The Great Exception

In his new book, Jefferson Cowie offers the view that the period of reform ushered in by the Great Depression stands as an exceptional moment in American history, a moment when the crisis of mass unemployment and a collapse of industry and agriculture resulted in a departure from the conventional contours of American politics. For this brief time, argues Cowie, Americans opted for a set of reforms premised on collective economic rights. This moment had reverberating consequences, enabling several decades of income and wealth compression, with the newly empowered labor movement leading the way. But soon enough, Cowie tells us, the United States reverted back to its norm, embracing a political culture of individualism that privileges the elite over the working classes and obviates the very notion of class. Cowie has written this book, he reports, to explain why would-be reformers might do well to acknowledge the reality of the essential limits of American politics. “There is more hope to be found in historical clarity, after all, than there is in chasing ghosts,” he concludes (p. 229

Elite · Great Depression · Individualism · New Deal · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Politics of the United States · Sociology · Law · Political Economy and Marxism

• Sustaining Labor Politics in Hard Times

  Nicole R Williams•Labor Studies in Working-Class…•2021

  Add to list