In the following article, Omar Swartz articulates a working-class theory of power and contrasts this notion of power with the power relationships enacted by the United States, which can be regarded as Imperial. American imperial power has grown, in part, because of "U.S. Exceptionalism" (i.e., the alienation of organized labor from normative American politics). After describing this phenomenon and providing an example of it through an analysis of In re Debs (1895), this article argues for the abolition of U.S. Exceptionalism by highlighting the importance of equity in labor relationships. Constructing such equity is a primary goal of this essay's notion of a working-class rhetoric.

On Power and Equity: Toward a Working-Class Rhetoric

Omar Swartz

<1> The working-class in the United States has been, and continues to be, systematically excluded from normative political representation and is allowed little opportunity to contribute to the terms and conditions of its social existence (Henwood, 1987; Moberg, 1992). While few workers today resist such marginalization, this has not been always the case. During the formative period of U.S. labor consciousness (from the end of the Civil War until the First World War), the political alienation of labor was routinely challenged by workers who relied extensively (and illegally) on collective self-help in their pursuit of economic justice. With this method, labor achieved many gains -- including the eight-hour work day and a federally guaranteed minimal wage. These welcomed developments attest to the power of worker militancy and collective action (Zinn, 1990, 181).

<2> In our current neo-liberal political environment, the abovementioned gains continue to be eroded as working-class power wanes (Chomsky, 1998). Such erosion exacerbates economic inequality, which stands at the highest level in U.S. history (Phillips, 2002). Crucial future gains are dependent on a political cohesion that derive from a renewed working-class self-identification grounded in a collective sense of mutual aid and community (see Kropotkin, 1989, 300). Therefore, in order for "average" citizens (defined as individuals who lack normative political or economic power, labor under unsatisfactory conditions established by others, and possess little or no bargaining strength) to have a collective say in the utilization and distribution of public resources, an essential goal of a working-class rhetoric must be to reanimate the labor movement. Such a movement seeks the creation of a strong progressive government and the establishment of an economic democracy in the United States.

<3> Toward the above end, this paper articulates a working-class theory of power and contrasts this notion with power as enacted by the United States, which is regarded as Imperial. American imperial power has grown, in part, because of the systemic alienation of organized labor from normative American politics (as this contrasts with the experience of labor throughout Western Europe, this alienation is known as American Exceptionalism). After describing this phenomenon and providing an example of it through an analysis of In re Debs, this article argues for its abolition by highlighting the importance of equity in labor relationships. Constructing such equity is a primary goal of my theorized notion of a working-class rhetoric.

PART I: TOWARD A WORKING-CLASS THEORY OF POWER

<4> Owing to its long history and its imprecise usages, a specific definition of the "working-class" is difficult to articulate. The concept has become "deterritorialized" (Guattari & Negri, 1990, 22). The classic experience of the working-class during industrialization in the 19th and early 20th centuries has given way to more complex and less theoretically discrete relationships between labor and capital. As Felix Guattari and Toni Negri explain, "Deterritorialized production signifies that work and life are no longer separate; society is collapsed into the logic and processes of capitalist development" (1990, 22). As capitalism becomes the defining force in society, the identities of the workers it creates become less connected to the traditional binary between the "creative" and the "appropriating" classes. The symbols and culture of the middle class have proliferated to the point that many individuals are both the exploited and the exploiters. In other words, exploitation and social insecurity has become a more accepted part of our political and moral communities (i.e., internalized by more people as natural or inevitable). We are, as Edward Said once suggested, all complicit to a degree with the crass inequities that define our contemporary world (Said, 1989).

<5> In less postmodernist terms, Carolyn Leste Law highlights the conceptual problems involved in delineating the boundaries of the working-class. She asks, "Is income a viable marker of class? Should we define 'working class' by level of parents' education . . . or by how dirty or dangerous one's job is? Can a small business owner . . . be considered working class?" (1995, 8). Along with Law, this essay recognizes that attempting to answer these questions is divisive and unproductive to the struggle for social justice. Rejecting terminological inclusivity as unnecessary frees us to accept a pragmatic understanding of the working-class. The goal, after all, is not to capture the "essence" of the label, but to provide a critical construct by which to engage in cultural criticism and political action. Rather than imposing any definition, a way out of this quandary is to stress the importance that individuals themselves attach to this identity. For example, Law concludes that people are "working class if they say they are" (1995, 8).

<6> Similarly, what this paper identifies as the "working class" is intended to be inclusive of a wide community of workers in the United States. The community envisioned by the use of this term is comprised of everyone whose health, happiness, and security are dependent on working conditions established by a hierarchy insensitive to individual and humanistic needs (see Meehan, 1997, 165). Although not every working class person is degraded by or unhappy with his/her working conditions, most clearly are. In the United States, people largely work to survive and seek personal fulfillment in their off-hours. More specifically, the working class is comprised of those communities of people who must labor under the authority of another and who are dependent on market conditions to define the terms of their employment. Fundamental to an individual's working-class identification is the desire to "reclaim mastery over work time, the essential component of life time" (Guattari & Negri, 1990, 16).

<7> For the purposes of this essay, if individuals resonate with certain cultural cues, or are negatively impacted by classism, such people will understand "the sense of displacement" and the "complex ambivalent feelings it represents" (Law, 1995, 8). The key to making such a conceptual move is, as Duncan Kennedy notes, to transcend beyond simplistic distinctions between "productive workers" and "idle capitalists." Instead, the "main problem is not how to expropriate the capitalist class, but how to overcome the unjust and unnecessary inequity of power and reward among those who work or want to work, and the patterns of behavior that reinforce and legitimate that inequality generation after generation" (1983, 86). By defining the working-class in as broad of terms as possible, this article encourages readers to recognize their own interests in the issues discussed below and to imagine ways by which gross structural inequality can be abolished. All workers, regardless of their political and cultural identifications, benefit from understanding the history of labor and the current struggles to create a political environment where the human dignity of all workers is respected.

