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Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics & Economy in the History of the U. S. Working Class
Prisoners of the American Dream is Mike Davis's brilliant exegesis of a persistent and major analytical problem for Marxist historians and political Why has the world's most industrially advanced nation never spawned a mass party of the working class? This series of essays surveys the history of the American bourgeois democratic revolution from its Jacksonian beginnings to the rise of the New Right and the re-election of Ronal Reagan, concluding with some bracing thoughts on the prospects for progressive politics in the United States.
400 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1986
126 people are currently reading
4014 people want to read
About the author
Mike Davis
232 books676 followersMike Davis was a social commentator, urban theorist, historian, and political activist. He was best known for his investigations of power and social class in his native Southern California. He was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Literary Award. He lived in San Diego.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
July 11, 2022
Deserves its reputation. Not necessarily dry writing (a lot of Perry Anderson-esque quirky and fun turns of phrase), but shockingly dense, so don't expect a ripping narrative read.
November 19, 2017
Absolutely brilliant book. Must-read analysis of the history and politics of socialist politics and class struggle and political economy in the US from the 1800s to the 1980s. The book is dense and packed with information; best way to read it is probably by taking it slowly and with consistent note-taking. Perhaps the best evidence for the book's analysis is the fact that it successfully predicts trends in political economy and politics that emerged in the '90s and '00s, and even arguably predicts the rise of Trump and a new brand of neo-fascist politics in 2016. Its worth noting however that this book is probably not for people new to these subjects and it will help a lot of readers have already an intermediate level of knowledge of US labor history.
January 11, 2021
A very engaging, provocative analysis on why America has never really had a mass labor party, unlike other Western democracies. It goes deep into labor history, economics, politics, industrial policy, military spending, the rise of a new-money rentier class in the sun belt, and so much more, to try to answer this question.
He wrote this at the apex of Reaganism, but it could have been written last week in terms of the insights he comes up with about the failure of labor's plan:subordinate itself to the Democratic party and thereby impact policy post Watergate.
I've often wondered why the Democratic party is so awful at politics and often has basically only offered a "Republican lite, but good on social issues" choice. The last few chapters ably show how this is terrible electoral calculus and has allowed Republicans to use debt financing to actually offer parts of the populace benefits, until the Democrats come in and "responsibly" balance the budget....just in time for the next Republican administration to come in and enact tax cuts.
A trap I'm so confident Biden and Co. won't fall into ;)
The book, lastly, lays out an analysis of how we could have gone down a different path instead of the uninspiring shite we've seen for decades. He sees potential in the old labor movement partnering with the most faithfully progressive bloc in the country, African Americans, to really start a full-employment politics that would lift so many out of misery. Will we ever get there? He doesn't seem confident (and judging from the 30 years after the book, you would have to say he's right not to be confident), but he also isn't hopeless.
And sometimes not being hopeless is all we have.....
He wrote this at the apex of Reaganism, but it could have been written last week in terms of the insights he comes up with about the failure of labor's plan:subordinate itself to the Democratic party and thereby impact policy post Watergate.
I've often wondered why the Democratic party is so awful at politics and often has basically only offered a "Republican lite, but good on social issues" choice. The last few chapters ably show how this is terrible electoral calculus and has allowed Republicans to use debt financing to actually offer parts of the populace benefits, until the Democrats come in and "responsibly" balance the budget....just in time for the next Republican administration to come in and enact tax cuts.
A trap I'm so confident Biden and Co. won't fall into ;)
The book, lastly, lays out an analysis of how we could have gone down a different path instead of the uninspiring shite we've seen for decades. He sees potential in the old labor movement partnering with the most faithfully progressive bloc in the country, African Americans, to really start a full-employment politics that would lift so many out of misery. Will we ever get there? He doesn't seem confident (and judging from the 30 years after the book, you would have to say he's right not to be confident), but he also isn't hopeless.
And sometimes not being hopeless is all we have.....
March 19, 2021
A remarkable book on the labour/capital relation in America throughout the fraught history of large-scale industrial capitalism (c. 1843-1979). Mike Davis combs through the tangled web of American labour history: from the early agitations of labour abolitionism, the formation of the Knights of Labour (and their astonishing Knight's "Courts"), the AFL's emergence during the labour disaffection from the Knights, and the contradictory CIO that was founded during the peak of the depression crisis.
He charts the triumphs, defeats, turning-points, and missed-opportunities of the American labour movement throughout this period. Time and time again, he consistently bemoans American Labour's fundamental failure to recognize that ultimately their power lay not in subordinating the unions to the Democratic apparatus and their anti-communist crusades in the hope for piecemeal reforms, but in continually mobilizing mass action with a more diverse coalition of woman, African Americans, and "new immigrants", at the point of production. He takes the story up to the election of Ronald Regan, and one senses the contempt in Davis' tone the further done the historical arc he goes. A book of immense importance and relevance.
I do, however, think this book is best supplemented by two other books: David Roediger's Wages of Whiteness and Philip Foner's Organized Labour and the Black Worker, 1619-1981. Both of these works explicitly integrate the question of racism and white supremacy, as well as White workers' tie to "whiteness", into the picture of American labour history much more forcefully than Davis. It's hard not to get the impression that Davis largely scants this integration - adopting instead for a more structural analysis - so as not to problematize or poke-holes in his overall narrative.
