10 - Labor Market Power in the American Political Economy

Summary

The importance of labor market dynamics to the study of American political development has never been in question. The labor market is, at one and the same time, a point of distribution of economic production, an arena for political interest articulation, and – perhaps most interesting – an allocation of private political power. Of course, there are other markets with these properties (in particular housing and credit), but labor income still predominates the budgets of most of the population, time at work dominates the activity of most working-age adults, and political emotions such as status and dignity clearly owe a great deal to the distribution of power and autonomy at the gates of and inside the “hidden abode of production”