersed across many schools per school district. Call it half a factor. Today, opinion poll sentiment for unions is high ( see Gallup-Henwood chart ) while actual union density is extremely low. Two realities, whether Gandall-visible "factors" or not, are A) state-corporate anti-union machinery is more repressive than at any time since the 1920s, and B) the stagnation of capital accumulation makes the capital-labor contest over dividing the pie fiercer than when industrial growth was strong (see example of General Motors ( https://newworker.us/domestic/which-way-out-of-trump-hell-liberal-dem-soc-or-communist/ ) in the 1930s). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#38405): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/38405 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/115035945/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