Still incredible ! Recommend it highly
He charts the triumphs, defeats, turning-points, and missed-opportunities of the American labour movement throughout this period. Time and time again, he consistently bemoans American Labour's fundamental failure to recognize that ultimately their power lay not in subordinating the unions to the Democratic apparatus and their anti-communist crusades in the hope for piecemeal reforms, but in continually mobilizing mass action with a more diverse coalition of woman, African Americans, and "new immigrants", at the point of production. He takes the story up to the election of Ronald Regan, and one senses the contempt in Davis' tone the further done the historical arc he goes. A book of immense importance and relevance.
I do, however, think this book is best supplemented by two other books: David Roediger's Wages of Whiteness and Philip Foner's Organized Labour and the Black Worker, 1619-1981. Both of these works explicitly integrate the question of racism and white supremacy, as well as White workers' tie to "whiteness", into the picture of American labour history much more forcefully than Davis. It's hard not to get the impression that Davis largely scants this integration - adopting instead for a more structural analysis - so as not to problematize or poke-holes in his overall narrative.
Still incredible ! Recommend it highly
January 9, 2016
Fascinating and important subject matter but full of inaccessible over-the-top academic language and obscure foreign loan-phrases to the extent that it almost seems as if you're expected to know French, Spanish and German as well as English (I found myself looking up another word every few minutes, and I have a pretty sizable vocabulary). I also wasn't particularly fond of a passage in which Davis says that AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education's "labor strategy" was "sex-changed" into a "corporate strategy", exploiting transphobia for unnecessary rhetorical flourish. Nevertheless, overall it's a good critical overview of American labor history and analysis of why America has repeatedly failed to form a strong leftist/socialist politics. Apart from its inaccessibility, this subject probably should be revisited in a new work as much of the "current" information in Prisoners of the American Dream is now dated, even if it does offer valuable insight into how American "left" politics got into the sorry shape it's in now.
August 24, 2022
*Makes a rather coherent case for why America didn't follow the template 19th century European Marxists thought it would, and also gives a very novel and well argued portrayal of the actual state of American politics in the mid 1980s.
The stuff on black struggle as the key issue of American society is as relevant now as it was when the book was written.
The stuff on black struggle as the key issue of American society is as relevant now as it was when the book was written.
Read
April 2, 2023Maybe his best
December 28, 2025
TLDR:
• Why the US remains the only advanced industrial nation without a mass labor or a real socialist party.
• Combines rigorous Marxist political economy with a granular, "history from below" perspective.
• Points to the internal fractures of race, religion, and the "sedative" effect of homeownership and consumerism.
• Predicted the Democratic Party's pivot toward neoliberalism and the abandonment of the working class decades in advance.
• Argues that the American working class is trapped by a dream of individual social mobility that prevents collective liberation.
Despite Davis writing Prisoners of the American Dream in the mid-1980s, it remains one of the most sobering books on the history of the US working class. Most historians look at American history and see a slow march of progress. However, Davis looks at it and sees a series of missed opportunities. He wants to know why the United States never developed a real socialist party. I think this book is not just a dry history, a list of facts. Instead, it is a post-mortem of a movement that died before it could truly live. It feels heavy and urgent especially now, with both parties claiming that they are "parties of the working class" while the economic condition worsens. He suggests that the "peculiarity" of the American working class isn't a fluke. It is a product of specific, brutal choices made by those in power.
Davis has a very specific style of academic writing that is engaging if you have context for the events he describes but can be challenging when you don't. I think that his Marxist materialist analysis is improved by his analysis of the "geometry" of power. For example, by focusing on how urban spaces and economic shifts dictate human behavior. His philosophy is one of "catastrophic realism." He does not sugarcoat the brutality of capitalism as he applies a sense of "history from below" but he keeps his eye on the big bankers and the politicians too. He notes that the US has a "remarkably violent" history of class struggle. This isn't just theory for him. It's a map of a battlefield.
Why the Labor Movement Failed
Just like "political Marxists" (such as Ellen Wood and Robert Brenner), Davis is after a specificity for a seemingly big question. By attempting to answer this question, the economic condition of labor in the US is "re-historicized" and "repoliticized". Thus the book discusses how the labor movement in the US was doomed by its own design. It was never a unified front. It was fractured by race and religion from the start. White workers often chose their racial identity over their class identity. Then there was the issue of the "New Deal" settlement. Davis argues that the unions traded their political soul for better wages and suburban homes. They became part of the system they were supposed to fight. By the time the economy shifted, the unions had no political teeth left. He writes that the US working class was "the only one in the Western world to suffer such a total political defeat." This depoliticization of the unions and their abandonment of anti-hierarchical causes (such as those of race and gender), led to what Davis describes as the "Prison of the American Dream".
