Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism / Edition 1

by Judith Stein

Overview

The history of modern liberalism has been hotly debated in
contemporary politics and the academy. Here, Judith Stein uses
the steel industry—long considered fundamental to the U.S.
economy—to examine liberal policies and priorities after World
War II. In a provocative revision of postwar American history,
she argues that it was the primacy of foreign commitments and the
outdated economic policies of the state, more than the nation's
racial conflicts, that transformed American liberalism from the
powerful progressivism of the New Deal to the feeble policies of
the 1990s.
Stein skillfully integrates a number of narratives usually
treated in isolation—labor, civil rights, politics, business,
and foreign policy—while underscoring the state's focus on the
steel industry and its workers. By showing how those who
intervened in the industry treated such economic issues as free
trade and the globalization of steel production in isolation from
the social issues of the day—most notably civil rights and the
implementation of affirmative action—Stein advances a larger
argument about postwar liberalism. Liberal attempts to address
social inequalities without reference to the fundamental and
changing workings of the economy, she says, have led to the
foundering of the New Deal state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807847275
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	10/05/1998
Edition description:	1
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	880,558
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.96(d)
Lexile:	1380L (what's this?)

About the Author

Judith Stein, professor of history at the Graduate School and City College of the City University of New York, is author of The World of Marcus Garvey: Race and Class in Modern Society.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Politics Of Steel Fundamentalism: The Long 1950s
2. Birmingham Before and After King: Racial Change in Steel
3. The Strange Career of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Segregation of Racial and Economic Policies
4. Title VII in the Mills, Agencies, and Courts: Theories and Practices
5. Tales of Lackawanna and Sparrows Point: Implementing the Kerner Commission Report
6. Litigation Is Everything: The Nixon Years
7. The Limits of Fair Employment: The Consent Decrees and the Economic Crisis of the 1970s
8. U.S. Foreign and Domestic Policy in Steel: The Creation of Conflict, 1945-1974
9. The Locomotive Loses Power: Jimmy Carter's Industrial and Trade Policies
10. An Industrial Policy for Steel? The Decline of the Democratic Party
11. Steel Is Not So Fundamental: The Reagan Reconstruction and Contemporary America
Conclusion: Steel and the History of Postwar America
Notes
Index

Illustrations

1. Roger M. Blough and Benjamin F. Fairless
2. Industrial Birmingham
3. Howard Strevel
4. Temper mill at the TCI tin mill
5. Bruce Thrasher
6. David J. McDonald, David Feller, and Frank "Nordy" Hoffman
7. Bayard Rustin and I. W. Abel
8. E. B. Rich
9. Virgil L. Pearson and Fred Shepherd
10. "Soaked" ingot leaving pit
11. Sparrows Point, Maryland
12. Jerome Cooper
13. USWA picket line at Newport News Shipbuilding Company
14. Charging the basic oxygen furnace
15. Auto scrap for the electric furnace
16. Continuous casting of steel
17. Meyer Bernstein addresses Japanese steelworkers
18. Lloyd McBride at unfair trade rally

What People are Saying About This

David Brody

[This] important book explores one of the great riddles of our time -- why it was that a civil rights revolution dedicated to equal economic opportunity should have been followed by the disappearance of decent jobs for so many African-Americans. . . .[It] is a triumph of heroic research and clear thinking, and essential reading for anyone who cares about this country's festering race problems. -- Author of In Labor's Cause

From the Publisher

[A] remarkably sophisticated work. . . . Stein's book is a model of meticulously researched, dispassionate scholarship. Few serious historians of the postwar United States can afford not to read [this book].—Law and History Review



One of the most important examinations of race and labor to appear in the 1990s. . . . An original, well-argued, and thought-provoking account of the American steel industry in the post-World War II world. . . . Insights about American political economy, the labor movement, Civil Rights strategies, and the law leap out on almost every page of this book. Through the lens of the steel industry, Stein usefully reframes the postwar historiography not only of race and liberalism but also of trade, economic planning, and foreign policy.—Labor History



This is a marvelous and important book, an immaculately researched, powerfully written analysis of key issues in U.S. economic and social policy from the 1950s to the 1980s.—Business History