<8> What this paper identifies as working-class theory of power can be contrasted with the imperial use of power as practiced by the United States. Power, from a working-class perspective, is most healthy when used to constitute holistic and inclusive communities, encouraging people to equitably share in the resources of social nurturance (e.g., food, shelter, healthcare, meaningful work). This notion of power is horizontal, flowing among people. Imperial power, on the other hand, is lateral, selective, and exclusionary. Such power is hurtful and constitutive of much social and political disease.

The United States as Empire: A Working-Class Critique

<9> As argued by Susan Owen and Peter Ehrenhaus, contemporary America can be characterized as an empire (1993, 170). This empire can be understood in two senses. The first is the traditional notion of empire as conquest. In American law, conquest became a constitutionally sanctioned method for bestowing property rights when the U.S. Supreme Court formally extinguished the property claims of Native Americans after they had been dispossessed of their land through European colonization (and in many cases exterminated). As explained by the Court in Johnson v. M'Intosh (1823), "Conquest gives a title which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny . . . . The title by conquest is acquired and maintained by force. The conqueror prescribes its limits." In thus reifying as law what had been done in practice, the Court gave legal sanction to further transgressions against the remaining Native American communities. Implicit in this ruling is a policy of judicial non-interference with further expansion of the territorial United States. <10> Such expansion accelerated in the years following the Civil War, in which the U.S. began to grow as a world power. In recent years, this power has been increased and extended to dominate almost every nation on Earth (Parenti, 1995). So pervasive is this power that even staunch supporters of U.S. global influence are beginning to recognize this influence as "imperial" (see Ricks, 2001). The classic expression of U.S. imperial power was articulated in 1898 by Senator Albert J. Beveridge. In his "The March of the Flag" address, Beveridge, an ardent supporter of the annexation of the Philippines, argued that God made the United States "the master organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns . . . He has made us adept in government that we may administer government among savages and senile peoples" (cited in Sloan, 1973, 131). Beveridge's sentiment is alarming. More than one hundred years later, the U.S. government behaves as if this was still foreign policy (as in President Bush's ill-pursued "War on Terrorism"). Such practices (i.e., the projection and manipulations of American power overseas) should be anathema for nations, such as the U.S., which claim justice and equality as definitive ideals. All the great empires of history -- Greek, Roman, Spanish, British, French, Japanese, German, and the like -- were established on the principle that one race, culture, or economic class has the right to conquer and to subject as many other nations as possible.

<11> Although the United States and other historic empires have (or had) the ability to invade and to occupy other nations, each mistook its power for a mandate that was often couched in religious or eugenics language (Hasian, 1996). The use of power in this way is contemptible, and a critical working-class rhetoric must become pedagogical so that U.S. citizens may learn to rue the imperial ambitions of their government. Fundamental to this task is a recognition of the part of themselves that is compliant with imperial ambitions (as does Barthes, 1957, 42).

<12> Until the latter part of the twentieth century, empire was established and maintained through military force and accepted by the colonizer's legal system. The Athenians, Romans, Spanish, Italians, Danish, Portuguese, French, British, and Germans were all at one time expansionist societies, conquering, expropriating, and enslaving much of the world. Currently, however, the world has evolved such that traditional military conquest is difficult to maintain; thus, the world has entered a second phase of empire. Owen and Ehrenhaus refer to this new phase as involving "the intricate orchestration of American cultural, political and economic institutions, and . . . their attendant social practices" (1993, 130). This empire, they argue, is organic -- it is a living, growing, self-conscious force concerned with consumption and expansion. This U.S. empire "has voracious appetites; it thrives by feeding upon those less well positioned in the world, and its perpetuation requires domination over those both within its boundaries and without"(Owen and Ehrenhaus, 1993, 130). Thus, the practice of empire has become less overtly violent; involving, instead, the financial manipulations of economies and the colonization of minds through mass-mediated propaganda and the promotion of consumer escapism -- what Michael Carbone calls "our anti-critical mass culture with its managed information" (1988, 8; also see Carey, 1997). As Owen and Ehrenhaus explain:

American empire accomplishes its hegemony largely through the creation of diversions -- distractions of desire that integrate the individual into the broader constellation of institutional relations: consumer, voter, spectator, patriot, fan, etc. Empire thrives precisely because of the given consent, complicity, and absorption of those upon whom it feeds. (1993, 171)

<13> A similar critique has been articulated by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2001). These theorists view the United States as embodying progressive ideals -- such as the protection of civil liberties -- but they argue that the U.S. fails to enact a democratic society. Instead, America has become a flourishing global empire. Fundamental to this empire is communication, which "not only expresses but also organizes the movement of globalization" (Hardt and Negri, 2001, 32). Symptomatic of this communication is the fragmentation of identity among communities, both domestically and internationally. Such fragmentization is often mistakenly characterized as a symptom of a new vision of the world, captured by the term "postmodernism." A working-class rhetoric is suspicious of this term and recognizes that the postmodern world is little more than a hyper-modern world, a world of "turbo-capitalism" (Luttwak, 13-16). In the words of Ben Agger, "There is absolutely nothing 'post' about the current modernity, which is fundamentally continuous with capitalism from the mid-19th century in the sense that capitalism is characterized by private property, sexism, racism, and the domination of nature" (1990, 6). The so-called postmodern world has reified the worst aspects of capitalism, which no longer faces the restraints of a concerted working-class challenge (Swartz, 1999).

<14> Missing from our contemporary world is the ability of individuals to identify with others for progressive transformation. Because critical transformation is grounded in a communal identification with others, the loss of this identification makes the practice of a working-class rhetoric more difficult. The fact that the critical theory of the Frankfurt school was situated in the context of a communication paradigm (loosely speaking) is not surprising, as the critical persona, communication, and community are all interrelated phenomenon (see Wiggershaus, 1995). Hardt and Antonio are optimistic, however, when they note that "the passage to Empire and its processes of globalization offer new possibilities to the forces of liberation" (2001, xv). A working-class rhetoric must embrace and amplify these new possibilities.

