Matt Myers
Well, the dominant explanation of labor’s decline has been that a changing social structure and cultural references undermined working-class institutions behind their backs. However, I found that three different West European movements were aware of these processes as they were occurring. And many, including their leaderships and liberal adversaries, thought that those changes were having the opposite impact on the Left’s prospects. They actually thought that changes to the structure of the economy and popular world views were invigorating working-class politics.
So I don’t think that one can straightforwardly say that deindustrialization and cultural diversification led to the decline of the Left because in fact, these processes were already well underway in Europe. Why, then, does the Left expand its influence during the 1970s? Why then, does working-class politics seem to be renewing? Supporters of the declinist narrative might say this merely represents the death rattle of a group of actors in a defensive and ultimately doomed posture.
No one would suggest that the structural factors of technological change or cultural shifts hadn’t raised significant challenges. However, to see this as a death rattle is to foreclose the idea that the specific political response to these changes also had consequences. This is not to say the political decisions on their own are decisive, but, as part of reconciling political and social history, I want to recognize that the structural and the subjective play interrelated roles.
In terms of being more specific about subjective factors, I came to realize that these were partly linked to new kinds of workers becoming political actors. A new working-class generation, which had emerged from the margins of the old working class, kept appearing in all the material I was reading. An overly narrow…
Auteur: Matt Myers
