Union decline combined real suppression with passive consumer substitutes

Evidence

The qualifications entered above suggest a materialist variation on Putnam’s story, focused squarely on the core institutions of the mass-political era, parties and trade unions. To be sure, the latter’s decline involved both push and pull factors. In Anglo-Saxon countries, in particular, antilabor legislation and employers’ concerted strategies of union busting contributed to undermining the labor movement. Across much of Europe, too, laws impeded the establishment of works councils and worker representation on corporate boards, the practice known as “codetermination.” Faced with globalization and deindustrialization, unions found themselves increasingly on the defensive. Meanwhile, passive alternatives to union or party power—cheap credit, self-help gospels, cryptocurrency, online forums—steadily multiplied. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 105

Categorization

• XREF: Shows what ‘Putnam from the Left’ means methodologically: where Putnam blamed television and culture, Jager adds employer union-busting and passive alternatives — appropriating the opponent’s data while changing the causal story.