"In this essay labor historian Peter Rachleff takes a broad look at the political economy of U.S. capitalism since World War II, breaking this era into two periods: 1) the demand-driven Keynesianism that emerged through the New Deal, the WWII economy, and the immediate postwar years; and 2) the anti-working class neoliberalism that emerged piecemeal in the mid to late 1970s and has come to dominate the global economy. Rachleff's interest is in the impact of these political-economic formations on working-class struggle, in the U.S. and, increasingly, throughout the world. His argument is that, while neoliberalism has made the lives of most working people significantly worse, it has also established a common position and even experience that makes transnational solidarity more attainable in practice, thus opening out—potentially—into a new era of workers' struggles."

Support: Paper