<15> The political left long has dreamed of a pronounced internationalism in which people transcend religious, ethnic, and national boundaries and unite for the cause of the greater human good. Throughout the twentieth century, however, groups of people or nations developed a progressive consciousness independent of other groups or nations, with little coordination between them; thus, most efforts to empower the working-classes have failed (for example, see Elbaum, 2002, 39). Now, with the globalization of empire, a profound homogenization is emerging among nations and people. Thus, if class-consciousness (i.e., a critical class self-identification, however conceptualized) ever reemerges as an important historical force, the emergence of this consciousness will likely be perceived much more uniformly around the world (Smithsimon, 1999). Working-class solidarity will then no longer be subsumed by nationalist identification, as was the case with the Second International during the First World War (Aronson, 1999, 474). In short, with globalization comes the potential for world-wide working-class solidarity and a transcendence above the provincialism of nationality and the territoriality such nationality fosters.

<16> In resisting American corporate values and practices, a working-class rhetoric urges people globally to rethink culture and the importance of a healthy community. An example of this is the Slow Food Movement, an organization with chapters in 55 nations with more than 65,000 members. The Slow Food Movement emphasizes local and decentralized conservation advocacy with the aim of making food more healthy for people and for the environment (Chadwick, 2002). In pursuit of such social goals, the task of a working-class rhetoric and criticism is to respond to empire -- to demystify empire -- and to denounce the definition of life imposed by empire. Once the definitions of empire have been rejected, they may be replaced by others (Ture and Hamilton, 1992, 35). The Slow Food Movement is simply one contemporary illustration of the politics of definition. To this end, a working-class rhetoric offers a notion of power that is constitutive of community.

Power As Constitutive of Community

<17> Central to a working-class rhetoric is the belief that the mere possession of great power is, by itself, not enough to justify the tremendous suffering caused in its acquisition. Power is not inherently virtuous (and power is not inherently corruptive, either). What matters most is how power is collected and utilized, how power becomes expressed in the construction of human life. As Andrew King urges, power must "be exercised humbly and responsibly rather than arrogantly" (1987, 107). To dignify the use of irresponsible, hurtful, and self-serving power with the term "progress" (as expressed in late nineteenth and early twentieth century industrial and corporate narratives) is to betray fundamentally both language and morality.

<18> After acquiring great power, people face a choice. First, people can pursue power to the limits of power's telos -- sweeping aside peace and community to satisfy their own greed (industrial militarism is one example). To pursue this goal is to succumb to power as a disease, a corruption of nature. With such power, humans violate the natural world (i.e., the world of brute phenomena) as concretely as they violate the conditions of their humanity: the people who wield such power fail to recognize that humans are a part of nature. Humans live in the world, as part of the world, and not above the world (Seattle, 2000). To utilize power in the corruption of life is to deem oneself a demigod, to remove oneself from the nurturing fluids of consubstantial human interaction. Demigods have no need for the love and understanding that arises through shared suffering and the moral bonds of community that such suffering creates. While all humans suffer, concerted group effort can alleviate much of this suffering. But in order to do so, the root cause of suffering must be addressed, and that cause is the structuralization of poverty (Zinn, 1990). Demigods remain above such suffering, often contributing to the perpetuation of suffering. Such people reify Friedrich Nietzsche's erroneous claim that no "act of violence, rape, exploitation, destruction, is intrinsically 'unjust,' since life itself is violent, rapacious, exploitative, and destructive and cannot be conceived otherwise" (1956, 208).

<19> Power, however, can be utilized in a different manner than the one evoked by Nietzsche. As opposed to the brute flexing of power, people can learn to express power in a more nuanced, feminized (i.e., naturalized) fashion -- as a method for bringing forth and nurturing life, as unconditional love, as conciliation, as integration of diversity, as rejection of machismo and moral vice. This working-class power is a diffused force, resisting concentration -- resisting the urge to consume. Such power is restrained in its punitive capacities, self-questioning -- tempered by its effects and wise to past abuses. The nature of such power is to flow -- to never rest long in any individual hand -- moving as air between communities, expanding human potential. Power conceived in this way is not monolithic: power ebbs and flows with the conditions of life, lessens as human dignity is smothered, and becomes revived and strengthened with the individual liberation of every person's unique potential. Use of such power affirms life and is affirmed by life. Such power is, as Andrew King observes, reciprocal and "must be exercised according to the nature and situation of 'the other'" (1987, 22).

<20> The wielders of such power meld back into humanity rather than become elevated above their fellow humans. This use of power rejects a fundamental misconception popularized by Nietzsche when he asserts that it is foolish to "expect that strength will not manifest itself as strength" (1956, 178). For Nietzsche, strength is conceptualized as an urge and as an expression of conquest; only what Nietzsche calls "the snarl of language" (i.e., ethics) obfuscates this fundamental point for most people (1956, 178). In contrast to Nietzsche, a working-class rhetoric does expect that strength temper itself. The history of humanity has not been exclusively that of master and slave -- other relationships have been enacted (as in many traditional Native American cultures). Power may be seen not as a triumph but as a transformation. Sunlight does not triumph over the cold and darkness; rather the cold and darkness become transformed by the sunlight. Furthermore, in contrast to Nietzsche, strength does not need enemies, as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., have demonstrated. Strength grows through support, through reaching out, through the unleashing of potential.

<21> By positioning justice as the misguided attempt of the weak to transform intellectually their suffering into virtue, Nietzsche's view belittles and cripples what this paper calls the human will to justice. This will to justice is nothing more than a respect for life and for the system of nature containing life. Although this system itself contains violence and struggle, this strife is part of a much larger ecology -- the highest expression of which is a profound harmony. The power animating the universe, while destructive at times in the cyclical ebb and flow of time and space, is fundamentally grounded in balance. Justice, therefore, cannot be a regression, as Nietzsche suggests (1956, 155). Justice is that which ensures harmony and balances different forces and is thus the parallel of life itself.

<22> In sum, power expressed to the ends of its telos is power that is soon expended. Power expends itself when ungrounded from its fundamental source -- the conditions of nature and the expression of that nature in human industry (i.e., productive labor). Such power, in expending itself and the life sustained through power, is fundamentally corrupt. The Christian conceptionalization of such corruption is "evil." Transplanted from a Christian vocabulary to my own, evil can be said to exist in the wielding of concentrated power -- power that consumes voraciously rather than creates sustainable, fair, holistic, and interdependent communities.

