False Promises: The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness

by Stanley Aronowitz

This classic study of the American working class, originally published in 1973, is now back in print with a new introduction and epilogue by the author. An innovative blend of first-person experience and original scholarship, Aronowitz traces the historical development of the American working class from post-Civil War times and shows why radical movements have failed to overcome the forces that tend to divde groups of workers from one another. The rise of labor unions is analyzed, as well as their decline as a force for social change. Aronowitz's new introduction situates the book in the context of developments in current scholarship and the epilogue discusses the effects of recent economic and political changes in the American labor movement.

Genres: Labor, Sociology, Politics, American History, Class

520 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Stanley Aronowitz (1933–2021) was a professor of sociology, cultural studies, and urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center. He was also a veteran political activist and cultural critic, an advocate for organized labor and a member of the interim consultative committee of the International Organization for a Participatory Society.

In 2012, Aronowitz was awarded the Center for Study of Working Class Life's Lifetime Achievement Award at Stony Brook University.

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

influenced me in the 1970s

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book raises some very interesting structural critiques of the trade union movement, but is also held back by its conjuncture, written during what appeared to be a period wherein US capitalism was continuously buoying working class wages and the immiseration of the workers was only in a relative, rather than absolute sense. This situation was, as we now know, a temporary result of the aim of the capitalist class to suppress class struggle with the wages of imperialism to counter the promise of the socialist camp, and once that threat was perceived as less dangerous, direct attacks on the working class rapidly accelerated in the 80s, leading to the desperate situation facing so many workers today. The book is also full of the anti-Communism typical of the New Left in the US which refuses to recognize any possibility that workers in Asia or Latin America could possibly have advanced the class struggle beyond that of 'the West", and therefore there are no lessons to be drawn from them.

Aronowitz's points about the way unions in the US have tended to reinforce separations between groups of workers by reifying heirarchies of job classification is very insightful. However, many changes from the way he sees that manifesting in specific sectors shows this, in my view, to be a contingent, rather than inherent, feature. For instance, he discussed the way that the rise of teachers and nurses unions disproportionately benefitted teacher and nurses rather than other staff with fewer credentials and enhanced their separation rather than bringing them together. This is no longer the case, especially with teachers. The last few decades have seen numerous teachers strikes focused primarily on issues related to quality of education for students, quality of work and learning environment, smaller class sizes, and better conditions and wages for the lowest paid support staff rather than the wages and benefits of the teachers themselves. The most common demand in nurses strikes is not wages for nurses but staffing ratios to ensure that patients can recieve the quality of care they need. So the argument that this sort of union inherently reinforces that sort of artisan ideology separated from the broader community has been proven false in the intervening years.

One of his core arguments is that it has been "proven" false that hard times provoke revolutionary consciousness, claiming that history has shown that real privation in fact makes people desparately conservative. Yet again he cites only the American experience of the depression. This is of course a rather unscientific assertion since it is based on the experience of only one country. We have counter examples of revolutionary movements growing from deep poverty in the poorest countries around the world at the time he was writing which would seem to rather clearly oppose this. His point that these conditions ALONE do not produce consciousness is of course true, it takes active organization. But his counter that the modern proletariat will be motivated not by material want but by alienation and disappointment proved to be the exact opposite of true. Generational discourse is nearly entirely useless because each individual is shaped by their conditions, there is no generation specific mindset. However, Gen X and the late Boomers in the 70s and 80s did not in fact spring forth revolutionary activity due to their frustrations with boredom, repetition, and other such facets of alienation, they had far LOWER levels of participation in class struggle than their parents or the current generations.

So there's a lot of issues here that have proven problematic over the years, and yet this is still a very thought provoking book. Aronowitz' examination of the way trade union bureaucracy reinforces the social division of labor within the workplace and thus the fragmentation of the working class very much rings true today. His recognition of the way that mass culture creates a huge hole where working class social life used to exist, including the decline of unions as social outlets, and thus leads to spontaneous attempts to create new social forms is also spot on. The understanding of the conserving role trade union bureaucracy plays within capitalism while not rejecting the form entirely is an important issue for organizers to wrestle with today. We must fight to rebuild the labor movement yes, but we must at the same time have an awareness of the problems that led to unionism's collapse in this country so that the new structures we build don't just end up reproducing the same problems.

I definitely don't endorse everything in this book, but it's provocative enough and insightful enough that I still recommend folks read it. While many of the conclusions have been superceded by history, the questions and contradictions raised are still very relevant today, and Aronowitz poses these issues in ways that we must acknowledge and struggle with.

[Ellen Behrens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually, I'm not quite finished.... Reading this a second time and needed some space before completing the book.

[Aidan · Rating 5 out of 5]

New favorite book!

[Leonardo]

Sobre la emergencia de la clase trabajadora industrial de los Estados Unidos como una fuerza poderosa a fines del siglo diecinueve y principios del veinte.

Imperio Pág.132

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book demonstrates that Aronowitz is a noted 'expert' on the subject of social class for good reason.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has had a profound influence on my life. I first read it in the 1970s but it really is timeless. It has recently been republished.