[A] passionate book. . . . Combines old and new elements—an uncompromising old liberal faith that governments can salvage entire industries and provide every son a job as good as his father's (and this is, necessarily, a book about men), with a sort of populist suspicion of the current bipartisan religion of free trade and globalization given political voice by Gephart, Buchanan, and Perot and intellectual voice by Dani Rodrik, William Greider, and the Sierra Club. It is thus an oppositional book, a distinctly minority view on what government has done but especially what it has not done but could and ought to do.—Reviews in American History



Stein's important book about post-WW II American politics, economics, and race is an innovative interpretation of recent US history.—Choice



Judith Stein's important book explores one of the great riddles of our time—why it was that a civil rights revolution dedicated to equal economic opportunity should have been followed by the disappearance of decent jobs for so many African Americans. Her case in point is the steel industry where, just as the EEOC lawyers triumphed, the industry collapsed and the contested jobs were gone forever. Stein documents, in fine detail, the indifference of the litigators—their willful indifference—to whether or not they were actually expanding the job opportunities of black workers. More important, Stein suggests, was the disjuncture between the nation's economic and social policies, its failure to understand that the corollary of equal opportunity was the preservation of American jobs from predatory foreign competition. Stein's book is a triumph of heroic research and clear thinking, and essential reading for anyone who cares about this country's festering race problems.—David Brody, author of In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker



Judith Stein's brilliant achievement is to tell much the most complete and balanced account of the steel industry and the steelworkers' union, from the historic times of the New Deal through the civil rights era to the present day, that anyone has ever attempted. She examines with remarkable clarity, precision and objectivity the multiplicity of interrelationships involved, including those between and among labor, management, races, governments, economic policies, trade arrangements, domestic politics, and cold war and other international strategies. The book documents in compelling detail both the many accomplishments, particularly in race relations and in collective bargaining, and the all too frequent difficulties, indeed devastation, especially as a result of national trade and economic policies, which the industry and the union shared during the regimes of and at the hands of both liberal Democratic and conservative Republican administrations.—Lynn R. Williams, retired president, United Steelworkers of America



Running Steel, Running America is a provocative and brilliant account of postwar American politics, economics, and race, which weaves together a number of narratives often treated in isolation: labor, civil rights and affirmative action, politics, business, and international trade policy. This is one of the most sophisticated treatments of race and the modern American economy to come along in years.—Eric Arnesen, University of Illinois at Chicago

Editorial Reviews

[A] triumph of heroic research and clear thinking, and essential reading for anyone who cares about this country's festering race problems.

David Brody, author of "In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker"

Few serious historians of the postwar United States can afford not to read [this book].

"Law and History Review"

ÝA¨ passionate book.

"Reviews in American History"

ÝA¨ triumph of heroic research and clear thinking, and essential reading for anyone who cares about this country's festering race problems.

David Brody, author of "In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker"

An original, well-argued, and thought-provoking account of the American steel industry in the post-World War II world.

"Labor History"

This is a marvelous and important book, an immaculately researched, powerfully written analysis.

"Business History"

"[A] triumph of heroic research and clear thinking, and essential reading for anyone who cares about this country's festering race problems.

David Brody, author of "In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker""

"An original, well-argued, and thought-provoking account of the American steel industry in the post-World War II world.

"Labor History""

"This is a marvelous and important book, an immaculately researched, powerfully written analysis.

"Business History""

[A] passionate book.

"Reviews in American History"

From the Publisher

According to Stein, the American steel companies and their workers were at the center of the New Deal compact between capital and labor, as well as of the racial changes of the '50s and '60s and of the economic crises of the '70s and 1980. Furthermore, government policies during the Cold War encouraged the construction of steel mills in friendly countries, even at the expense of the domestic industry. Consequently, it was global markets that largely laid down the terms of settlement of the problems of U.S. mills. Years of labor-management conflict followed. This is a detailed study with a highly ambitious premise -- to show, among other things, the long-term impact of the steel industry on postwar American liberalism -- but the book is marred by turgid writing and loose organization. -- Harry Frumerman, formerly with Hunter College, New York

Library Journal