A progressive’s thesis urged suppressing government workers who unionize

Evidence

What was of more concern to “the writer,” in fact, was that the lower-class workers might not understand this and might continue agitating—might, in fact, even form unions! Hopefully, a sense of loyalty would stop the workers short of such an act of open rebellion, but if this should not be the case, Moses said, “in the last analysis,” there must be “the remorseless exercise of the executive power of suppression and dismissal to solve this question.” — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 243

Categorization

• QUESTION: This is remarkably anti-labor for a self-styled reformer — worth watching how this colors later treatment of city workers and unions in the book.
• XREF: Foreshadows the treatment of workers and unions that recurs across Caro’s portrait of power. — connects to: A progressive bourgeois law was repurposed to suppress workers’ associations — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1948; Early neoliberals proposed abolishing core labor law to curb union power. — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 975

Broader Connections

• A progressive bourgeois law was repurposed to suppress workers’ associations #expands (0.90) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1948
• Early neoliberals proposed abolishing core labor law to curb union power. #corroborates (0.80) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 975