LaborHistory, Vol. 42, No. 4, 2001

The“ Unionof the Powerand the Intellect”: C.WrightMills and the Labor Movement

DAN GEARY*

In his “Letterto the New Left” of 1960, C.Wright Mills attackedthe “ labor metaphysic”that heldout “ ‘theworking class’of the advanced capitalist societiesas the historic agency.”1 Mills’letter marked thecompletion ofhis shift from Old Leftto New Leftthinking. At theheart ofthis shift wasthe question of agency, of what group the left identiŽed as its vehicle for social transformation. Old Leftintellectuals believed that allying with labor wasthe best strategy for rectifying theU.S.’ s persistentinjustices and inequalities. By 1950, however,many left intellectuals sawlabor ashopelessly embed- dedin thedominant political order andbegan toseek other movementswith the potential toenact their social critique. In 1960, asMills altogether dismissedthe political potential oforganized labor, heplaced his hopeson the New Left— a“ young intelligentsia”consisting of the emerging studentmovement and Third World revolu- tionaries. Mostof the New Leftists whom Mills addressedin his “Letter”were probably unawarethat Mills himself had oncebeen a Žrm believer in thelabor metaphysic. The image ofMills that theNew Left constructed remains dominanttoday: a motorcyle-rid- ing maverick whodissented from thecomplacent 1950s in his classicworks White Collar, ThePower Elite , and TheSociological Imagination .This captivating caricature of Mills has long overshadowedthe signiŽ cance of his involvement with thelabor move- mentin the1940s. For anumberof years, culminating in his publication of The New Men of Power in 1948, Mills washeavily engaged with labor’s causeand deeply drawn tolabor’ s promise.His later disillusionmentwith labor profoundlyshaped the nature of theradical social critique for which hebecame famous. As with many other leftistsof his era, Mills’connection with labor played an important role in his intellectual development. Scholars have only recentlybegun to explore labor’s inuence on intellectuals in the postwaryears. For example, Daniel Horowitzhas demonstratedthat Betty Friedan’s involvement with unionsas a labor journalist in the1940s andearly 1950s helpedshape her commitment tofeminism. The lack ofa vibrant labor-centeredsocial movementin thepostwar years limited thework that madeFriedan famous:without an analysis of theissues facing working-classwomen, TheFeminine Mystique (1963) had diminished relevancefor thosewho were not white, suburban, middle-class housewives. 2 However,

*Theauthor would liketo expresshis gratitudeto HowardBrick, David Hollinger,Andy Jewett,and JennieSutton fortheir comments on earlierdrafts of this article.Mr Gearywould especiallylike to thank NelsonLichtenstein for the invaluable assistanceand encouragementhe has given. 1“Letterto the NewLeft,” in IrvingLouis Horowitz, ed., Power,Politics, andPeople (New York: Ballantine Books, 1963),256. Originally published in New Left Review (Sept./Oct., 1960). 2Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedanand the Making of TheFeminine Mystique: The American Left,the Cold War,and Modern Feminism (Amherst, MA: Universityof Massachusetts Press, 1998).

ISSN0023-656Xprint/ ISSN1469-9702online/ 01/040327–19 Ó 2001Taylor & Francis Ltd onbehalfof The Tamiment Institute DOI: 10.1080/00236560120085110 328 D. Geary

FIG.C.Wright Mills.

thereremains little mentionof labor in themassive scholarship onthe New York intellectuals.Yet, many NewYork intellectuals wereintensely interested in theleftist potential ofthe labor movementin the1930s and1940s. The lack ofa vibrant labor movementin thepostwar period is aneglectedcause of their famousderadicalization. 3 While intellectual historians are only nowdiscovering theimportance ofthe labor movementfor shaping postwarsocial thought,labor historians have long recognized that thesecond half ofthe1940s wasa watershedfor labor andU.S. politics. The years following World War IIsawa reinvigoration ofthe labor movementfrom its wartime dormancy.Never beforeand never since has agreater percentageof U.S. workers

3EvenAlan Wald’s, The New YorkIntellectuals (Chapel Hill, NC: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1987),the most insightful and detailedaccount of the political trajectoryof the NewYork intellectuals, doesnot fully explorethe signiŽcant impact that labor’s postwar shift had on this groupof thinkers. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 329 belongedto unions. Throughout thewar, labor’ s rank andŽ le had demonstratedits militancy in aseriesof wildcat strikes.When the CIO putan end to its no-strikepledge after thewar’ s conclusion,many labor leaderswere quick toexploit that militancy. Indeed,the postwar strike waveof 1945– 1946 constitutedthe most massive work stoppage in U.S.history. In theimmediate postwarperiod, many labor leadersand their labor-liberal support- erswere drawn to social-democratic ideas.Though wartime government agencieslike theWar Labor Board (WLB)and the OfŽ ce of Price Administration (OPA) had renderedmany disappointing decisionsfor labor, their existencenevertheless raised expectationsfor signiŽcant labor inuence at thehighest national level through tripar- tite structuresfor economicplanning. Prominent Žgureswithin labor’s orbit pondered theprospect of a labor party, speculating that theCIO’ s Political ActionCommittee wouldeither transform theDemocratic Party intoa labor party or provide thenucleus for athird party. The CIO’s Operation Dixie organizing campaign in theSouth sought togain powerin aregion ofthecountry that had stymied labor’s national agenda and it heldout the promise ofcivil rights gains for black workers.Given the broad social-democratic agenda ofambitious unionleaders and the signs of militancy in the rank andŽ le,labor’ s progressive supportershad goodreason to hopethat unionswould play apivotal role in shaping thepostwar political order. 4 The ability oflabor toattract intellectuals toits causewas an indication ofits postwar potential asa social movement.While unionshave always employed theservices of a numberof staff intellectuals, other intellectuals have beendrawn to labor only whenit haspromised a widerpolitical transformation that couldutilize andadvance their social critique. It wasthis vision ofa “unionof thepower and the intellect” that attracted left intellectuals like Mills tolabor. In theimmediate postwaryears, Mills sharedhis enthusiasmfor thelabor movementwith anumberof different groups that hewas in contactwith: New York intellectuals suchas Irving Howeand Daniel Bell; the Inter-UnionInstitute for Labor andDemocracy, aconsortiumof labor ofŽcials and intellectuals headedby thelong-time labor journalist J.B.S.Hardman;the Trotskyists in Max Schachtman’s Workers’Party; andintellectually sophisticatedunion ofŽ cials suchas Nat Weinberg ofthe United Automobile Workers (UAW).While eachof these groups had adifferentpolitical agenda,they all believed in labor’s promise asa vanguard social movement. Butif Mills’case demonstrates the enthusiasm with whichmany left intellectuals viewedlabor in theimmediate postwaryears, it also reveals howtheir later disillusion- mentwith labor signiŽcantly shapedtheir depictionof the postwar U.S. Ultimately, labor’s bid for amore progressive social order in thepostwar period faltered on anti-communistpolitics, internal divisiveness,the entrenchment of thelabor leadership,

