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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 February 2020
The narrative of a second Gilded Age erroneously suggests that the current dynamics are repeating those of the late nineteenth century. Although they share certain important characteristics, these are profoundly different historical moments. Focusing on the history of capitalism and labor, and taking a global perspective, demonstrates that the two periods were bookends—the “before” and “after” to a lengthy period when the cruelest characteristics of corporate capitalism were temporarily constrained. The late nineteenth century saw the ascent of serious efforts to rein in the power of the new capitalism and force it to bow down to the needs of civil society. During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, we are experiencing the decline of that effort as capitalists and their ideological and political supporters push to see how far they can go to ensure the unchallenged hegemony of corporate and property rights. The slow climb toward a more humane capitalism and the rapid descent away from it constitute two very different experiences.
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14 Andrew Van Dam, “Teacher Strikes Made 2018 the Biggest Year for Worker Protest in a Generation,” Washington Post, Feb. 14, 2019. On the broader history of teacher labor activism, see Shelton, Jon, Teacher Strike! Public Education and the Making of a New American Political Order (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 See for example Lane Windham, “The Media Still Gets the Working Class Wrong—But Not in the Way You Think” Washington Post, Sept. 3, 2017.
16 Maria Svart, “In Dark Times, Growing Pains and Opportunities,” Democratic Socialists of America, June 9, 2017, https://www.dsausa.org/in_dark_times_growing_pains_and_opportunities (accessed Jan. 6, 2020); the 60,000 members figure comes from Owen Daugherty, “Two Democratic Socialists Win Spots on Chicago City Council, Three Headed to Run-Offs,” The Hill, Feb. 27, 2019.
17 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Campaign website and platform, https://ocasio2018.com/issues (accessed Jan. 6, 2020).