The Long Shadow of the Working Class Movement

Abstract This paper explores how the years after World War II in Western Europe were an extreme case of working-class power. An initial theoretical discussion claims that while class can best be understood as a social category, at the same time politics in the broadest sense—and hence class-based movements—can shape social structure. This was the case in the in the post-World War II period when the working class dominated West European societies: especially perhaps in Britain, the “weight” of the working class shaped the nation. Trade union organization and state power ensured collective rights and were the basis for autonomous consumption; class identity was a source of pride. The end of this period saw trade union density continuing to increase. In the USA as well as in Western Europe, the power of management in the workplace was challenged. Especially in Western Europe, there was widespread radicalization of working-class youth. This was the last offensive of the working-class movement. However, power in the workplace remained essentially a veto-power. In the USA, oppositional politics became ethnic politics and even before de-industrialisation the white working class began to abandon its traditional politics. Nonetheless, in Western Europe the long shadow of the working-class movement ensured the partial survival of social rights long after the traditional social basis of the movement had withered away.