Individuality vs Solidarity
The title of the book is very intentional. Davis believes the "American Dream" is a cage. It is a dream of individual success. And, by centering this individuality, this dream makes workers see themselves as "future capitalists" rather than a collective class. They are prisoners because they are tied to their mortgages and their credit. They are trapped by the hope that they can escape their class rather than change the world for everyone. It is a psychological trap as much as an economic one. He talks about how the "suburbanization" of the worker destroyed the old neighborhoods where solidarity was born. The dream of a white picket fence became a wall between neighbors.
A Prophetic Political Analysis
Davis was incredibly prescient about where we are today. His analysis of how the ruling classes use identity politics to divide the working classes feels eerily prescient. It used to be issues of race and gender that split the unions, and now it is transphobia and fear of immigrants. Furthermore, He saw the Democratic Party shifting toward the right long ago. He predicted they would abandon the working class to court the "affluent professionals" of the suburbs. This is exactly what we call neoliberalism now. He understood that without a true left-wing party, the political spectrum would just keep sliding toward corporate interests. He observed that the Democrats were becoming a "party of the middle class" in a way that left the poor completely stranded. Reading him today feels like reading a map of our current crisis written forty years ago.
Is there Any Hope?
Reading this work, I felt a bit hopeless as the author goes from crisis to missed opportunity describing how the poor get poorer and how the workers suffer again and again. It is hard to find a lot of traditional "hope" in Davis's work. He is a pessimist of the intellect. But he does see a path forward. He looks toward the "rainbow" of the marginalized. He believed that the only hope for a new American left was an alliance between the labor movement and the struggles of Black and Latino communities. He hoped for a "Third World" movement inside the First World. It was a hope built on solidarity across borders and races. He argues that the future of the American Left "depends upon its ability to become a movement of the multi-ethnic working class." This seems to be the true answer still today, where we have to go beyond identity politics and repoliticize the economic question. All of the working classes, the poor, the hungry, they are closeted socialists, anarchists in denial, awaiting a prison break from the American Dream.
This book is a difficult but necessary read. It forces you to look at the failures of the past without blinking. Davis does not offer easy answers. He offers a clear view of the obstacles. It is a book that stays with you. It makes you question the very foundation of the "American" identity. Even if it is a bit bleak, it is better to see the bars of the cage than to pretend they are not there. Davis reminds us that history is not a straight line. It is a struggle that we are still in the middle of.
Synergistic Links and Further Reading
• Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman: Davis focuses on the structural and economic reasons for failure, but Goldman focuses on the internal liberation of the individual. She provides the fiery spirit that Davis's structural analysis sometimes lacks. Where Davis sees the cage of the state, Goldman explains how to light the match.
• Bullshit Jobs: Davis explains why the labor movement stalled, and Graeber explains what happened to the work itself after that stall. If Davis is about the death of the old industrial worker, Graeber is about the hollow life of the modern office worker. Together, they explain why we are so tired and yet so unproductive in a social sense.
• People's History of the US by Howard Zinn: Zinn provides the broad narrative arc that complements Davis's specific economic focus. Where Davis is a surgeon of political economy, Zinn is the great storyteller of the oppressed. Zinn gives you the names and faces of the people Davis describes as "class forces."
• Why the US remains the only advanced industrial nation without a mass labor or a real socialist party.
• Combines rigorous Marxist political economy with a granular, "history from below" perspective.
• Points to the internal fractures of race, religion, and the "sedative" effect of homeownership and consumerism.
• Predicted the Democratic Party's pivot toward neoliberalism and the abandonment of the working class decades in advance.
• Argues that the American working class is trapped by a dream of individual social mobility that prevents collective liberation.
Despite Davis writing Prisoners of the American Dream in the mid-1980s, it remains one of the most sobering books on the history of the US working class. Most historians look at American history and see a slow march of progress. However, Davis looks at it and sees a series of missed opportunities. He wants to know why the United States never developed a real socialist party. I think this book is not just a dry history, a list of facts. Instead, it is a post-mortem of a movement that died before it could truly live. It feels heavy and urgent especially now, with both parties claiming that they are "parties of the working class" while the economic condition worsens. He suggests that the "peculiarity" of the American working class isn't a fluke. It is a product of specific, brutal choices made by those in power.
Davis has a very specific style of academic writing that is engaging if you have context for the events he describes but can be challenging when you don't. I think that his Marxist materialist analysis is improved by his analysis of the "geometry" of power. For example, by focusing on how urban spaces and economic shifts dictate human behavior. His philosophy is one of "catastrophic realism." He does not sugarcoat the brutality of capitalism as he applies a sense of "history from below" but he keeps his eye on the big bankers and the politicians too. He notes that the US has a "remarkably violent" history of class struggle. This isn't just theory for him. It's a map of a battlefield.
Why the Labor Movement Failed
Just like "political Marxists" (such as Ellen Wood and Robert Brenner), Davis is after a specificity for a seemingly big question. By attempting to answer this question, the economic condition of labor in the US is "re-historicized" and "repoliticized". Thus the book discusses how the labor movement in the US was doomed by its own design. It was never a unified front. It was fractured by race and religion from the start. White workers often chose their racial identity over their class identity. Then there was the issue of the "New Deal" settlement. Davis argues that the unions traded their political soul for better wages and suburban homes. They became part of the system they were supposed to fight. By the time the economy shifted, the unions had no political teeth left. He writes that the US working class was "the only one in the Western world to suffer such a total political defeat." This depoliticization of the unions and their abandonment of anti-hierarchical causes (such as those of race and gender), led to what Davis describes as the "Prison of the American Dream".