4Anumber ofexcellent studies have beenwritten about this period. Themost signiŽcant ones include: NelsonLichtenstein, “ From Corporatism to CollectiveBargaining,” in SteveFraser and GaryGerstle, eds., The Rise andFall ofthe New Deal Order (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1989), 122– 152; IraKatznelson, “ Was the GreatSociety a LostOpportunity?,” ibid.,185–211; Robert Zieger, The CIO: 1935–1955 (Chapel Hill, NC: Universityof North Carolina Press,1995), 212– 293; Kevin Boyle, The UAW andthe Heydayof American Liberalism (Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1995), 1– 82; David Brody, Workersin Industrial America (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1980), 173– 255; George Lipsitz, A Rainbow at Midnight (Urbana, IL:Universityof Illinois Press,1994); Howell John Harris, The Right to Manage: Industrial Relations Policies ofAmerican Business in the 1940s (Madison, WI: Universityof Wisconsin Press,1982); Barbara GrifŽth, The Crisisof American Labor:Operation Dixie andthe Defeat ofthe CIO (Philadelphia, PA: TempleUniversity Press, 1988). 330 D. Geary anda determinedbusiness counter-attack. Despite the promise that it raised for a dominantrole for labor in U.S.society,labor becamea pluralistic interestgroup, forced tooperate within themainstream ofCold War politics, insteadof the vanguard that left intellectuals had hopedfor. Labor’s postwartransformation from social movementto interest group brought aboutthe loss of Mills’ vision ofan alliance betweenintellectuals andlabor. In addition toMills, intellectuals suchas Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald,Irving Howe,and Harvey Swadosbecame disillusioned with thelabor movementin the1940s. Labor’s failure tomove in amore radical directionin thepostwar period had aprofoundeffect onleft-wing intellectuals whohad consideredlabor theonly forceable tocounteract the powerof corporations andthe state. With noidentiŽ able agent for social transform- ation,intellectual radicals ofthe 1950s pessimistically viewedthe U.S. asa consensus societythat had effectively suppressedopposition, and they tenuouslyheld on to the intellectual’s responsibility todissent from that societyas the left’ s last hope.

NewYork Intellectualsand the Idea ofa Labor Party In the1950s, Mills wouldremember his period asa labor intellectual in theseterms: “WhenI wroteNew Men of Power I wasbeing theWobbley [ sic],about 10 or 12 years later than most.”5 Indeed,unlike mostleft-wing intellectuals ofhis time, Mills had little connectionwith thelabor movementin the1930s. Manyof theNew York intellectuals, whoplayed apredominant role in theleft-wing thought ofthe 1930s and1940s grew upas members ofyouth socialist organizations whomatriculated toCity College,where they participated in sectarian debatesin theschool cafeteria. Mills, onthe other hand, wasborn in Texas in 1918. Rising tomaturity in theLone Star state,Mills wasfar removedfrom thecharged political environmentexperienced by other young intellectu- als ofthe 1930s. It wasnot until theearly 1940s, while completing his graduate workat theUniversity ofWisconsin, that Mills becamepoliticized andthe nature of the labor movement becamea salient issuefor him. 6 After taking apostat theUniversity ofMaryland in 1941, Mills came intocontact with anumberof NewYork’ s anti-Stalinist intellectuals, andbegan publishing reviewsand articles in political magazines suchas Partisan Review, New Leader, and New Republic .Following thelead ofthe New York radicals, Mills came torest his political hopesabove all onthe formation ofa labor party, believing that only abroadly basedlabor movementable toform its ownpolitical organization couldchallenge theincreasing powerof big businessin theU.S. state. In 1942, Mills publishedan article in the New Leader in which heattacked the increasing cozinessof corporations andthe Roosevelt administration, lamenting that “businessand ‘ government’are increasingly becoming one.”However, Mills failed to identify any meansfor counteringthis trend.Indeed, the historian cumlabor ofŽcial BroadusMitchell tookMills totask for this oversight, criticizing him for failing to considerthe possible role oflabor. 7 Apparently, Mills tookMitchell’ s suggestionto

5“For ‘Ought,’” Sept. 19,1953, Charles WrightMills Collection, Centerfor American History, Univ. ofTexas, Austin (henceforthreferred to as “UT”),Box4B 390. 6On the development ofMills’ interest in politics, seeRichard Gillam, “C.WrightMills: An Intellectual Biography, 1916–1948” (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Stanford University,1972), 76– 84, 127– 156. As Gillam points out, Mills’politicization was evidentin his dissertation, ASociological Account ofSome Aspects ofPragmatism ,completedin 1942.Gillam’ s dissertationremains without question the bestaccount of Mills forthe periodthat it covers. 7“Collectivism and the ‘Mixed-up’Economy,” in Power,Politics, andPeople ,185.Originally published in New Leader,Dec.19, 1942. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 331 heart, for in 1943 Mills wrotethat “The chiefsocial powerupon which a genuine democracycan rest today islabor.” 8 Justmonths later, Mills wasdefending the right of theUnited Mine Workers underJohn L. Lewisto strike in deŽance of the government’ s “Little Steel”formula, eventhough thestrike outraged many by threatening thewar effort.In defendingLewis, Mills criticized theCIO for maintaining its wartime no-strikepledge andfor tying its political program tooclosely tothe Democratic Party. Evenas Mills acceptedthe necessity of a labor party, hepredicted that “it won’t comeinto being at all in theforeseeable future.” 9 The war years didnot inspire hope in thosewho wanted to see unions push the country in aleftward direction,since the needfor organized labor tosubordinate its agenda towinning the war limited its ability toplay therole ofa vanguard social movement.Indeed, just when Mills acceptedthe needfor alabor party, many onthe anti-Stalinist left began towonder whether it was areal possibility. By theend of the war, two of Mills’closest friends among theNew York intellectuals, Daniel Bell andDwight MacDonald,were becoming skeptical aboutthe political directionof the labor movement.In “The Coming Tragedy ofAmerican Labor,”which appeared in theMarch, 1944 issueof politics,Bell argued that, in the“ nightmarish” postwarorder, labor wouldaccept a positionof “ juniorpartner” to U.S. business. Labor,Bell argued,would be forced to play adependentrole in themaking ofa postwarorder, as an unimaginative labor leadership tiedto the Democratic Party would beunable to “ drawthe conclusion of the political logic, whichmeans playing an independentrole andbeginning theformation ofa national labor Party.”10 Oneof the reasons that MacDonaldfounded politics in 1944 wasthat hesaw a new potential in labor. In oneof the magazine’ s Žrstissues, he conŽ dently predicted that “regardless ofwhat theCIO leadership thinksor doesnow, some kindof third party, mostly basedon labor, seemsin thecards in thenext two years.” 11 Buthope quickly turnedto disappointment. The former Trotskyist dismissedthe postwar strike waveas exciting only tothose “ Old Believers in theclass struggle doctrine.”12 In his seminal “The Rootis Man,”part ofthe politics “NewRoads” series, MacDonald concluded that the“ modernlabor union”was just another “bureaucratized mass-organization which simply extendsthe conventional patterns of societyinto the working classand has little signiŽcance as an expression of a speciŽc working-classconsciousness.” 13 There weremany, however,who disagreed with MacDonald.In thepages of politics, LewisCoser and Irving Howelambasted “The Rootis Man,”and maintained that it wasstill both necessaryand possible for labor toserve as the backbone of amovement for leftist social transformation. EvenDaniel Bell continuedto hold outsocial-demo- cratic hopesfor labor in thepostwar years. 14 During thewar, the left-wing intellectuals’ faith in thelabor movementhad seemedto be cracking underthe strain oflabor’s close

8“ThePolitical Gargoyles:Business as Power,”in Power,Politics, andPeople ,75.Originally published in New Republic ,April 12,1943. 9“TheCase for the Coal Miners,” New Republic ,May 24,1943, 697. 10“TheComing Tragedyof American Labor,” politics,April, 1944,37– 42. 11“TheMCF: ANewThird Party,” politics,April, 1944,66; Gregory D. Sumner, Dwight MacDonald and the politics Circle (Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press, 1996), 14. 12“Rebellion?—or Reconversion?,” politics,March,1946, 78. 13“TheRoot is Man,” politics,March,1946, 107. 14HowardBrick, Daniel Bell andthe Decline ofIntellectual Radicalism (Madison, WI:Universityof WisconsinPress, 1986), 165– 171. 332 D. Geary relationship tothe state, and the question of labor’ s potential woulddivide leftist intellectuals after thewar. With thecoming ofpostwar militancy, however,hopes in labor wouldrise again, andthis time Mills wouldbe an active participant.

