The Social Contract’s gap between rhetoric and discipline destroyed Labour’s credibility.

Evidence

The glaring discrepancies between the redistributive language of the Social Contract and its actual disciplinary character was the best index of how “the state” under corporatist management came to be experienced as “the enemy of the people.” This contradiction bit deeper and deeper into the Labour/trade union alliance until, with the revolt against incomes policies and in favor of “collective bargaining,” it undermined the credibility and raison d’ê tre of Mr. Callaghan’s government itself. The radical Right welcomed this trade union revolt against “state interference in free collective bargaining” much in the manner of the Prodigal Son. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1116

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Labour governments functioned as crisis managers who fragmented working-class resistance (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Participatory management rhetoric conceals a reorganization that strips subordinate power. #expands (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 800