Individuality vs Solidarity
The title of the book is very intentional. Davis believes the "American Dream" is a cage. It is a dream of individual success. And, by centering this individuality, this dream makes workers see themselves as "future capitalists" rather than a collective class. They are prisoners because they are tied to their mortgages and their credit. They are trapped by the hope that they can escape their class rather than change the world for everyone. It is a psychological trap as much as an economic one. He talks about how the "suburbanization" of the worker destroyed the old neighborhoods where solidarity was born. The dream of a white picket fence became a wall between neighbors.
A Prophetic Political Analysis
Davis was incredibly prescient about where we are today. His analysis of how the ruling classes use identity politics to divide the working classes feels eerily prescient. It used to be issues of race and gender that split the unions, and now it is transphobia and fear of immigrants. Furthermore, He saw the Democratic Party shifting toward the right long ago. He predicted they would abandon the working class to court the "affluent professionals" of the suburbs. This is exactly what we call neoliberalism now. He understood that without a true left-wing party, the political spectrum would just keep sliding toward corporate interests. He observed that the Democrats were becoming a "party of the middle class" in a way that left the poor completely stranded. Reading him today feels like reading a map of our current crisis written forty years ago.
Is there Any Hope?
Reading this work, I felt a bit hopeless as the author goes from crisis to missed opportunity describing how the poor get poorer and how the workers suffer again and again. It is hard to find a lot of traditional "hope" in Davis's work. He is a pessimist of the intellect. But he does see a path forward. He looks toward the "rainbow" of the marginalized. He believed that the only hope for a new American left was an alliance between the labor movement and the struggles of Black and Latino communities. He hoped for a "Third World" movement inside the First World. It was a hope built on solidarity across borders and races. He argues that the future of the American Left "depends upon its ability to become a movement of the multi-ethnic working class." This seems to be the true answer still today, where we have to go beyond identity politics and repoliticize the economic question. All of the working classes, the poor, the hungry, they are closeted socialists, anarchists in denial, awaiting a prison break from the American Dream.
This book is a difficult but necessary read. It forces you to look at the failures of the past without blinking. Davis does not offer easy answers. He offers a clear view of the obstacles. It is a book that stays with you. It makes you question the very foundation of the "American" identity. Even if it is a bit bleak, it is better to see the bars of the cage than to pretend they are not there. Davis reminds us that history is not a straight line. It is a struggle that we are still in the middle of.
Synergistic Links and Further Reading
• Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman: Davis focuses on the structural and economic reasons for failure, but Goldman focuses on the internal liberation of the individual. She provides the fiery spirit that Davis's structural analysis sometimes lacks. Where Davis sees the cage of the state, Goldman explains how to light the match.
• Bullshit Jobs: Davis explains why the labor movement stalled, and Graeber explains what happened to the work itself after that stall. If Davis is about the death of the old industrial worker, Graeber is about the hollow life of the modern office worker. Together, they explain why we are so tired and yet so unproductive in a social sense.
• People's History of the US by Howard Zinn: Zinn provides the broad narrative arc that complements Davis's specific economic focus. Where Davis is a surgeon of political economy, Zinn is the great storyteller of the oppressed. Zinn gives you the names and faces of the people Davis describes as "class forces."
November 20, 2019
I will never look at American politics the same way again after reading this book. This is like the adult version of Zinn's people's history, with a Brumaire like grasp of how class blocs work. Also absolutely mortifying the political parallels between the Reagan-era and today. A little bit more emphasis on the 80s than I was expecting, but that's when the book was written after all.
September 28, 2020
A little too academic at times, hard to read and follow, with so much historic detail on the twists and turns of the labor unions. But overall amazing analysis of American history through 1984 using a neomarxist lens. Many of Davis's observations/predictions came true or are even more relevant in 2020.
June 9, 2020
fucking incredible 🤯🤯🤯
December 30, 2024
I feel like I’ve deprived myself of this one for way too long. Opened my mouth almost every page.
November 19, 2020
Interesting analysis of the history of class struggle in the US, including why there’s no independent labor/socialist party, the fractured nature of the US working class, labor’s fruitless relationship with the Democratic Party, and the rise of fall of the Fordist model of accumulation in the years after ww2.
Written in 1986, the second half provides a really thorough explanation for the rise of the New Right, the “Reagan revolution”, its model for “economic growth”, and the class forces that benefit from it (Wall Street, military industrial complex, and professional managerial class). The last chapter is an analysis of the 1984 democratic primary campaigns, and the freezing out of the Jesse Jackson campaign’s attempt to bring social democracy to America. Chillingly similar to 2020 and the crushing of the Sanders campaign, with Walter Mondale being just as feeble and accommodating to capital as Biden. The point is we’ve seen all this before.