Labor andNation: The Labor Leader andthe Research Intellectual Afterthe conclusion of the war, there were many signsthat labor wason the move again. The endof the wartime no-strikepledge allowed theCIO’ s leadersto support independentand militant action at thepoint ofproduction. Indeed, a massive waveof strikesswept the nation in 1945 and1946. Aseriesof wildcat strikes,which began during thewar, and a handfulof general strikesand mass walkouts in 1945 and1946, pointedto a newmilitancy among therank andŽ le.At the same time, therewas more talk in labor circlesabout forming athird party, asTruman didlittle towin the same loyalty from labor that Roosevelthad. 15 With alabor party nowa distinctpossibility, left intellectuals like Mills developeda more optimistic view oflabor’ s potential. For Mills, personal developmentsabetted his intenseinvolvement with labor in thepostwar years.In 1945, Mills movedto New York City after landing apostat Columbia University’s Bureauof Applied Social Research(BASR), allowing him toŽ nally beat thecenter of the action. Onedevelopment that signaled thenew enthusiasm of intellectuals for labor in the postwarenvironment was the publication of Laborand Nation beginning in August, 1945, amagazine that putintellectual analysis in theservice of the labor movement. The magazine wasthe principal projectof the Inter-Union Institute for Labor and Democracy (IUI).Mills joinedthe IUI in 1946 andbecame a contributing editor tothe magazine in April ofthat year. The headof the IUI wasthe venerable labor journalist J.B.S.Hardman.From 1925 to1944, Hardman edited The Advance,theofŽ cial organ oftheAmalgamated Clothing Workers ofAmerica. Mills wouldlater dedicate TheNew Men ofPower to Hardman, writing that “Hewill notbe in agreement with many oftheconclusions, but without his aid Ishouldnot have reachedthem.” 16 Indeed,though Hardman played apivotal role in shaping Mills’thoughts on labor, his politics weremore moderatethan thoseof the anti-Stalinist intellectual circlesthat Mills had recently placedhimself in.Though Hardman had aradical past,by the1940s hewas a goodexample ofthe social-demo- cratic thinking that ourishedin labor andliberal circlesfor abrief period in the postwaryears. Hardman believed that apoliticized labor movementhad areal oppor- tunity topush the U.S. in thesort of directionthat Europeannations were headed. He advocateda left Keynesianismthat wouldinclude centralized economicplanning to ensurefull employment andhe supported corporatist institutionslike thewartime WLB andOPA that had tripartite structuresallowing business,labor, andthe public voices in howeconomic planning wouldbe conducted. 17 Though Mills came toadvance a more radical program for labor, heand Hardman both agreed onthe need for alabor movementmore intellectually aware ofits directionand more willing toplay a determining role in U.S.politics.

15GeorgeLipsitz, Rainbow atMidnight ,100–152, David Brody, “TheUses of Power II,” Workers in Industrial America (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1980), 221– 226. 16C.WrightMills, The New Men ofPower (NewYork: A.M.Kelley,1971), 295. 17Hardman obituary, New YorkTimes ,Jan. 31,1968, 38. For the clearestexpression of Hardman’ s views duringthis period, see“ State ofthe Movement,”in Hardman and MauriceNeuŽ eld, eds., American Labor (NewYork: Prentice-Hall,1951), 52– 84. On labor-liberalism and its social-democraticmanifestations in this period, seeLichtenstein, “ From Corporatism to CollectiveBargaining.” C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 333

The IUIitself wasnot so muchan organization oflike-minded individuals asa forum wheremen of different shades of the left (communistsexcluded) could discuss the state ofthe labor movement.This wasthe rationale behind Laborand Nation , which was intendedto “ air differences”and “ clarify thinking.”18 Becauseit soliciteda numberof perspectives,the contributors to the magazine werean eclecticgroup. Labor leaders andpoliticians suchas Philip Murray, Walter Reuther,William Green,David Du- binsky,William Leiserson,and Henry Wallace contributedpieces in 1946. The heart of Laborand Nation ,however,was a group ofstaffintellectuals whotypically servedin their union’s education,research, or economicsdepartments, represented on the editorial board by suchmen as Solomon Barkin andBroadus Mitchell. The group of contributorswas rounded out by anumberof left-wing NewYork City academicsand intellectuals,including Robert Lynd,Ben Seligman, Eli Ginzburg,Henry David, Nathan Glazer, Waldo Frank, andMills himself. Lessinclined to be interested in the nutsand bolts ofday-to-day unionpolitics, this third group tendedto offer a broader perspective.More radical than theother contributors,they oftenexhorted labor leaders toplay amore active role in leftist politics. While oneof the main goals of Laborand Nation in bringing labor leadersand intellectuals together wasto create a more educatedand nationally aware labor leadership, it also hopedto foster a group ofdedicated intellectuals “in theservice of labor,”as the title ofan IUI-planned collection of essays on intellectuals in thelabor movementput it. Mills viewedthe IUI asa “Fabian-like”organization in whichunion ofŽcials andthinkers couldwork together “for thebeneŽ t ofworking people.”He predictedthat analliance with labor wouldgive intellectuals anewsense of purpose: “What someof them really wantis to connect their skill andintelligence toa movement in whichthey canbelieve; they are ready togive alot ofenergy toan organization that wouldharness these skills in theservice of the left. And the left, to mostof them,means labor.”19 Moreambitiously, however,Mills hopedthat intellectual involvement could pushlabor in amore politically radical direction. Mills grappled with thequestion of “ The Intellectual andthe Labor Leader”in an addressto the IUI onJanuary 18, 1946, which later appeared in substantially revised form as“ What ResearchCan Do for Labor,”published in theJune– July, 1946 issueof Laborand Nation .In this essay,Mills argued that theintellectual played acritical role in making acollectionof labor unionsinto a progressive labor movement: “The free-lanceintellectual is oftenthe political gady ofthe trade unionleader. He generalizes theeconomic Ž ght betweenworkman andemployer in agiven trade or industryinto a larger andbroader battle, andhe explicitly takesup the political aspect that this purely economicstruggle sooneror later always comesto have.” 20 In assuming that thepresence of intellectuals in thelabor movementwould help it move in amore politically radical direction,Mills borrowedon a strong tradition ofthought about labor. For instance,Wisconsin School theorist Selig Perlman (with whomMills had takenclasses as a graduate student)attributed theexistence of labor radicalism tothe inuence of intellectuals. Perlman famously attackedthe “ onrushof overpowering social mysticism”that leftist intellectuals felt whenimagining labor’s potential role in society.21 Reacting against thejob-conscious unionism that Perlman supported,Mills

