Trade unions can be co-opted to contain working-class opposition

Evidence

The trade unions, which arise as a defensive set of institutions in the working class, can nevertheless be used to provide a structure which perpetuates the corporateness of that class, confining its opposition within limits which the system can contain (e.g., “economism”). However, for Gramsci, this does not represent the total disappearance of a subordinate class into the culture of a hegemonic bloc, but the achieved complementarity between hegemonic and subordinate classes and their cultures. This complementarity—Gramsci calls it an unstable equilibrium—is the one moment of the class struggle which never disappears — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 905 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Indeed the size of this army of workmen was perhaps the best security that the unions would pursue a prudent policy. In a highly civilized country there are not a million or a million and a half revolutionaries; and of the British unions, about the year 1895, the most conservative and cautious were precisely those whose membership included the largest proportion of the men employed in the trade. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1213 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

Related

• Defensive workers’ institutions can be co-opted to enforce subordination. (similarity 0.84)
• Larger British unions were the most conservative, tempering militancy (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Subordinate class institutions can be absorbed to contain rather than end opposition. #corroborates (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 905
• Labour’s statist strategy forced it to police its own working-class base #corroborates (0.60)
• Large union membership made British unions prudent and conservative #exemplifies (0.35) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1213