Why the Democrats Need Labor.

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  • Author(s): Meyerson, Harold
  • Source:
    Nation. 2/22/1986, Vol. 242 Issue 7, p193-210. 4p.
  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
    • Subject Terms:
    • Abstract:
      The new world economy may have destroyed many longstanding assumptions of social democratic politics, but social democratic parties are alive and electorally viable in a number of Western European nations. Alone among the industrialized democracies, however, the United States has experienced one particular shift in its balance of social forces. Over the past three decades, union membership is down by roughly half, from 35.5 percent of the nonagricultural work force in 1955 to just under 20 percent today. Deunionization has crippled American liberalism and the Democratic Party, both electorally and doctrinally.