18Laborand Nation ,Aug., 1945,2– 3. 19“ThePolitics of Skill,” Laborand Nation ,June–July, 1946,35. 20“What ResearchCan Do forLabor,” Laborand Nation ,June–July, 1946,18. 21SeligPerlman, ATheory ofthe LaborMovement (NewYork: A. M.Kelley,1928), 281; Leon Fink, “‘Intellectualsversus ‘ Workers’: AcademicRequirements and the Creationof Labor History,” In Search ofthe Working Class (Urbana, IL:“Universityof Illinois Press,1994), 201– 235. 334 D. Geary andothers at theIUI thought thein uence of intellectuals essentialin helping labor play abroad political role. 22 Buthow could intellectuals like Mills inuence the political stanceof labor leaders? Becausehe felt that thepractical experienceof individual unionscould no longer bethe basisfor long-term strategy, Mills felt that thelabor leader wouldeventually have to “lean ontheintellectual” if hewanted to “ bein theknow about thebig scene.”23 Yet, asMills wasacutely aware,the intellectual couldnot expect to in uence labor leaders through the“ sheermagic ofhis speech.”Unlike the Leninist third-party organizers whomhe discussed, the “ free-lanceintellectual” had nopower base with whichto inuence the decisions of labor leaders.Thus, Mills pointedto a numberof concrete goals that thefree-lance intellectual couldhelp thelabor leader achieve.He argued that researchcould contribute to labor unity by trying “toorient each[leader] towhat other labor unionsare doing at any particular time.”Since so much of the public’ s infor- mation wasbiased against labor, objectiveresearch could itself help labor’s cause,such asby disproving thefalse impression that mostlabor leaderswere foreign-born. 24 Finally, intellectuals couldhelp with labor organizing by usingmarket researchtech- niquesto survey the “ market”for unionmembership, whichcould help organizers developeffective strategies for the“ currentsouthern drive” and for organizing white- collar workers. 25 For someonewho Ž rstbecame interested in labor unionsas the only potential force in societyable toprevent the emergence of an undemocraticcorporate-dominated society,these were modest goals indeed.Moreover, there was little in “What Research CanDo for Labor”that stakedout a positionfor Mills more radical than that advanced by labor-liberals. It wasMills’ expressed hope that, by winningthe conŽ dence of labor leadersthrough performing concretetasks, the intellectual couldlater advise them on “over-all plans andvery big strategy.”Nevertheless, “ What ResearchCan Do for Labor”seemed to propose a necessarilysubordinate role for theintellectual with regard tothe trade unionleader. As he wrote in theŽ rstdraft ofthe essay, the labor leader “has agoodright toask sucha powerlessman: ‘ Justwhat goodare youintellectuals to meright now?’” AndMills had addedin themargin: “that’s justthe way theleader will ask it; hehas thepower to ask it that way;and the free-lance intellectual has justgot toget usedto it.” 26 Though this sortof relationship threatenedthe critical indepen- denceof intellectuals that Mills socherished and left unresolvedthe question of how exactly intellectuals wereto infuse the labor movementwith left-wing ideas,the fact that Mills waswilling tocommit himself tothese relatively mundanetasks in theservice oflabor showedhow much he had cometo identify labor’s goals ashis own. In 1946, Mills setout to demonstrate what researchcould do for labor. In thespring ofthat year, hemanaged toget himself appointedhead of the new Labor Research Division at theBASR. Given Mills’ increasing participation in theIUI, this wasa fortuitousopportunity. NowMills began usingthe tools of statistical sociology and public opinion researchpioneered by his bossat theBureau, Paul Lazarsfeld,to provide usefulinformation toU.S. labor leaders.Though Mills had conducteda survey

22See,for instance, Robert Lynd, “WeShould be Clearas to What Arethe Essentialsand What Are the HistoricalTrappings ofDemocracy,” Laborand Nation ,Feb./Mar., 1946,33– 39. 23“What ResearchCan Do forLabor,” 4. 24Millshad donethis himself in astatisticalstudy on “TheTrade Union Leader: A CollectivePortrait,” published in Public Opinion Quarterly ,Summer, 1945. 25Ibid., 17–20. 26“TheIntellectual and the TradeUnion Leader,” UT Box4B 339,9. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 335 oflabor leadersin 1944 while still aprofessorat Maryland, henow had theresources todo a muchlarger study.Upon taking his newposition, Mills got towork, and in May of1946 hesent out his Žrstquestionnaires to a numberof AFL and CIO leaders.This surveywould eventually provide thequantitative elementof TheNew Men ofPower . Later that year, Mills also embarked upona “pilot studyon the psychological resis- tanceswhich people in white-collar workhave against unionization,”in order to “developmore systematicdevices to overcome them in unionization drives,”prelimi- nary researchfor what wouldlater become WhiteCollar .27 Mills intendedhis workat theBureau to serve the purposes of the IUI. As early as November, 1945, Hardman andMills had discussedthe possibility ofa seriesof polls onvarious labor issues,and the IUI supplieda sizeable portion ofthe funding for the BASRsurvey. Beginning with theNovember– December, 1946 issueof Labor and Nation,Mills wrotea regular column,“ What thePeople Think,”designed to analyze theaccuracy andsigniŽ cance of labor polls andwhich heused to present some of the Žndingsof the BASR survey. 28 Overall, Mills foundhis workin theservice of labor exhilarating: whena friendasked when he might drop by theBureau for avisit, Mills replied that it wasbest to send him anotebeforehand, because “ sometimesat night or day I’m outwith theproletariat.” 29

NewHopes for Radicalism In acolumnappearing in theMay– June, 1947 issueof Laborand Nation , Mills examined “Five Publics thePolls Don’t Catch.”He distinguished between the “politically passive”mass of peopleand a numberof “ politically alert”publics that were actively engaged in politics andhad consistentviewpoints. Mills dividedthe politically alert into Žve publics—the far left,the independent left, the liberal center,the practical conservatives,and the sophisticated conservatives— and he examined theexpectations that eachhad oflabor leaders.The mostimportant elementsof “Five Publics thePolls Don’t Catch”were Mills’ description of a far left bloc,which marked his increasing involvement with theTrotskyist Workers Party, andhis identiŽcation ofan emerging group ofsophisticated conservatives who posed a subtlethreat for U.S.labor. Astrong anti-communist,Mills neverthelessdownplayed the political powerof the CommunistParty, relegating it toa factionof the liberal center.To Mills, thefar left consistedof asmall numberof Trotskyist sectswith aclear andconsistent program of “capitalism smashedand socialism with ‘worker’s control’triumphant.” Though hedid notname any groups,Mills wasthinking ofthe Workers Party headedby Max Shachtman andthe Socialist Workers Party headedby James Cannon.Unlike liberals, whoprimarily sawunions as economic interest groups, far leftistsgrasped labor’s political potential. Unlikethe independent left ofanti-Stalinist intellectuals,who wantedto believe in theradicalism ofthe rank andŽ le,but lacked the “ labor metaphysic that is required,”the far left sawunions as potentially radical. Thus,labor leaderswere judged according tothe extent to which they brought about a“real left-wingmovement” ; non-radical labor leaderswere “ really mis-leadersof thelaboring class,”a bureaucratic castethat suppressedgrass-roots radicalism. 30

27Letterfrom Mills to Paul Lubow ofUOPWA– CIO, 13Nov., 1946,UT Box4B 368. 28The New Men ofPower ,295,300; Mills, “Memoto LazarsfeldRe: Labor ResearchDivision,” UT Box 4B 368. 29Millsto WilbertMoore, 9 April, 1946,UT Box4B 395. 30“Five Publics the Polls Don’t Catch: What Eachof These Think ofand Expectfrom the Labor Leaders,” Laborand Nation ,May–June, 1947,26. 336 D. Geary

Mills’inclusion of the far left among his political publics reected the increasing connectionsthat hewasmaking with Shachtman’s Workers Party. The Workers Party wasformed in 1940 after splitting from Cannon’s Socialist Workers Party over the questionof theclass nature of the Soviet Union.While theCannonites maintained that theSoviet Unionwas a degeneratedworkers’ state, the Shachtmanites claimed that Stalinism representeda newform of“ bureaucratic collectivism.”A similar critique of bureaucratic entrenchmentmarked theShachtmanite’ s positionon labor. Several of Mills’friends, including Dwight MacDonaldand Harvey Swados,had beeninvolved with theWorkers Party at thebeginning ofthe decade. 31 In 1947, Mills gravitated towardthe Shachtmanite positionon labor ashe became increasingly supportive of workers’control and increasingly critical ofentrenched labor bureaucratsfor stiing rank-and-Žle radicalism. Mills addressedthe party in January of1947 on“ The Defeat ofSocialism 1920–47 andthe Need for Reorientation.”As of 1947, Mills read and clipped articles from theparty’ s newspaper, LaborAction ,andacquired anumberof party pamphlets. While theWorkers Party’s positionon labor had amarked inuence onMills, hewas never in asclose contact with theShachtmanites ashe was with the IUI andwith other NewYork anti-Stalinist intellectuals. 32 The mostsigniŽ cant insight of“ Five Publics thePolls Don’t Catch”was the identiŽcation ofanewconservative bloc:the “ sophisticatedconservatives.” Unlike the practical conservative,the sophisticated conservative wasno union-buster. Rather, he wantedto put the union to use for conservative ends.The sophisticatedconservative believed that “unionsare astabilizing forceagainst radicalism andshould be encour- aged andaided as a counter-forceto radical movementsand changes.” In this scheme, labor leaderswould become “ juniorlieutenants of the captains ofindustry,” cooperat- ing with businessto suppress the radicalism ofthe rank andŽ le.Pointing tothe example ofSteelworker staff intellectuals ClintonGolden and Harold Ruttenberg,who in TheDynamics ofIndustrial Democracy argued for theneed for labor unionsto discipline their ownradicals, Mills sawsophisticated conservatism as a real danger for thelabor movement:“ Labor may, in fear ofthe practical right, andin order tohold their organizations together, beever sograteful toaccept the lure setforth by cooper- ative big businesswith its liberal frontthat isabuilding.” 33 Indeed,recent events seemedto point Mills towardhis conclusions.The Taft–Hartley Actof 1947 contained muchof the logic ofsophisticated conservatism. While thelaw recognizedthe legal right ofunions to exist, it circumscribedthe role that unionscould play andgave more responsibility tolabor leadersto quash discontent among therank andŽ le. 34 Though hefeared the rise ofsophisticated conservatism, 1947 wasthe high-water mark ofMills’ faith in theradical potential ofthe labor movement.In that year, he attendedthe UAW conventionin Atlantic City at therequest of Nathan Glazer, then

