A. Mostly local and state level, as opposed to national: why?
B. Role of the Supreme Court... business oriented, extreme individualism.
1. Rejected minimum wage laws, for example, based on the "right" of every individual to negotiate whatever terms s/he wanted.
2. Similarly with child labor laws. Here's what Wikipedia has to say: "The National Child Labor Committee , an organization dedicated to the abolition of all child labor, was formed in 1904. It managed to pass one law, which was struck down by the Supreme Court two years later for violating a child's right to contract his work. In 1924, Congress attempted to pass a constitutional amendment that would authorize a national child labor law. This measure was blocked, and the bill was eventually dropped."
3. Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890... well into the 20th century, applied by the courts primarily to the activities of labor unions despite intentions of the original lawmakers
C. The "new" immigration... 1890-1916... mostly Catholics and Jews from southern and eastern Europe... recruitment by big corporations... a great deal of anti-immigrant sentiment particularly during economic downturns and during World War I... theories of genetic inferiority... very restrictive immigration laws in 1921 and 1924
D. Social security provisions in the United States
1. No old age pensions, no minimum wage, no unemployment compensation
2. Poorhouses/poor farms... David Wagner -- The Poorhouse: America's Forgotten Institution ... Wagner shows that the poor themselves did a great deal to shape at least some of them and that poorhouses varied greatly, depending in part on the superintendent and the matron.. his basis: records from six New England poorhouses... no way to know how typical they were of the some 2300 poorhouses/poorfarms in the United States (Duluth's work farm now the Northeast Regional Correction Center)... were they worse than our current provisions for the homeless?
2. Orphanages/training schools: The State School for Dependent and Neglected Children, Owatonna (notice in history the borrowing from Michigan... very typical of social policy)
Theda Skocpol: Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: the Political Origins of Social Policy in the U.S.
A. England: political movement of the working class men as well as women, and broader forms of social security... working men got voting rights much later than in the U.S. and ironically this made early social policies in England more inclusive
B. U.S.: struggle for woman suffrage closely related to various kinds of protective legislation for women and children. The only real victory for men was worker's compensation legislation (which was promoted by the corporations as much as by the labor movement)... 40% of federal budget in the early 1900s went to pensions for civil war soldiers, as Democrats and Republicans competed to increase its funding.
A. Karl Marx: The Communist Manifesto, Capital
1. The government in capitalist society is simply the executive committee of big business
2. Capitalism is inherently expansive and eventually creates a world system. "The cheap price of its commodities is the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls."
3. Eventually pushes down wages in the more advanced economies and creates a surplus population
Steven Spitzer: social welfare system vs. prison system to control this surplus population
B. C. Wright Mills: The Power Elite
1. Basic Trend in American Society: More centralized power, less democracy
2. Power elite: dfn
3. Factors that unify the power elite
a.. Social origins
b. Schools and clubs
c. Career patterns
d. Sources of wealth
e. Belief system: "What's good for the private corporate economy is good for America."
Not a conspiracy!
4. Factors in the absence of democratic control
a. Role of the media: Politics as entertainment
b. Secrecy in the national interest
c. Two-party, winner-take-all political system
d. Lack of serious public debate
5. Is democracy possible? "the sociological imagination"
C. Theodore Lowi: The Politics of Disorder
1. In "normal" times, true enough that elites dominate the American power structure
2. In periods of crisis and disorder (when institutions fail), the citizenry becomes politicized and activated.
"It is a time for moralizing, a time when people translate their needs into rights. It is a time for clamor that may look like chaos but only from afar... All these characteristics of disorder make the period of institutional atrophy ripe for social movements."
4. In such a period, laws may be passed that are opposed by elites, that limit elites, and that democratize the society in fundamental ways.
"Juridical democracy," as opposed to "interest group democracy."
Good example of the politics of disorder: Video--"Labor's Turning Point"
5. When the society returns to "normalcy," elite power once again chips away at the democratizing forces that flourished during the crisis.
A. WPA... poor relief, work relief, the Civilian Conservation Corps... 1933-34... many of these programs eventually rejected by the Supreme Court
B. The National Labor Relations Act: 1935... again, a struggle in the Supreme Court, which upheld the the new law in 1937 (after Roosevelt's effort to increase the size of the court)
C. The Social Security Act, including Unemployment Compensation, Aid for Dependent Children, Old Age Insurance: 1937
D. The GI Bill after World War II... housing and educational policy... a great concern that the return of the millions and millions of men who fought in World War II not plunge the United States back into depression...
E. Federal programs of low income housing, beginning in the 1930s and really taking off after World War II. Worked through local housing authorities.
What made these things possible, in terms of politics and the relations of power?