PART II: CHALLENGING U.S. EXCEPTIONALISM

<23> As suggested above, the United States often exemplifies the type of power that is antithetical to the construction of humane, inclusive, and equitable community life. An important reason why the United States has attained this type of deleterious power stems from the fact that the emergence of U.S. power has not been successfully humanized and tempered by organized labor. This condition can be challenged with a working-class rhetoric, so the United States can join with the other industrialized nations in allowing the working-class to help determine the conditions of work for the benefit of the entire society. For this reason, developing a stronger labor consciousness in the United States is an essential precondition for the transformation of U.S. society. While this development does not preclude other possible routes to a progressive future, the history of the twentieth century, and the dire world-wide conditions at the start of the twenty-first century (i.e., the collapse of socialism and social democracy and the growth of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization), make it difficult to imagine progressive social change without such working-class consciousness and unifying discourse.

<24> U.S. exceptionalism, which continues to be a condition of contemporary life, involves the failure of U.S. society to develop a viable labor party. Related to this point is the idea that the concerns of labor are unimportant in normative political deliberation. Throughout the industrialized world, the acceptance of organized labor in national economic and social planning has led to substantial and positive effect on the lives of millions of workers and has contributed to a more humane society in nations where labor is treated with dignity. France, for instance, initiated a 35 hour work week in 1998-1999 as a result of the efforts of organized labor (Jefferys, 2000). Measured in benefits, security, and the length of the work week, the conditions of labor throughout much of Western Europe are better than that of the majority of U.S. workers (Bennett, 1994; Lindgren, 1997; Macalister, 1998; Riley, 1999; and "Opinion," 1999).

<25> The alienation of U.S. labor stems, in large part, from the post-Civil War drive for industrialization. Leading this drive were important industrialists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, such as J.P. Morgan, Jay Gould, Jim Fisk, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller, who asserted themselves as a powerful class in national politics (Bead, 1983, 96). They would be followed by entrepreneurs such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, John Paul Getty, and Leland Stanford. Collectively, this group of people (the historical "robber barons") comprised the unofficial but powerful aristocracy of the U.S. Through their manipulations -- which Lee Artz and Bren Ortega Murphy describe as "bribery, deceit, and terror" (2000, 240) -- these men achieved a heightened degree of power, privilege and luxury.

<26> Decisions made by these industrialists helped forge an antagonistic relationship between industry and labor that worked to the detriment of labor and to the suffering of millions of workers and their families. One dimension of their power was their ability to harness the armed force of the state and the legal system to suppress collective action by the working-class as a method for advancing labor's inclusion in the national community. As Dianne Avery observes, "Economic harm became blurred with physical harm; peaceful economic coercion became synomous with coercion through violence. The talk of violence both masked and revealed the judges' real fears: fears of great union strength and autonomy, of class warfare, of anarchy, of loss of control, of change" (1988, 12). In destroying the capacity of labor to engage in collective action, the government confiscated the only effective tool that labor had to achieve concrete results. As discussed below, the case of In re Debs (1895) exemplifies this phenomenon.

IN RE DEBS AND THE CHALLENGE OF A WORKING CLASS RHETORIC

<27> In 1893, a particularly strong recession swept the nation and business at the Pullman factory plummeted. Pullman compensated by firing 4,000 of his 6,000 workers, who immediately lost their living quarters (Leyendecker, 1994, 229); the remaining workers had their wages cut by 30% (Zinn, 1980, 274). In the face of these pay cuts, there was no equivalent cut in rent for company housing or utilities. Attempts by the workers to arbitrate the issue with Pullman were met with stern refusal: "There is nothing to arbitrate," Pullman declared (Dubofksy and Dulles, 1999, 160).

<28> Representatives from the Pullman workers went to the annual meeting of the American Railway Union (ARU) to enlist its support. Eugene Debs, founder and leader of the ARU, had recently achieved a victory against the Great Northern Railroad, and so the Pullman workers approached Debs with anticipation and hope. After some debate and emotional argument, the Pullman workers succeeded in receiving support from the ARU. Initially, the ARU was careful to boycott only trains carrying Pullman cars. This was a strategic and well-calculated plan, as Debs clearly comprehended that big industry -- in particular, the railroads -- enjoyed the political and military support of the federal government and that political counter-pressure was the only effective way to initiate change. This approach also reflected Debs' philosophical commitment to electoral politics, since he "disagreed strenuously" with labor organizations which repudiated "political activity" and engaged in violence and industrial sabotage (Rabban, 1994, 1065).

<29> Pullman understood Debs' strategy and ordered his cars attached to a variety of different trains -- particularly to those carrying the U.S. mail -- to frustrate Deb's plan, forcing the ARU to either give up the strike or to intensify the strike's effect. The ARU reluctantly chose the latter, causing two-thirds of the U.S. railroads to become mired in the strike. By causing the strike to expand (and the mail to halt), Pullman successfully federalized the strike, creating a pretext for the U.S. government to intervene, which it did -- violently. The government marshaled 14,000 state and federal soldiers against the strikers, killing 35 workers (Zinn, 1980, 275). The U.S. Supreme Court, in In re Debs, sanctioned such violence:

The entire strength of the nation may be used to enforce in any part of the land the full and free exercise of all national powers and the security of all rights entrusted by the constitution to its care. The strong arm of the national government may be put forth to brush away all obstructions to the freedom of interstate commerce or the transportation of the mails. If the emergency arises, the army of the nation, and all of its militia, are at the service of the nation, to compel obedience to its laws. (582)

<30> The irony is patent. Debs, in coordinating the ARU, worked hard to avoid violence (as well as violent rhetoric), and to be conscientious of federal interests. Furthermore, Debs "consistently counseled moderation and restraint" and warned the strikers to respect railroad property (Dubofsky and Dulles, 1994, 162). Debs' rhetoric and method of effectuating social change was, in the short term, to withhold labor and, in the long term, to build a popular labor political party (he helped form the Socialist Party of America in 1901). From the point of view of the progressive community committed to social justice implicit in a working-class rhetoric, the government's violence in suppressing the strike was unnecessary, as the strike was essentially peaceful before the federal government interfered. Furthermore, Governor Altgeld, who had constitutional authority to resolve the conflict, opposed federal interference. In a letter Altgeld sent to President Grover Cleveland, he explained, "At present some of our railroads are paralyzed, not by reasons of obstruction, but because they cannot get men to operate their trains . . . As Governor of the State of Illinois, I ask the immediate withdrawal of Federal troops from active duty in this State" (Dubofsky and Dulles, 1994, 162). Along with the mayors of 50 U.S. cities, Altgeld urged Pullman to address the concerns raised by the workers (Leyendecker, 1994, 226.)