31Wald, The New YorkIntellectuals , 163–192. 32UTBox4B 351. 33“Five Publics the Polls Don’t Catch,”26– 27. Golden and Ruttenberg, The Dynamics ofIndustrial Democracy (NewYork: Harperand Row, 1942). 34Brody, “TheUses of Power I: IndustrialBattleground,” Workersin Industrial America (New York: Oxford,1980), 173– 214. Howell John Harrishas convincinglyargued that the groupof sophisticated conservatives(or “corporateliberals” ) was adistinctminority among business in the 1940s.However, Mills recognizedthat most businesseswould still preferthe open shop, but arguedthat sophisticated conservatives,if forced to recognizeunions and make concessionson wagesand workingconditions, would in returntry to uselabor leadersas atool to repressrank-and-Ž le discontent. Thus, Harrisagrees with Millson morepoints than it initially appears. SeeHarris, The Right to Manage: Industrial Relations Policies ofAmerican Business in the 1940s ,esp. 177–199. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 337 working asan editor at Commentary.Likemany other leftists,Mills sawthe UAW asthe mostprogressive U.S.union.UAW presidentWalter Reuther’s bold leadership, social- ist background,and third-party inclinations madehim anattractive Žgure for all those left ofcenter.Irving Howeand B. J.Widick, for instance,hoped that theUAW under Reutherwould “ useits vast resourceof energy andpower to become a newsocial force in American life.”35 AfterReuther won the union’ s presidencyat the1946 convention, Mills senthim atelegram: “Congratulations.We all expectthe UAW underyour leadership tobecome the center of progressive labor in theU.S.” 36 With Reuther’s re-electiona foregoneconclusion, the 1947 conventionwas not as inspiring asthe previous year’s meeting.Mills wasnevertheless energized by what hesaw. In his Commentary article, “GrassRoots Union with Ideas,”Mills expressedconcern that theUAW might fall prey tothe sophisticated conservatives, worrying that there might bean “ unconscioustemptation” for Reuther“ tobecome a human engineerfor somesort of state capitalism guaranteeing industrydisciplined workers and in effect,by drawing theteeth of the rank-and-Ž le, making them easyprey toan American variant ofa corporative set-up.”37 Nevertheless,Mills argued that, with its militant membership andorganic unionintellectuals, the UAW couldbe at theforefront of a revitalized left-labor movement,embodying an ideal vision of“ ideasin live contactwith power.” Though hewas lukewarm onWalter Reutherhimself (“Hegetsclose enough to satisfy, for amomentand by contrast,your social emotions,but not your social intelligence”), Mills laudedthe UAW rank andŽ le,seeing them aspossessing a collective spirit and amilitantly democratic “wobbly”impulse: “ thesemen are notonly organized they are also unionized,”he exclaimed. 38 While hepraised theUAW’ s “vigorous rank-and-Žle democracy,”Mills concentrated his attentionon a phenomenonthat hesaw as new in U.S.unionism:the presence of “union-madeintellectuals” within theUAW. Though Mills didnot name any namesin his article, hewas thinking hereof aspeciŽc setof men, including Francis Downingin theeducation department, Frank Winn,who edited the union’ s newspaper,and especially researchdirector Nat Weinberg. Thesemen helped Mills Žndhis way around the1947 convention,and Mills later senta draft ofhis article tothem for comments, joking with them that oneof their taskswas to “ make sureuninformed people like myself don’t write upweird accounts of the UAW after oneweek of ‘ Želd’experi- ence.”39 Mills foundin theseorganic unionintellectuals arefreshing counter-example tothe New York intellectuals hemocked for embracing apolitics ofhopelessness. Moreover,union-made intellectuals were“ intellectuals withoutfakery andwithout neuroticism,”and they didnot “ competewith oneanother in thesmall wayscommon toso many academic andother circles.”40 MostsigniŽ cantly, they provided acrucial link betweenbread-and-butter unionists and the world of broad political ideas,thus making it possiblefor theUAW tobe an “ opinion leader.”Mills thusargued that union-madeintellectuals provided “theonly guarantee that theUAW will bethe

35IrvingHowe and B.J.Widick, The UAWandWalter Reuther (NewYork: Random House,1949), 290. Interestinglyenough, Howeand Widickclosed their book by quoting Mills’s New Men ofPower and asking ofthe UAW, “Will the powerbe weldedto the intellect?” 36Millsto Reuther,27 April, 1946,UT Box4B 368. 37“GrassRoots Unionwith Ideas,” Commentary,Mar., 1948,246. 38Ibid., 243. 39Millsto Weinberg,1 Dec.,1947, UT Box4B 339.The identical line appears in Mills’letter to Downingon the same date. 40“GrassRoots Unionwith Ideas,”242. 338 D. Geary vanguard unionlong enoughto provide results,not only toits members,but to all those whohope for aradical shift in American politics.”41 Mills’involvement with theUAW didnot end with “GrassRoots Union with Ideas.” Weinberg knewthat Mills wasresearching white-collar workers,preliminary workthat wouldlater Žndits way into WhiteCollar .Hethusasked Mills tomake goodhis earlier claim that aresearchintellectual couldhelp organize theunorganized, writing: “We might bring youout here to talk tosome of theinternational repson the organization ofwhite collar workers.Maybe wecouldhave aweek’s seminar onthe subject for those repswho are directly involved in organizing andservicing ofŽce workers.What doyou say?”Mills agreed tothe proposal, aslong ashe could Ž tit into his scheduleand he couldtalk “with your bestorganizers in theŽ eldbefore I talk tothegroup ofthem.”42 There is noevidence that Mills conductedthese seminars at theUAW, buthe didput his sociological training towork for theunion on another project.In thespring of1948, Mills conducteda survey ofthe health needsof UAW workers,Ž ndingthat “health, sickness,and age werebecoming dominantconcerns.” According to Fortune magazine, thepoll helpedshape UAW collective bargaining demands. 43 In his diary, Mills had writtenthat theUAW provided “acompletechance to create athird camp, onethat will beco-wage worker, anti-Commy andanti-capitalist,” appropriating theterm “third camp”from Shachtman,who had usedit sincethe early years ofWorld War II torefer tothe formation ofan international socialist working class independentof any existing nations. 44 In an essaywritten with Irving Sanesand Lewis Coserentitled “ AThird Camp in aTwo-powerWorld,” Mills elevatedthe U.S. labor movementto world-historical signiŽcance. Although advertisedin thewinter 1948 issue of politics asslated to appear in aforthcoming issue,the authors decided to withhold the piece.Despite attempts throughout theyear torevive theessay, it wasnever published. 45 Coser,Mills, andSanes were among thoseNew York intellectuals whohad notyet given upon the idea ofalabor-based radicalism; thus,the article waswritten in part as anattack onDwight MacDonaldand the politics “NewRoads” series. In “AThird Camp,”the authors hoped for a“political interludein whichpeople may act indepen- dentlyof the rival powers”and construct an alternative toU.S.-style capitalism and Soviet-stylecommunism. With Europedecimated by thewar, the authors concluded that theThird Camp wouldhave tobe constructed within theU.S. itself. Of course,it wouldhave tobe based on an independent labor party whichcould provide alink betweenleft intellectuals andthe labor movement:“ Only within sucha movement couldan average level ofpolitical consciousnessbe achieved equally removedfrom the unpolitical practicality ofthe present labor movementand the unpractical politicizing ofthe intellectuals.” 46 Though theauthors claimed notto write “ofthe chances for suchforces to emerge, butof their necessity,”they didpoint tosome encouraging signswithin U.S.labor, suchas Reuther’ s rise andthe increased talk ofathird party in labor circles. 47 However, therewere few indications that thenon-communist leaders of organized labor were willing tochallenge theTruman administration’s foreign policy: by thetime this was

