Yeah. The question is, why doesn’t the labor movement either create its own labor party, or why doesn’t a labor or socialist party come to the unions in the way you had in Europe? There are a number of factors that go into this, and it’s a matter of judgment which ones you prioritize.
In my opinion, one of the most convincing points the scholarship makes on the fundamental contrast between how and when labor parties rose in Europe and the United States is the fact that, in the very early nineteenth century, the United States was unusual in that it got very close to full enfranchisement for white men across the class divide.
This is what’s called early democratization in the United States. Women still don’t have the right to vote, and of course the enslaved black people in the South had no question of any right to vote. But it’s quite significant that in the North, white men got the right to vote. And even in the South, if you’re a property-owning white man, you’ll have the right to vote. In Europe, this is just not on the agenda. They don’t get full enfranchisement for a hundred years after that. Now, why should that matter?
Between 1890 to 1910 is when this partnership between labor unions and socialist parties blossoms in Europe. And it’s when Europe diverges from the United States.
The reason that matters is that, in the United States, because white men have the right to vote, political parties, which are all elite-dominated, need their votes. And so parties incorporate and co-opt these working-class white men into political networks, even before the trade unions are ever formed. So, in order to advance their economic interests, much of the white working class now has a political outlet without relying on unions.
In Europe, that’s simply out of the question. There, when the working class really started to develop in large numbers — after 1850 — it found itself completely shut out of the electoral system. It had no voting…
Auteur: Vivek Chibber