<31> Aside from the military suppression of the strike, the federal government also unleashed a series of legal assaults against the ARU. As many as 400 union members were arrested, including Debs (Dubofsky and Dulles, 1994, 164). The federal government charged Debs and other leaders of the union with conspiracy -- in this case, conspiracy to violate the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. Although the Sherman Act was created to break up business monopolies, most Americans do not realize that the Act was enforced against labor unions years before it was enforced against business trusts (Avery, 1988, 53-54). The Bill of Indictment positioned the defendants as follows:

In the month of May, 1894, there arose a difference or dispute between the Pullman Palace Car Company and its employees, as the result of which a considerable portion of the latter left the service of the car company; that thereafter the four officers of the railway union combined together, and with others, to compel an adjustment of such dispute, by creating a boycott against the cars of the car company; that, to make such boycott effective, the railroads running out of Chicago [were prevented] from operating their trains, and were coming to extend such boycott against Pullman sleeping cars by causing strikes among employees of all railroads attempting to haul the same. (In re Debs, 567)

<32> To suppress such conspiracy, the judiciary issued an injunction precluding Debs from discussing or coordinating the strike. Debs violated this legal command and was jailed on contempt charges. The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and gave constitutional sanction to labor injunctions as a potent weapon of class warfare. From "then on," notes Lawrence M. Friedman, "the injunction, in the hands of a strong-minded judge, was a mighty adversary that organized labor had to reckon with. The injunction was swift, and it could be murderously inclusive -- broad enough in its contours to cover a total situation, outlawing every aspect of a strike and effectively crushing it" (1985, 557).

<33> The severity of the federal reaction to this and to other strikes, including contemporary strikes, begs an inquiry into the federal interest at stake in these issues by proponents of a working-class rhetoric. In the following subsections, three such interests -- protection of the mail, protection of commerce, and resistance to social reform and political dissent -- are articulated and evaluated.

<34> Protection of the Mail. The first federal interest discerned in the Pullman Strike is the responsibility of the government to run and to regulate the postal service. This interest is articulated by the Constitution, as noted by the Court: "Among the powers expressly given to the national government [in Article 1, section 8 of the Federal Constitution] are the control of interstate commerce and the creation and management of a post-office system for the nation" (In re Debs, 579). Ostensibly, President Cleveland took this mandate so seriously that, in ordering the military suppression of the strike, he declared: "If it takes every dollar in the Treasury and every soldier in the United States to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that postal card should be delivered" (cited in Dubofsky and Dulles, 1994, 163).

<35> Such interest, however, does not provide a morally satisfactory justification for violently repressing the Pullman strike. Mail is an expression of community, communication, and social bonding. Only when mail fulfills these roles does the mail system attain its utility. By itself, mail -- or, indeed, government -- is undeserving of respect, as both gain importance only in the context of community. What matters is the health of that community and the actions of individuals to cultivate and to support that health. To respect the artifacts of community (such as its civic, political, and industrial institutions) while ignoring the substance of human life within that community, is to ignore the most essential value that underlies democratic society -- substantive equality.

<36> Furthermore, in the context of this and other labor disputes, the community itself has broken down. The proper government response to such a situation is to reconstruct the health of the community. Consider the following analogy. If weak foundations cause a structure to collapse, the strengthening of that foundation is needed before a new structure can be erected. As in this analogy, security for a community is derived from the internal strength of the community constituting the structure, and not from the superficial reinforcement of an untenable social reality. This logic applies more generally to the social construction of property and crime. As Howard Zinn notes:

[The] huge proportion of poor people in jail for crimes against property suggests that prisons are inevitable counterparts of banks. And so long as we have a system that breeds fierce and unequal competition for scarce resources . . . some steel bars will be needed to protect money, and others to confine human beings. (1997, 446).

<37> The government's responsibility is to reduce class antagonism by encouraging mediation and compromise between industry and labor, and between the wealthy and the poor. As argued in the final section of this essay, the construction of community involves an inclusive political vision of a society that is both just and fair. By elevating a communication form (in this case, the mail) over the living text of a people (or to elevate wealth over the text of living community), the federal government misread the source of a nation's strength: A nation is only as strong as the communities of which it is composed. A society that privileges material wealth over community strength will cease to function as a society and will decay into oligarchy, as is suggested by Zinn above.

<38> Protection of Commerce. The second government interest at stake concerned the government's fear that a disruption in the rail service would adversely effect the health of commerce. Similar to the Constitutional authority for the government's regulation of the mail, Congress has express authorization from the Constitution to exclusively regulate interstate commerce (Article I, Section 8). Given that Chicago was the choke point of the national railroad system in which 24 railroads converged, a major strike in that city threatened the national distribution of goods (Papke, 1994, 343). Such a strike, therefore, would constitute an unlawful usurping of powers vested in Congress, to the detriment of the entire nation. As argued by the government prosecutor:

By reason of said unlawful combination and conspiracy and the acts and doings aforesaid thereunder, the supply of coal and fuel for consumption throughout the different states of the Union, and of grain, breadstuffs, vegetables, fruits, meats, and other necessaries of life, has been cut off, interrupted, and interfered with, and the market therefore made largely unavailable, and dealers in all of said various products and the consumers thereof have been greatly injured, and trade and commerce therein among the states has been restrained, obstructed, and largely destroyed. (In re Debs, 570)

<39> This government interest is suspicious for a number of reasons. In the most general sense, the purpose of any strike is to highlight the value of labor, raise wages, and improve working conditions. The more that society recognizes that, at its core, there exists a fundamental dependence among all its members, the more likely the intrinsic value of labor will be recognized by that society. This is a fundamental market principle: Labor is paid according to market worth. Strikes, in effect, are a way of determining the market worth of an industry. If a strike by railroad employees cripples the nation, that is an indication that these workers are undervalued. Recognizing the value of workers removes the disruption and ensures the future well-being of the system.