41Ibid., 247. 42Weinbergto Mills, 6Dec.,1947, Mills to Weinberg,10 Dec., 1947, UT Box4B 339. 43“TheAutoworkers’ Blues,” Fortune,Nov., 1948,210– 215. 44“UAWDiary,”UT Box4B 412,39– 40. 45UTBox4B 363. 46“AThird Camp in aTwo-powerWorld,” 8– 9, UTBox4B 363. 47Ibid., 10. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 339 written,labor had wholeheartedly embracedthe goals ofthe Marshall Plan. Coser, Mills, andSanes were grasping at strawsif they expectedU.S. labor tosingle-handedly preventthe Cold War andreverse the direction of international politics. It wasprobably for this reasonthat thearticle waswithheld; Sanes wrote Mills that their manifesto shouldbe “heldback” as it was“ alittle naive …andnot really tooconvincing.” Mills didnot give uponthearticle easily, andwas still sendingdrafts of it tofriends as late asSeptember of 1948. 48 Nevertheless,he was beginning tohave seriousdoubts about whetherlabor wouldbe able toplay thesort of radical role that hehad oncehoped for.

TheNew Men of Power Mills wasthinking within theframework ofthe “ Third Camp”essay when he wrote his Ž rst book, TheNew Men ofPower:America’ s LaborLeaders ,apioneering critique ofthe labor bureaucracy that inuenced such writers asHarvey Swados,Sidney Lens, Stanley Aronowitz,and Staughton Lyndand is still citedin thelabor historiography oftoday. Onthe Ž rst page Mills wrote:“ What theU.S. does,or fails todo, may bethe key to what will happen in theworld. What thelabor leader does,or fails todo, may bethe key towhat will happen in theU.S.” 49 Thus,Mills setout to answer the question of whetherlabor leaderswere capable ofhalting the“ main drift”towards war, slump, and thesort of undemocratic corporate societythat Mills later describedin ThePower Elite . TheNew Men ofPower wasan uneven work that alternated betweenthe presentation ofempirical data basedon theBASR survey of labor leadersand broad political analysis oflabor’ s positionin U.S.society.Often, the empirical part seemedto have little todo with themain argument ofthe book. In part, this wasbecause most of the statistical portionsin thebook had appeared in already publishedarticles. In addition,“ Five Publics thePolls Don’t Catch”was incorporated into thebook with minor revisions, andMills expandedupon his discussionof the “ union-madeintellectual” from “Grass RootsUnion with Ideas”in his Žnal chapter on“The Powerand the Intellect.” As early asthe summer of 1947, Mills wroteDwight MacDonaldthat hehad Žnisheda “pretty gooddraft” of the book, and he completed work on it in late 1947 andearly 1948. 50 Markedby ambivalence, TheNew Men ofPower containedaspects of Mills’ prior and futurethinking regarding labor andrepresented the mid-point in his trajectory from hopeto disenchantment. Though Mills spelledout the contradictory rolesthat labor leadersplayed in his introduction,he argued that they wereincreasingly coming toplay onerole: that of “juniorlieutenant” to big business,thus falling for the“ trap setby thesophisticated conservatives.”What hehad perceivedas a danger in “Five Publics thePolls Don’t Catch”and “ GrassRoots Union with Ideas,”he now saw becoming areality. Labor leaderswere buying intothe “ liberal rhetoric”which posited a natural harmony of interestsbetween business and labor. While Mills applauded therecent CIO organiza- tionof industrial andsemi-skilled workers,he sawthe formerly insurgentorganization becoming a“newaristocracy oflabor.” Rather than attempting toorganize themass of unskilledworkers at thebottom, the CIO wascontent representing the lower middle strata ofU.S. society. Increasingly, labor actedas the interest group that liberals

48Irving(Sanes) to Charlie (Mills), “Sunday,”UT Box4B 463;B to Mills, Sept. 11,1948, UT Box 4B 463. 49The New Men ofPower , 3. 50Millsto MacDonald (probably July), Kathryn Millswith Pamela Mills, eds., C.WrightMills: Letters andAutobiographical Writings (Berkeley,CA: Universityof California Press,2000), 107. 340 D. Geary describedit as,limiting itself towinning beneŽ ts for unionmembers andceasing to speakout on behalf ofall U.S.workers. Labor leaderswere thus drifting towarda policy ofbusiness unionism on a grand scale. In oneof his more famousinsights ofthebook, Mills sawthe labor leader becoming a“manager ofdiscontent,” cooperating with management in thesuppression of rank-and-Žle radicalism in returnfor unionrecognition andconcessions on narrow economicends. Labor leadersthus increasingly signedcollective bargaining agreements that madethe union responsible for lossof business due to unauthorized work stoppages.As a manager ofdiscontent, the labor leader wasnot only failing toact as aradical, butwas also exerting apowerfulforce on the side of conservatism: “ In disciplining radicals andextremists, the labor leader isupholding theliberal goals of labor–management cooperation,his positionin theworld created by his rhetoric, his jobin theunion, and the position of the businessman in theAmerican system.”51 Unionswere helping tointegrate their members intothe work process, but as they were doing sounder the impetus of management, theeffect was to “ rationalize production withoutsocializing it.”Labor leaderswere thus drifting towardracketeering ona grand scale,conspiring with businessleaders at theexpense of union members. In thepolitical sphere,the situation was equally discouraging. Mills reportedsurvey data that showedthat only 17% ofAFL leadersand 45% ofCIO leadersthought labor neededa broad political program. Mills predictedthat this political shortsightedness wouldhave “long-runpolitical consequenceswhich may beignored only at therisk of destruction.”52 Labor leaders,the “ last representativesof economic man,” seemed willing tosettle for arole as“ essentially aminority affair, which mustbalance its power against others,rather than asa potential majority movementwith which toreorganize modernsociety.” 53 Labor leadersthus seemed “ poor betsas far aspolitical action is concerned,”incapable ofserving asthe vanguard forcethat “GrassRoots Union with Ideas”and the “ Third Camp”manifesto had called for. 54 The situationlooked bleak, butMills had notabandoned his hopefor radicalism altogether. Indeed,along with his essaysof 1947, TheNew Men ofPower representeda radicalization ofMills’ s program for labor. Hewas now coming closerto the far left viewpoint associatedwith Shachtman’s Workers Party. In TheNew Men ofPower , Mills advocatedthe position of workers’ control and wrote approvingly ofthe ideas of UK guild socialist G.D.H.Cole.For Mills, workers’control meant that unionsshould expandtheir functionat theshoproom oor beyondbargaining over wagesand working conditionsand move towardcollective self-management:“ Independenceof labor action meanscontinual workers’ control at thepoint ofproduction,which means that theunion would attempt toreplace management functionby workers’control at every point whereits powerpermits.” 55 For this program towork, Mills felt that labor would beforced to organize all workers.Politically, ofcourse,Mills still favored alabor party, buthere he adopted the Shachtmanite positionthat clearly distinguisheda labor party from third parties that urged“ capitalist reforms.”56 AsMills advancedhis mostcomprehensive and radical program for labor, his criticism ofthe existing labor leadership becamemore strident.Yet, he still entertained