The only reason I wouldn’t recommend this is Davis oftentimes writes in insanely impenetrable language that a lot of times I would just skip over, and a lot of the economic stuff on reagonomics, wage trends, or global trade deficits went right over my head.
Fuck the AFL-CIO forever
Written in 1986, the second half provides a really thorough explanation for the rise of the New Right, the “Reagan revolution”, its model for “economic growth”, and the class forces that benefit from it (Wall Street, military industrial complex, and professional managerial class). The last chapter is an analysis of the 1984 democratic primary campaigns, and the freezing out of the Jesse Jackson campaign’s attempt to bring social democracy to America. Chillingly similar to 2020 and the crushing of the Sanders campaign, with Walter Mondale being just as feeble and accommodating to capital as Biden. The point is we’ve seen all this before.
The only reason I wouldn’t recommend this is Davis oftentimes writes in insanely impenetrable language that a lot of times I would just skip over, and a lot of the economic stuff on reagonomics, wage trends, or global trade deficits went right over my head.
Fuck the AFL-CIO forever
November 27, 2022
Chapter seven is required reading for anyone in the Us, thank you
June 23, 2020
An excellent and prescient text on how the American working class' pitiful situation emerged. Tells a powerful story about how labor relations, racism, imperialism, and state power shaped the unique story of class power in America. Highly recommend. Mike Davis is one of the most brilliant political economists of his era.
July 26, 2017
Simply excellent analysis of the reasons for working people's support of right wing politics during the 1980s. Sobering analysis of the power of ideology.
August 28, 2022
Still really good
November 23, 2020
I will review it later. But this book is depressing as fuck
October 28, 2025
Prisoners of the American Dream is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the nitty gritty of why American democracy has thus far failed to produce a mass socialist or labor party. He outlines the ways in which the American working class is (was?) unique from the European working classes, including the ability of workers to “vote with their feet” and move further out on the frontier for new (not necessarily better) opportunities.
Most importantly, however, is Davis’s assertion (borrowed from Marx) that for a labor movement to transcend its narrow economic aims, it must fuse itself with a political movement to fight for civil rights (suffrage, abolition of slavery/apartheid, etc.) America’s liberal origins provided these rights to some sections of the working class while disenfranchising others. It was those sections of the working class who had civil rights that founded and would generally steer the direction of the American labor movement for most of its history. These were the nativist white skilled workers, who saw themselves in direct conflict with the mostly immigrant unskilled workers that found work in the new industrial economy. The conflict between workers and the abolitionist cause during the Civil War, between the AFL and IWW before World War I, between the AFL and the CIO during the Great Depression, and the failure of the labor movement to coalesce with the civil rights movement in the 60s or the Rainbow Coalition in the 80s represent a century’s worth of divisions within the labor movement (along an often racialized division between the “haves” and “have-nots”) that have precluded the emergence of any serious mass socialist or labor party.
In addition to exploring the missed opportunities of American labor to develop a political consciousness, Davis demonstrated how labor shot itself in the foot by entering a “barren marriage” with the Democratic Party and how the “New Right” took advantage of labor’s weakness to transition from a Fordist economy to an “overconsumption” economy. Fordism, centered around a robust manufacturing sector that rebuilt Europe and Japan after World War II while providing millions of solid blue collar jobs in the process (via collective bargaining), lost out to the New Right’s overconsumption regime, rooted in the new Sunbelt Capitalist bloc of the Republican Party and their focus on high-tech and defense industries that were born during WWII and sustained through America’s numerous Cold War-era proxy wars. Rooted in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Presidential campaign, the New Right would go on to become the most organized and powerful coalition in American politics, mobilizing suburban middle class voters around single-issue demands that further fragmented the working class (both in its libertarian economic demands and reactionary political demands). The Republican Party’s ascent to dominance as an organized political force representing the suburban middle class and Sunbelt capitalism only further reinforced the hyper financialization and erosion of good working class jobs through its policy when in power, which siphoned loads of wealth from the working poor to the upper middle class.
Davis’s ability to show these parallel histories, one of American labor’s shortsightedness and the other of the New Right’s transformation of the economy which weakened labor’s structural power, are fundamental to understanding why our democracy is so weak and incapable of representing the multiracial working class.
Most importantly, however, is Davis’s assertion (borrowed from Marx) that for a labor movement to transcend its narrow economic aims, it must fuse itself with a political movement to fight for civil rights (suffrage, abolition of slavery/apartheid, etc.) America’s liberal origins provided these rights to some sections of the working class while disenfranchising others. It was those sections of the working class who had civil rights that founded and would generally steer the direction of the American labor movement for most of its history. These were the nativist white skilled workers, who saw themselves in direct conflict with the mostly immigrant unskilled workers that found work in the new industrial economy. The conflict between workers and the abolitionist cause during the Civil War, between the AFL and IWW before World War I, between the AFL and the CIO during the Great Depression, and the failure of the labor movement to coalesce with the civil rights movement in the 60s or the Rainbow Coalition in the 80s represent a century’s worth of divisions within the labor movement (along an often racialized division between the “haves” and “have-nots”) that have precluded the emergence of any serious mass socialist or labor party.