<40> More specifically, the asserted interest of the federal government is disingenuous. The strike, in this instance, was focused solely on Pullman's luxury sleeping cars and did not target the federal mail, nor did the strike target produce transports or any other perishable goods. The record clearly indicates that Debs and his union did not intend to paralyze the country, destroy the economy, or overthrow the government. The strike, nevertheless, was positioned by the mass media as subversive. With hyperbole characteristic of the yellow press of the day, the New York World declared that the strike was "a war against the government and against society" (quoted in Dubofsky and Dulles, 1994, 160).

<41> In short, there is a strong sense in which the response of the federal government was disproportionate to its interest. Although the federal government has a clear role to play in assuring social order and tranquility, this same government has an even more pressing responsibility to act on behalf of the common good of all of its citizens, not merely for the privileged few who control influential industries. Why, for instance, was Pullman, who attached his luxury cars to regular freight cars (including the mail cars), without blame? Why was Pullman not punished for refusing to negotiate with his employees or for exacerbating employee discontent to prolong the strike? Finally, why, in light of the fact that the U.S. Attorney General who coordinated the military suppression of the strike was himself a former corporate attorney for the railroad industry and a personal friend of many railroad owners, were Pullman and his agents not culpable for their undemocratic influence that militarized the conflict and, thereby, ensured an outbreak of violence?

<42> Resistance to Social Reform and Political Dissent. The third government interest is more revealing of the government's motivation for crushing the striking workers and for imprisoning its leaders and hundreds of the rank-and-file members. The federal government has a longstanding interest in preventing popular democratic activism -- activism not controlled or contained by either of the two political parties in this country. When such activism (such as the street democracy prevalent in the 1960s) falls outside the control of elite power, this expression of politics is declared contrary to "ordered liberty" and Constitutionalism. This interest explains why social movements that attempt to expand the notion of community and political enfranchisement in the United States, no matter how patriotic or just, usually meet with substantial resistance from the establishment (see Gelbspam, 1991; Seale, 1991; and Swartz, 1996).

<43> In upholding the power of the federal government to imprison Debs and other union members, the Supreme Court preached a "lesson" to the defendants and to the larger working community. With these remarks, the Court crystallized the establishment's fear of grassroots political change:

It is a lesson which cannot be learned too soon or too thoroughly that under this government of and by the people the means of redress of all wrongs are through the courts and at the ballot box, and that no wrong, real or fancied, carries with it legal warrant to invite as a means of redress the co-operation of a mob, with its accompanying acts of violence. (In re Debs, 599)

<44> Under this rationale, the civil rights movement, as well as most other progressive social movements in the United States, would be rendered illegitimate, as their mere existence would have been considered a "mob" threatening "democratic" processes. By rendering the "mob" undemocratic, the Court is alienating the expression of "we, the people" (the vast bulk of the U.S. population that has never been part of the governing economic elite, and in whose interest such government seldom acts). For example, the North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University students who demonstrated on February 1, 1960, for integration at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, N.C. -- sparking similar protests around the country -- would have laughed at the Court for asserting that the redressing of social wrongs must be accomplished at the ballot box or before the judiciary. These students knew better. If struggling people in the United States are to depend on judges and voting alone to improve the conditions of their lives, this society would be vastly more impoverished. This has been the experience of labor. For decades before labor grew militant, workers petitioned both the judiciary and the legislature for relief and received little if any redress to their concerns. Therefore, there is little reason to assume that, absent the threat of mass civil disobedience, the government and the judiciary will act on behalf of labor and the poor in the future.

<45> In addition to a profound resistance to popular political organization outside of systemic Constitutional channels, the government, through 1969 (i.e., Brandenburg v. Ohio), expressed a consistent interest in punishing speech that rejected government policy or encouraged others to critically examine government motives. This resistance can be traced to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1801 and to the fear by the Federalist Party of domestic support for the French Revolution. Although the Alien and Sedition Acts only existed for a few years, such laws mushroomed in the United States from the Civil War period onward (for example, the Federal Espionage Act of 1917). Of course, prior to the Civil War, there was no First Amendment protection for slaves or anyone who spoke out against slavery. Southern legislatures frequently passed death sentences on Northern abolitionists and made possession of abolitionist literature a capital offense.

<46> Many of the laws against criminal syndicalism identified "anarchism" as the ideology to be outlawed; in practice, however, the statutes were intended to suppress most dissent; as other labor groups supplanted anarchism in the late nineteenth century, these laws were applied to them. Throughout this period, large newspaper chains experienced little government harassment because they often parroted the views of the economic and ruling elite. On the other hand, when normal individuals sought to express alternative views that violated the state's sense of security or threatened established interests, they were routinely silenced (Sexton, 1991, 135-136).

THE IMPORTANCE OF EQUITY IN LABOR RELATIONS

<47> As indicated throughout this essay, the history of U.S. labor centers on the struggle for an equitable distribution of wealth and power between the working classes and the economic elite (Zinn, 1980). In principle, democratic culture demands equity among citizens and does not privilege private property above all other values. As Martin Luther King, Jr., observed, "Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on; it is not man" (1967, 56). Equity, however, does not mean a forced equality that ignores individual strengths and weaknesses, as all citizens are not similarly situated in terms of motivation, intelligence, moral character, or physical stamina. Equity must not be equated with a crude social leveling. The goal of a progressive society is not to make everyone poor; rather, the goal of a progressive society is to provide for the basic material and cultural needs of all that society's citizens and allow them the intellectual freedom to explore, reorganize, critique, and debate (Dorfman, 1989, 146).