51Ibid., 116. 52Ibid., 153. 53Ibid., 237. 54Ibid., 236. 55Ibid., 255. 56Ibid., 203. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 341 thoughtsthat his radical program might berealized. Mills predictedthat a“coming slump”would “ implant theinsurgent impulse intothe American workers”and force thelabor leadership tochange its character. If labor offereda compelling responseto thenew depression, the public wouldrally behindit, as“ broad andenergetic action properly communicatedto the public wouldgreatly enlarge thesphere of union inuence and support.” 57 If labor leadersplaced their weight behindthe insurgency or if newleaders appeared, labor couldstill emerge during theslump asa powerfulforce for thetransformation ofsociety. If Mills’belief that aslump couldlead toa radical labor movementassumed a latent radicalism in theworking class,it wasalso basedon a faith in thelabor intellectual. The coming slump wouldprovide theopportunity for the“ unionof the power and the intellect”that Mills had long hopedfor. 58 Always inclinedto place ahigh value on ideology, Mills argued that in aneconomic downturn, power would shift “towardthose whoare ideologically andstrategically prepared for it.”59 The sophisticatedconserva- tives andthe left wouldemerge asthe two groups with themost coherent programs and labor wouldbe forced to choosebetween them. Under slump conditions,the intellec- tuals ofthe independent left, often “ apowerlessthird camp ofopinion, oscillating betweenlament andindignation,” could acquire newpolitical relevance. 60 A radical labor movementwas possible if slump conditionsbrought aninsurgent spirit tothe working classand labor leadersŽ nally seized“ uponthe kind of experience that is available totheintellectual craftsman andjoin it totheir ownpower and experience.” 61 This scenariowas perhaps notquite as far-fetched as it might seemin retrospect.The notionthat another depressionwas likely wascommon in thepostwar U.S., especially among theleft, which, while developing theoriesof a “permanentwar economy,” viewedcapitalism asinherently unstableand prone to frequent crises. Mills’ image of amilitant working classhad recenthistorical precedents,not only in thelabor up- heavals ofthe Great Depression but also in thewartime wildcatsand postwar strike waves.Of course,it isunclear whether the end result of a coming slump wouldbe the radical program that Mills nowadvocated. What seemsmost signiŽ cant, however, is the factthat Mills nowplaced his hopenot in labor asit waspresently constituted, but in external circumstancesthat might producechanges within thelabor movement.He adopteda toneof frustration, seeing the resurgence of labor radicalism asnecessary but increasingly impossible. Thus, TheNew Men ofPower ,which vacillated betweenhope anddisenchantment, ended on a noteof tragedy: “It isthe task ofthelabor leadersto allow andto initiate aunionof the power and the intellect. They are theonly oneswho cando it; that is why they are nowthe strategic elite in American society.Never has so muchdepended upon men who are soill-prepared andso little inclinedto accept the responsibility.”62

TheLabor Metaphysicand the Politics of Disillusionment Eventhe limited optimism of TheNew Men ofPower didnot last long. Not only was Mills deadwrong that aslump wouldsoon come, but the character ofpostwar

57Ibid., 290. 58Ibid., 291. 59Ibid., 28. 60Ibid., 17. 61Ibid., 281. 62Ibid., 291. 342 D. Geary industrial relations also becameclear by theend of the 1940s, andit didnot conform tothe earlier hopesof the left. In thefall of1948, at ameeting ofthe Columbia University Seminar onLabor, Mills expressedhis fearsabout thedirection in which labor washeading. Heargued theneed for analysis ofthe “ unforeseenconsequence of thespeciŽ c decisionsnow making upthe process of collective bargaining,”yet shrank from thetask sincehis “ownhunch about thoseconsequences is sofrightening tome that Iwantabove all tocheck and re-check it.” 63 Collective bargaining wasindeed moving in adirectionthat Mills feared.The newsystem was epitomized by the“ Treaty ofDetroit” signed by GeneralMotors and the UAW in 1950, anagreement in which management offeredhigher wagesand beneŽ ts, but the union renounced its claim to management prerogatives, relinquishedworker protectionfrom technological change, andensnared grievance proceduresin abureaucratic haze,distancing itself from the rank-and-Žle concernsfor worker powerthat had begunthe sit-down strikes of the 1930s. Asunionslike theUAW wongreater beneŽts for their members,their advocacy ofpolitical action onbehalf ofall workersbecame less vociferous. 64 Asanumberof drafts of an unpublished manuscript, “ Noteson the Meaning of the Election,”make clear, the1948 presidential electioncaused Mills togive uphope. Mills had already notedin TheNew Men ofPower that HenryWallace’ s campaign, widely viewedas a Communistfront, discouraged labor leadersfrom forming athird party. Nowhe argued that aDemocratic victory wouldhave beenenough by itself to foreclosethe possibility ofa labor party. SinceTruman wonin large part becauseof the labor vote,labor leadersnow seemed little inclinedto start their ownparty. Mills found himself lamenting what might have been:Truman’ s defeatcould have causeda “general exodusof liberal andlabor elementsfrom theDemocratic party intothe ranks ofthe new party.” Mills imagined that: “Hadthe Democratic Party dissolvedand a new,non-Communist labor party beenfounded, and had aconservative Dewey administration hungon long enoughto confront another economicslump, the new party might have comeroaring intothe political arena with avoice that wouldmake FDR’s [Roosevelt’s] NewDeal seemlamb-like.” It wasa long string of“ what-ifs,”but for aseriesof opportunities whose time had already passed.It increasingly appeared to Mills that labor, like thefarm bloc,was devoid of radical potential. Thushe argued that “weshall have tosearch outside of them, and indeed in oppositionto them.” 65 In his Žnal article for Laborand Nation ,publishedin early 1949, Mills examined white-collar unionism.He originally soughtto analyze white-collar workers’reactions tounions in order touncover information that wouldassist in labor organizing. By 1949, however,Mills had becomeso pessimisticabout the state of labor that heargued that unionizing white-collar workerswould not affect the wider political climate. Though hepredicted that organization drives among white-collar workerswould be more successful,he argued that their unionization wouldnot improve the“ possibilities ofa broadly democratic political economy.”Mills maintained that “thelarger meaning ofunionism involves thequestion of whetherthe unions are tobecome a movement,or

