4 - Organizational resources and collective action

Summary

A challenger, to be effective, needs organization … to pry loose time, money and commitment … to focus prism-like these resources upon the arena of central state politics.

Shorter and Tilly (1974, p. 147)

Trades unions in England, as well as in every other manufacturing country, are a necessity for the working classes in their struggle against capital … If a whole trade of workmen form a powerful organization … then, and then only, have they a chance.

Karl Marx (Lapides, 1987, p. 105)

Trade unions … are the types of proletarian organization specific to the historical period dominated by capital. In a certain sense it can be argued that they are an integral part of capitalist society, and that they have a function which is inherent in the regime of private property.

Antonio Gramsci (1954, p. 36)

SHIFTING GEARS

The findings in Chapters 2 and 3 have shown that economic models go a long way toward explaining Italian strikes. Yet the findings have also revealed the limits of this type of model for the Italian case. In particular, economic models do not explain why the statistical relationships to economic factors should be stronger for strike frequency than for other strike components, nor can they identify the noneconomic determinants that lie behind strike size, duration, and volume. The economic literature has very little to say on these points (Skeels, 1971). The economic strike literature has even less to say about why, under unfavorable labor-market conditions, the Italian working class has been less militant than would seem warranted by economic factors alone (paradox of the génie d'un peuple).