<48> At the most fundamental level, equity involves a profound social commitment to the human community. A person's lack of wealth is as irrelevant to that person's status as a human being as is that person's sexuality or ethnic identifications. The individual human should be respected, and that respect should be unconditional. The hostility toward the wealthy expressed in some working-class communities should not be taken as a sign of disrespect for individuals who happen to be rich. The term "the wealthy" is an abstraction, as is the term "the poor." But beneath the abstraction is a reality situated (although imperfectly) along structural class lines. Working-class hostility is directed toward the existence of these lines and not to individuals who occupy a particular status within an unjust system.

<49> Under the paradigm of the working-class rhetoric advanced in this essay, class distinctions should be viewed -- along with racial, religious, cultural, and gender distinctions -- as regrettable symbolic provincialities that interfere with the creation of a just social world for all humans (hence, this article's reluctance to reify a definition of the working-class). All people are fundamentally the same, as all other species of animals are fundamentally the same among members of their classification. Thus, the working-class should reject all metaphysical assumptions of the inherent importance of any exclusive community and work toward creating a society grounded in pragmatic assumptions of solidarity, cooperation, kindness, and reciprocity. In other words, for sustained progressive change to occur in the United States, a practical sense of hope must be forged. Social and economic justice are not inevitable. Moral evolution is seldom driven by top-down initiative. When such evolution occurs, the driving force of change is usually the result of community vision and mass struggle. By definition, such vision is grounded in hope. With hope, vision achieves its strength in the ability of individuals to imagine a better life; this imagination, subsequently, becomes the blueprint for progressive change.

<50> Social hope can assume many forms. In the past, organized labor attempted to create and to communicate the possibility for hope. In so doing, labor founded an inspiring tradition grounded in the solidarity of the working-classes. An important lesson from this tradition is that popular resistance to inequality is necessary. This resistance can take many forms, including that of communication. As Eric Eisenberg notes, "the most critical function of communication is transformation, or the capacity to suggest new possibilities for individuals to be together" (1998, 100). Such resistance, however, should not be reduced to communication because it often assumes other forms. As Peter Kropotkin once noted, "Without the menace contained in . . . revolts, no serious concession has ever been wrung by the people from the governing classes. Without such risings, the social mind was never able to get rid of its deep-rooted prejudices, not to embolden itself sufficiently to conceive hope" (1995, 103).

<51> My unqualified commitment to -- and respect for -- the individual human acknowledges that among all classes of people there is a fundamental interdependence (which, admittedly, becomes obscured when struggle and resistance is exemplified militarily). This interdependence is an essential nutrient for the health of collective life and represents an important normative value in progressive politics. Out of respect for the fundamental co-dependence of all humans, the different social classes strive to provide each other the necessities for a life of dignity. No single class of people can survive independent of all other classes. Human potential is dependent upon cultural diversity for its realization; human beings blossom only in the context of other humans. Thus framed, class cooperation is the topos of the economic vision advocated by a working-class rhetoric. This vision is offered to replace the antagonistic "class warfare" model of economic relations now practiced on a global level. Thus, as Amardo Rodriguez argues, the new goal is "to foster human relations that engender empathy, cooperation, diversity, and equality" (2001, 108).

<52> Under this new model of political economy, industry can continue to organize for the production of social goods, and important incentives remain for motivated people to amass a comfortable level of useful wealth (as opposed to superfluous wealth). This distinction is pragmatic, not metaphysical. Wealth should be used to reduce human suffering in the world. When squandered on decadence, wealth doubly harms the under-resourced. Usable wealth is wealth that people utilize to secure necessary items such as food, shelter, health care, clothing, as well as some modest material comforts. Superfluous wealth, on the other hand, is wealth wasted on "conspicuous consumption" (Veblen, 1998) -- such as multi-million dollar celebrity weddings, multi-million dollar bonuses for corporate officers, or houses valued at tens of millions of dollars -- all of which insult the dignity of the working-class and highlight the moral poverty of the non-working-class elite.

<53> While our current system allows people to make these types of consumptive and wasteful choices, there is no necessary reason to do so. Part of the current malaise in U.S. society is that Americans are more offended by restricting the opportunities of the affluent in how they spend their money than they are offended by the condition and suffering of the poor (for example, the repeal of the Estate Tax and tax breaks for the super-wealthy). In contrast, the economic model that a working-class rhetoric supports provides for an equitable distribution of society's wealth and opportunities (c.f., Feldstein, 1999, who argues that the increase of wealth for the wealthy is not at the expense of the poor, and is therefore justified). When this economic change occurs, the class tensions that plague the current economic arena will be recast into relationships of mutuality. Relationships of mutuality recognize the fundamental consubstantiality of all human beings (Burke, 1969a, 1969b). Such relationships can help mediate the effects of the arbitrary -- yet inevitable -- symbolism that divides human communities. In mediating such effects, relationships of mutuality deny U.S. elites a rationalization for structural inequality.

<54> Within relationships of mutuality, the working class will continue to produce good and services, as this is their important contribution to society. However, management and owners -- rather than hoarding that wealth for themselves -- will invest that wealth back into the well-being of the workers, their families, and their communities. This act constitutes industries' essential contribution to society. As articulated by John J. Maresca:

[T]oday a business can no longer be seen as a creator of wealth solely for its owners. The role of business as a creator of wealth is broader than that. Business is the principal engine for generating wealth for society as a whole -- for the entrepreneur and the owners, but also for the employees who must receive fair salaries, for the community which receives tax revenues to fund schools and other public institutions, and for suppliers and sales organization and their employees up and down the business stream. (2000, 161)

<55> Under the working-class industrial model proposed here, the concerns of labor are essential for management, as the health of the industrial enterprise would be correlated to worker satisfaction. If the producers themselves are not satisfied, the production process becomes a sham and the objects produced cease to be a societal benefit. No product, no matter how necessary, can be considered a benefit if the method of production offer no quality of life to the producer -- the historical nexus of sugar and slavery is a paradigmatic example (see Dunn and Nash, 2000). Labor that does not affirm humans and, instead, reduces them to objects for manipulation, is a form of oppression. Humans labor to live and to construct community; they do not live to labor for the sole gain of another.