63Minutesof Second Meeting of Columbia Faculty Seminar on Labor (21Oct., 1948),UT Box4B 345. Millswas amember ofthe Seminar on Labor fromthe fall of1948 up to 1950,but he doesnot appear to have beena consistentlyactive participant. TheSeminar includeda number ofColumbia professors fromdifferent ends of the political spectrum, alongwith anumber ofother men that Millsknew, such as Hardman, FrancisDowning, and HenryDavid. 64Mike Davis, Prisoners ofthe American Dream (NewYork: Verso,1986), 108– 112. 65UTBox4B 348File: “TradeUnions and Political Parties.”I quote freelyhere from three different manuscripts on the electionthat Millsleft. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 343 whetherthey are going tobecome another vestedinterest, an agency ofpolitical regulation at aneconomic price.” 66 Convincedthat thelatter wasthe case, the organization ofwhite-collar workerscould only bea “unionization intothe main drift: it will serveto incorporate them aspart ofthenewest interest to be vested in theliberal state.”To Mills, theconsequences of labor’ s transformation wereprofound: “ If the futureof democracyin America is imperiled, it is notby any labor movement, but by its absence,and the substitution for it ofa setof new vested interests.” 67 In 1951, Mills publishedhis inuential workon the new middle classes, WhiteCollar .While Mills once expectedthat his researchskills couldcontribute to a promising organization of white-collar workers,he now drew a bleak picture ofconformist “ little men”lacking individuality, autonomy,and the capability for collective action.Mills’ rejection of the “labor metaphysic”was thus complete by thebeginning ofthe 1950s. 68 To besure, Mills’ political hopesfor labor had beenextravagant. If therewas a real lostopportunity for thelabor movementin thepostwar years, it seemsto have been more along thesocial-democratic linesadvanced by Hardman than theTrotskyist- inuenced program that Mills came toadvocate. Because Mills’ expectations had been sohigh, his later dismissal oflabor wastoo extreme. In attributing labor leaders’failure tomove in amore radical directionsolely totheir entrenchmentas a bureaucratic elite, Mills ignored thedifŽ cult political environmentthat labor leadersfaced in thepostwar years andthe very real constraintsthey confronted,including anti-communistpolitics anda determinedbusiness counter-attack. His attack onthe labor metaphysic didnot take accountof what labor had accomplishedand of what it continuedto aspire to.In thepostwar period, unions played animportant role in securinga decentstandard of living for their members andprotecting them from thearbitrary actsof management. The interestgroup pluralism that emergedfrom thelabor struggles ofthe 1930s and 1940s wasmore ofan accomplishment than Mills imagined, marking asigniŽcant departurefrom aU.S.legal tradition with regard tolabor soconservative that one scholar has deemedit “feudal.”69 Mills’critique oflabor also failed torecognize that someprogressive unionscontinued to Ž ght for aU.S.social democracy.The UAW,for instance,still pressedfor abroader political role for labor andgave early supportto the civil rights movementand the New Left. 70 While Mills failed torecognize that labor isalways part social movementand part interestgroup, hewas correct that thebalance had shifteddecisively in thepostwar years.Mills dreamedof a unionof power and intellect, but intellect canonly follow whenpower leads. Though Mills’vision for labor wasmore radical than that offeredby theCIO’ s social-democratic wing,such extravagant hopescould only besupported by thelegitimate potential for progressive labor toplay aleading role in U.S.politics in the postwarperiod. By the1950s, eventhose unions that supporteda broad political agenda foundthemselves trapped by larger political structuresand their owndesire to

66“Noteson White Collar Unionism,” Laborand Nation ,May–June, 1949,19. Much of this essaywas incorporatedinto White Collar (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press, 1951). See esp. 320–323. 67Ibid., 20. 68MichaelDenning has persuasivelyargued that Mills’involvement with labor survivedin his laterwork on craftsmanship and the culturalapparatus, amounting to aproposal fora sortof “ workers’control” for intellectuallaborers. But this doesnot mean, as Denningcontends, that Millsnever truly abandoned the labor metaphysic. See The Cultural Front (NewYork: Verso,1997), 110– 113. 69KarenOrren, Belated Feudalism:Labor, the Law,and Liberal Development in the United States (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1991). 70KevinBoyle, The UAWandthe Heydayof American Liberalism . 344 D. Geary wieldpolitical powerwithin that system. 71 Evenif Mills had takeninto account the accomplishmentsand continuing aspirations ofU.S. unions, it wouldhave beendifŽ cult for him toidentify avanguard potential in organized labor. Thus,Mills’ dismissal of labor asa “dependentvariable” in U.S.politics containeda great deal oftruth. 72 Whenlabor becamemore ofan interest group protecting its members than asocial movementwith theability toimplement avision ofpolitical transformation, it nolonger inspiredthe left intellectuals whoonce gravitated in its orbit. Thosewho continued to write about labor, like Harvey Swados,adopted an increasingly frustratedtone. For many NewYork intellectuals,such as Bell andMacDonald, deprived ofthe identiŽ able agency labor had provided,radicalism itself lostits lure.The diminishedpotential for labor radicalism contributedto Max Schachtman’s turnto the right, ashiftthat eventually landedhim in theDemocratic Party. 73 Social democratssimilarly sawtheir earlier hopesdashed. The last issueof Laborand Nation waspublished in January of 1952. The magazine wasa casualty oflabor’ s postwartransformation. It had relied uponŽ nancial backing from unionsthat supportedits vision ofunion leaders and intellectuals working together tocreate a U.S.social democracy:by theearly 1950s, this fundingwas dwindling. 74 Though theunion-made intellectuals like Frank Winnand Nat Weinberg that Mills had earlier foundso inspiring remained onthe UAW staff until the1960s, they becameincreasingly frustratedwith thepolitical compromises madeby thelabor movement. 75 Unlikemany other intellectuals ofhis generation,Mills didnot renounce left-wing politics. However,the decline of labor’ s potential had apowerfulimpact onthe radicalism that heespoused in the1950s andfor whichhe is bestknown today. Mills’ classicworks of that era, WhiteCollar and ThePower Elite ,werewithout programs and withoutagency, and contained little hope.Like other left intellectuals ofthe 1950s, stripped oftheir historic agency for social change,Mills perceivedU.S. society as static, unchanging,and one-dimensional— an inverted version of the liberals’ “ endof ideol- ogy”that celebratedthe postwar order asending the necessity for radical social upheaval. Agencywas a problem evenfor thoseintellectuals like Daniel Bell whohad given upon radicalism. In his essayon “Work andits Discontents,”Bell criticized the lack ofmeaningful workin U.S.societywhile lamenting thefact that nogroup, neither businessnor labor, seemedinclined to do anything aboutit. 76 With nopossibility ofallying with thepower of labor, left intellectuals like Mills stressedthe intellectual’ s ownresponsibility tooffer criticism ofthe existing society. Indeed,this attitudewas captured perfectly by theone-word title ofthe magazine foundedin 1954 by Mills’“ Third Camp”co-author, Lewis Coser, and former Labor Action editor,Irving Howe: Dissent.Having given upon a unionof power and intellect, Mills andothers increasingly came toemphasize theautonomous power of intellect alone,for this wasthe only powerthat theisolated intellectual seemedto possess. In a

71Ibid.;NelsonLichtenstein, The Most Dangerous Manin Detroit (NewYork: Basic Books, 1995), 271–419. 72“TheLabor Leadersand the PowerElite,” in Power,Politics, andPeople .Originally published in Roots ofIndustrial Conict (NewYork: McGrawHill, 1954). 73PeterDrucker, MaxShachtman andHis Left (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press,1994), 185–244. 74“OurStory: SixYears of L &N,” Laborand Nation ,fall, 1951,2– 6, 50–54. 75Boyle, The UAWandthe Heydayof American Liberalism , 155. 76“Workand its Discontents,” The End ofIdeology (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1988), 227–272. C.WrightMills and theLabor Movement 345

1955 Dissent essay,Mills advocateda “politics oftruth,” arguing that theintellectual, asthe “ moral conscienceof society,” could “ Žndout as much of the truth ashe can, and… tell it tothe right people,at theright time, andin theright way.”77 Yet,without avibrant social movementto support, the politics oftruth wasa desperatestance that sawlittle chanceof having theintellectual’ s criticisms ofsociety realized. Mills Žnally foundan alternative agency tolabor in the“ young intelligentsia”of the emerging NewLeft. Yet, Mills had lower expectationsof what this newagency might achieve.Radical studentsand Third World revolutionaries heldout less promise for Mills in 1960 than labor had in the1940s. While Mills had onceviewed U.S. labor as apotential massmovement capable ofhalting themain drift ofU.S. societyand providing thevanguard for far-reaching social change,he now simply hopedthat the NewLeft could be a“radical agency ofchange” that was“ possible”and “ immediate.”78 Labor’s postwartransformation wouldthus shape the politics ofthe intellectual left into the1960s, deŽning thelimits ofthe New Left.

77“On Knowledgeand Power,”in Power,Politics, andPeople ,611.The essay was originallypublished in the summer, 1955issue of Dissent. 78“Letterto the NewLeft,” 256.