In addition to exploring the missed opportunities of American labor to develop a political consciousness, Davis demonstrated how labor shot itself in the foot by entering a “barren marriage” with the Democratic Party and how the “New Right” took advantage of labor’s weakness to transition from a Fordist economy to an “overconsumption” economy. Fordism, centered around a robust manufacturing sector that rebuilt Europe and Japan after World War II while providing millions of solid blue collar jobs in the process (via collective bargaining), lost out to the New Right’s overconsumption regime, rooted in the new Sunbelt Capitalist bloc of the Republican Party and their focus on high-tech and defense industries that were born during WWII and sustained through America’s numerous Cold War-era proxy wars. Rooted in Barry Goldwater’s 1964 Presidential campaign, the New Right would go on to become the most organized and powerful coalition in American politics, mobilizing suburban middle class voters around single-issue demands that further fragmented the working class (both in its libertarian economic demands and reactionary political demands). The Republican Party’s ascent to dominance as an organized political force representing the suburban middle class and Sunbelt capitalism only further reinforced the hyper financialization and erosion of good working class jobs through its policy when in power, which siphoned loads of wealth from the working poor to the upper middle class.
Davis’s ability to show these parallel histories, one of American labor’s shortsightedness and the other of the New Right’s transformation of the economy which weakened labor’s structural power, are fundamental to understanding why our democracy is so weak and incapable of representing the multiracial working class.
January 9, 2023
I'm embarrassed to never have heard of Mike Davis until he passed a few months ago. I'm glad though that I'm now getting to know his work.
This was a very dense, difficult book to get through but the history and analysis are really impressive: comprehensive, prescient and nearly flawless. Especially noteworthy is Davis's analysis of and prediction for neoliberalism, afaik a pretty new term for the time he was writing in the mid-80s. He totally nails its trajectory both into the 90s and beyond, and his analysis of the 80s Democrats could be applied virtually unchanged to 21st century politics. It's amazing and depressing how applicable most of his analysis still is: 30 years later, Democrats are still treating leftists as they did Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition -- trying to appeal to the mythical "alienated conservative" voter while both neglecting and browbeating what should be their Black and Brown base.
Also of great value is his summary of the entire U.S. labor history through the 80s. His realist corrective is sorely needed in an area that routinely suffers from unduly romanticizing past labor struggles. In reality, Big Labor was coopted by corporations as long as a century ago, and they've suffered almost continuous erosion of labor rights since, with the lone victories coming at the hands at more decentralized and radical efforts. The entire history can easily be read as a stinging critique of democratic centralism, which is quite remarkable coming from an avowed Marxist. Indeed, he strongly criticizes the Communist Party USA for capitulating to liberal electoralism in the 30s and 40s.
Ultimately, while I think this book is extremely valuable, its dense academic style will make it difficult for most normies to get through. I wish it were more accessible so that I could more widely recommend it, but as it is I can only highly recommend it to academics, or those sufficiently passionate about labor history to be able to slog through the jargon-filled analysis.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
This was a very dense, difficult book to get through but the history and analysis are really impressive: comprehensive, prescient and nearly flawless. Especially noteworthy is Davis's analysis of and prediction for neoliberalism, afaik a pretty new term for the time he was writing in the mid-80s. He totally nails its trajectory both into the 90s and beyond, and his analysis of the 80s Democrats could be applied virtually unchanged to 21st century politics. It's amazing and depressing how applicable most of his analysis still is: 30 years later, Democrats are still treating leftists as they did Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition -- trying to appeal to the mythical "alienated conservative" voter while both neglecting and browbeating what should be their Black and Brown base.
Also of great value is his summary of the entire U.S. labor history through the 80s. His realist corrective is sorely needed in an area that routinely suffers from unduly romanticizing past labor struggles. In reality, Big Labor was coopted by corporations as long as a century ago, and they've suffered almost continuous erosion of labor rights since, with the lone victories coming at the hands at more decentralized and radical efforts. The entire history can easily be read as a stinging critique of democratic centralism, which is quite remarkable coming from an avowed Marxist. Indeed, he strongly criticizes the Communist Party USA for capitulating to liberal electoralism in the 30s and 40s.
Ultimately, while I think this book is extremely valuable, its dense academic style will make it difficult for most normies to get through. I wish it were more accessible so that I could more widely recommend it, but as it is I can only highly recommend it to academics, or those sufficiently passionate about labor history to be able to slog through the jargon-filled analysis.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek
July 15, 2022
magisterial history of the working class left in the US, probing the question of the absence of a US socialist party in the context of rapacious capitalist exploitation here and abroad, while brutally describing several of the other blunderous own-goals of various Lefts in the 20th century US. there were a few parts that got a little deep in the weeds / of the moment, for me, but just for a second consider how relevant these assessments of 1984 are to the politics of DSA in 2022 (pg 297, 298-99):
"The ascendancy of electoralism on the left, far from being an expression of new popular energies or mobilizations, was, on the contrary, a symptom of the decline of social movements of the 60s, accompanied by organic crisis of the trade union and community-service bureaucracies. Rather than being a strategy for unifying mass struggles and grassroots organization on a higher programmatic level, electoralism was either imagined as a substitute for quotidian mass organizing, or it was inflated as an all-powerful catalyst for movement renewal"
"With its explicit anti-imperialism, the Jackson campaign probably invited an impossible leap from DSA leaders like Harrington or Howe who have given life-long dedication to liberal zionist and anti-Communist causes. The absent of any debate about the election in DSA, except from a passionate group of Black members, leaves open the question of whether even the 'Debsian' grassroots of that organization are capable of challenging its traditional mortgage to Israel and the Cold War, or of realigning the organization toward mass political currents that do not have the endorsement of liberalism."
