Class and Power in the New Deal: Corporate Moderates, Southern Democrats, and the Liberal-Labor Coalition (Studies in Social Inequality)

Class and Power in the New Deal provides a new perspective on the origins and implementation of the three most important policies that emerged during the New Deal—the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act. It reveals how Northern corporate moderates, representing some of the largest fortunes and biggest companies of that era, proposed all three major initiatives and explores why there were no viable alternatives put forward by the opposition. More generally, this book analyzes the seeming paradox of policy support and political opposition. The authors seek to demonstrate the superiority of class dominance theory over other perspectives—historical institutionalism, Marxism, and protest-disruption theory—in explaining the origins and development of these three policy initiatives. Domhoff and Webber draw on extensive new archival research to develop a fresh interpretation of this seminal period of American government and social policy development. Domhoff (sociology, U. of California at Santa Cruz) and Webber (sociology, U. of San Francisco) seek to explain the New Deal origins and implementation of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act through their theory of class dominance in the United States (rooted in the work of sociologists C. Wright Mills and Michael Mann) as critically compared to three rival theories: historical institutionalism, Marxism, and protest-disruption theory. In essence, they argue that Northern corporate moderates proposed all three major policies (sometimes in response to pressures from organized labor and other leftist activists), that corporate ultraconservatives opposed the policies to little effect because they were not well-represented in Congress, and that the Southern Democrats were able to shape the proposals to fit the needs of plantation capitalists and other large agricultural interests throughout the country This book provides a new perspective on the origins of the three most important New Deal policies-the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the National Labor Relations Act, and the Social Security Act-while examining the strengths and weaknesses of historical institutionalism, Marxism, protest-disruption theory, and non-Marxian class-dominance theory. The Power Actors -- The Agricultural Adjustment Act -- The National Labor Relations Act -- The Social Security Act -- Aftermath And Implementation -- The Shortcomings Of Alternative Theories Of The New Deal. G. William Domhoff And Michael J. Webber. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 253-273) And Index.