if you don't have the wherewithal for it, check out this podcast from 2020 https://thedigradio.com/podcast/mike-...
"The ascendancy of electoralism on the left, far from being an expression of new popular energies or mobilizations, was, on the contrary, a symptom of the decline of social movements of the 60s, accompanied by organic crisis of the trade union and community-service bureaucracies. Rather than being a strategy for unifying mass struggles and grassroots organization on a higher programmatic level, electoralism was either imagined as a substitute for quotidian mass organizing, or it was inflated as an all-powerful catalyst for movement renewal"
"With its explicit anti-imperialism, the Jackson campaign probably invited an impossible leap from DSA leaders like Harrington or Howe who have given life-long dedication to liberal zionist and anti-Communist causes. The absent of any debate about the election in DSA, except from a passionate group of Black members, leaves open the question of whether even the 'Debsian' grassroots of that organization are capable of challenging its traditional mortgage to Israel and the Cold War, or of realigning the organization toward mass political currents that do not have the endorsement of liberalism."
if you don't have the wherewithal for it, check out this podcast from 2020 https://thedigradio.com/podcast/mike-...
November 1, 2024
This outstanding study by the late comrade Mike Davis demonstrates why the American proletariat is as disorganized and devoid of class consciousness as it is and likewise explains the pitiful state of the US left. It is dense and packed with detail (be prepared for a barrage of left-wing organizations, politicians, unions, trade unionists, figures, dates, places, etc.) requiring careful reading and contemplation. I greatly appreciated the critique of the theory and practice of the moronic social-chauvinist Michael Harrington and his legacy, i.e., contemporary DSA Democratic Party tailism. Davis also tackles the political economy of the US leading into Reaganism.
It is really a brilliant work and very rewarding. I learned a ton and could not recommend it enough to my fellow DSA members, not only for the lessons previous class struggle in this country has to teach us, but for its historical condemnation of the dangerously stupid class-collaborationist, social-imperialist treachery against the international proletariat forwarded by "our" contemporary Harringtons.
"Ultimately, no doubt, the left in the United States will have to confront the fact that there is never likely going to be an 'American revolution' as classically imagined by DeLeon, Debs or Cannon. If socialism is to arrive one day in North America, it is much more probable that it will be a virtue of a combined, hemispheric process of revolt that overlaps boundaries and interlaces movements. The long-term future of the US left will depend on its ability to become more representative and self-organized among its own 'natural' mass constituencies, and more integrally a wing of new internationalism."
It is really a brilliant work and very rewarding. I learned a ton and could not recommend it enough to my fellow DSA members, not only for the lessons previous class struggle in this country has to teach us, but for its historical condemnation of the dangerously stupid class-collaborationist, social-imperialist treachery against the international proletariat forwarded by "our" contemporary Harringtons.
"Ultimately, no doubt, the left in the United States will have to confront the fact that there is never likely going to be an 'American revolution' as classically imagined by DeLeon, Debs or Cannon. If socialism is to arrive one day in North America, it is much more probable that it will be a virtue of a combined, hemispheric process of revolt that overlaps boundaries and interlaces movements. The long-term future of the US left will depend on its ability to become more representative and self-organized among its own 'natural' mass constituencies, and more integrally a wing of new internationalism."
June 8, 2020
Not many other books come to mind that are able to balance a broad, sweeping historical panoramic view of U.S. working class history with razor-sharp political analysis on the political moment it was written in.
“As Lenin pointed out three quarters of a century ago, with a perspicacity that has yet to be fully assimilated, ‘political’ consciousness comes from outside the immediate field of the economic class struggle - which is not to say that it is superimposed on the working class by intellectuals, but rather that it grows out of the overdetermination of the economic class struggle by other contradictions and forms of oppression.”
“As Lenin pointed out three quarters of a century ago, with a perspicacity that has yet to be fully assimilated, ‘political’ consciousness comes from outside the immediate field of the economic class struggle - which is not to say that it is superimposed on the working class by intellectuals, but rather that it grows out of the overdetermination of the economic class struggle by other contradictions and forms of oppression.”
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April 6, 2021Bunu okurken notlarını güzel tutmadığım için Californization of US politics, interest groups filan gibi bir iki jenerik şey kaldı aklımda. Tam şu bölümleri okudum bile diyemiyorum. Ertelemenin zararları.
August 17, 2020
A masterpiece
December 16, 2023
An absolute classic for a reason. Probably Davis' masterpiece and one if the best pieces of political and social historiography on the US out there. Must read.
December 31, 2022
The raw explanatory power of this book cannot be overstated. The sheer volume of economic and political points of data from throughout the last 100+ years of American history (up to the second Reagan administration) that gets synthesized so artfully in this book will leave you with some "I know kung fu..." moments straight out of The Matrix. Wish I had read this years ago. Recommended. RIP to a REAL one.
June 30, 2020
A history of the mid- and late-20th century American labor landscape, with lessons and insights that are extremely relevant for the left today. Davis takes a materialistic view of the changes in character and composition of both the labor movement and the democratic party, especially in the 80's. Davis's analysis helps us understand why there isn't a more politically active and united labor movement in the United States and still resonates today. The book itself straddles a line between a popular audience and an academic one, making it highly readable while extremely well-researched.
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December 24, 2022Absolutely excellent political economy, prescient and revelatory. Wonderfully describes the dynamics(hint: it's mostly racism) that prevented the unification of the US working class, and where it was in the 80s.
October 21, 2012
As opposed to historical critiques, this book was written and published in the moment the ‘New Right’ and Reagan were rolling out power in the American political-economy. Prisoners of the American Dream, traces the failures of the American working-class to create and sustain a revolutionary class-consciousness.
The book is divided into two parts: labor and American politics, and, the age of Reagan. Labour and American politics, explains the multi-ethnic and multi-racial peculiarities of the American working-class. This heterogeneity (supposedly) does not allow for the working-class to cohere. Antagonisms are articulated in racial, gendered, denominational, and political differences. These parochialisms indicate large swaths of the working-class have been barred from fair and equal participation in American democracy. Particularly precarious populations: African Americans, migrant workers, immigrants, and women to get their demands meet have been forced to work outside of the rank-and-file of organized labour. Organized labor has thus failed on two-fronts: the necessary and sustained linking of oppressions and meeting the radical demands of more oppressed groups, some of which are outside of its own orbit.
The labor movement’s failures allowed the ‘New Right’ to emerge and prosper. Barry Goldwater’s failed 1964 presidential campaign formula paved the wave for the arrival of the potent neo-populism. The campaign was based on two schemas: the ‘Southern strategy’ and the ‘hidden Republican majority’. The ‘Southern strategy‘ amassed support in the growth of white resistance to the Civil Rights movement. Goldwater received just over 38% of the overall vote, five of his six electoral victories came in the Deep South: Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Moreover, the ‘hidden Republican majority’, focused on winning over particular elements of the Democratic party. Focusing on individual, single-issue, local politics: ‘law and order interest groups‘ (National Rifle Association), ‘new Cold War‘ lobbies, political fundamentalism (Jerry Falwell’s moral majority), and the defense of white suburban family life (anti-busing movements, the ‘right to life’, and anti-gay rights campaigns). Despite popular imaginations of Reagan’s rise to power, support was garnered through social not economic issues. The ‘New Right‘ was born.
Davis’s structural analysis of a failed working-class consciousness culminates in the 1980s Democratic party waving the white flag to the tenets of neo-liberalism and the military-industrial complex. Does ‘revolution’ and consciousness have to come from within the Democratic party? Tisk. Tisk.
The book is divided into two parts: labor and American politics, and, the age of Reagan. Labour and American politics, explains the multi-ethnic and multi-racial peculiarities of the American working-class. This heterogeneity (supposedly) does not allow for the working-class to cohere. Antagonisms are articulated in racial, gendered, denominational, and political differences. These parochialisms indicate large swaths of the working-class have been barred from fair and equal participation in American democracy. Particularly precarious populations: African Americans, migrant workers, immigrants, and women to get their demands meet have been forced to work outside of the rank-and-file of organized labour. Organized labor has thus failed on two-fronts: the necessary and sustained linking of oppressions and meeting the radical demands of more oppressed groups, some of which are outside of its own orbit.
The labor movement’s failures allowed the ‘New Right’ to emerge and prosper. Barry Goldwater’s failed 1964 presidential campaign formula paved the wave for the arrival of the potent neo-populism. The campaign was based on two schemas: the ‘Southern strategy’ and the ‘hidden Republican majority’. The ‘Southern strategy‘ amassed support in the growth of white resistance to the Civil Rights movement. Goldwater received just over 38% of the overall vote, five of his six electoral victories came in the Deep South: Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Moreover, the ‘hidden Republican majority’, focused on winning over particular elements of the Democratic party. Focusing on individual, single-issue, local politics: ‘law and order interest groups‘ (National Rifle Association), ‘new Cold War‘ lobbies, political fundamentalism (Jerry Falwell’s moral majority), and the defense of white suburban family life (anti-busing movements, the ‘right to life’, and anti-gay rights campaigns). Despite popular imaginations of Reagan’s rise to power, support was garnered through social not economic issues. The ‘New Right‘ was born.
Davis’s structural analysis of a failed working-class consciousness culminates in the 1980s Democratic party waving the white flag to the tenets of neo-liberalism and the military-industrial complex. Does ‘revolution’ and consciousness have to come from within the Democratic party? Tisk. Tisk.
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