<56> Under a system of equity in which mutuality of relationships is established, industry would still be encouraged to generate "profit," but the profit generated would be socially focused. Because society supports the conditions for industrial wealth, the profit from such enterprise properly belongs to society. Managers and owners are merely stewards of this wealth. While such classes are entitled to compensation for this responsibility, their fundamental duty is to channel their power toward ends supportive of society that makes their enterprise possible (note: the officials responsible for the economic rape of Enron employees and other pensioners graphically represent the corporatism and greed that a mutuality of relationship perspective is intended to combat).

<57> The end result of this system is a more just society, marked by increased citizen satisfaction and overall productivity. Historically, labor unions have worked (however imperfectly) toward such a vision. As Richard Rorty notes, at "their best, labour unions are America at its best. Like the civil rights movement, the union movement is a model of Americans getting together on their own and changing society from the bottom up -- forcing society to become more decent, more democratic and more humane" (1999, 256).

<58> Under the equity model of labor relations, the greatest countries would not be those that create concentrated wealth, but the societies in which the most low-level workers are guaranteed that their economic and social needs are firmly met. This move is not intended to turn paupers into princes, but to construct a world in which neither extreme is acceptable. Without such guarantees of economic equality, without economic justice, the protections of political equality that U.S. citizens respect are not secure; in fact, much of this political equality has been steadily eroding as the public realm becomes increasingly subjected to unrestrained market forces and the concurrent growth of economic disparity (Bruner, 2002). For instance, few Americans are aware of the fact that large amounts of U.S. political autonomy were turned over to the agents of globalization (Brunner, 2002, 30). The loss of such autonomy threatens the rights and privileges that the U.S. government is supposed to secure for its citizens.

<59> Critics of the equity model might argue that being rich is inherently virtuous, and that free markets can help the entrepreneur become wealthy; the entrepreneur, in turn, spreads the wealth (hence the idiom, "The rising tide raises all boats"). Yet, while tremendous wealth has been generated by free markets, this wealth -- with few exceptions -- creates social problems like immorality, gluttony, depletion of vital resources, social isolation, and cultural callousness. Moreover, the wealth generated by world markets has not been rationally or fairly distributed. Simply, markets make few rich and most poor. As of 2002, for example, the developing nations had a total debt of approximately $2.5 trillion (Sharma and Kumar, 2002, 45). A few people in the developing world have become billionaires, but their wealth does little to uplift the conditions of their impoverished co-patriots. Thus, the market's focus on the material wealth of a select group misses a fundamental point about humans and their needs. Meaningful wealth comes not from BMWs, diamond rings, or nuclear arsenals but from healthy bodies and healthy spirits and from communities that are uplifting and dignifying -- meeting human needs for love, inclusion, self-fulfillment, and joy (Goldman, 1969, 55). Karl Marx may have been wrong about many things, but he was correct in warning that people should not mistake money for life.

CONCLUSION

<60> While individuals clearly have agency, politics occurs mainly at the level of the collective. Each individual is too weak and is often distracted by self-serving pressures to work for the common good. Moreover, powerful industrialists continue to attain political and economic power because of institutionalized norms and policies (i.e., the socio-legal foundations of laissez-faire capitalism and neo-liberalism). These policies allow the rich to sacrifice humanistic values (such as those allowing for the dignity, healthy, and security of the laboring classes). Because of this, a working-class rhetoric does not recognize these industrialists -- or many of their modern corporate counterparts, such as Nike -- as appropriate models for producing wealth. Simply, the United States needs to enact a different morality and different economic values; fundamental to this task is repudiating -- not excusing -- the harmful practices of the past. Americans need to recognize that wealth should not be treated as an end in itself. How wealth is created and used is more important than its mere existence. If this were not true, there would be less ground upon which to repudiate Western slavery (which produced immense wealth for a few individuals while perpetrating generations of horrors against people from Africa).

<61> A working-class rhetoric privileges the collective agency of labor and the poor (the people with the least amount of normative power in society) because, through their suffering, they are more likely than the rich to visualize a different world, one inspired by a sense of caring and compassion (i.e., the "will to justice"). While a working-class rhetoric does not equate poverty with nobility, it does invest the disadvantaged with the potential to enact progressive social change under certain circumstances, and actively works toward the creation of these circumstances. The twentieth century has shown that disfranchised people can unite to rework the fundamental social relationships that underlie society (Wolf, 1999). The potential of the working-class to offer new ways of conceptualizing human value is not self-evident, but is dependent upon education, organization, as well as a desire to reject the economic and social paradigms that contribute to their marginalization (the idea is to break the cycle of oppression wherein the victims in one era become the perpetrators of injustice in future periods). Where the wealth of the rich often blinds them from the nature of human needs, the underprivileged are painfully aware of such needs and must keep those needs in focus so as to not emulate the rich or to allow themselves to become corrupt (as so often is the case) when their socioeconomic and political positions improve.

<62> Finally, fundamental to the notion of a working-class rhetoric articulated in this essay is the equity model of labor relations. The U.S. system of property works best when everyone has some property, and the system works least effectively when a handful of people control most of the property. The underlying theory behind private property is that people will do their best work with pride and feel integrated into the community when they have the right of sole possession over some resource that cannot be taken from them (Blackstone, 1979). The flip side of this assumption is that when people have no property, they have no investment in their community or in their occupation and thus have no reason to do their best work or to invest emotional capital into their surroundings. Under the current system, people without property are alienated, and when millions of such people exist, societies become destabilized, the rich fearful, and governments more punitive in an effort to further entrench the privileges of the aristocracy against the claim of the poor for an equitable share of society's wealth.

<63> When property is highly centralized a monopoly condition exists, stifling competition, dampening initiative, and destroying the purifying elements of a more inclusive market economy. Simply, so-called "free market" economies are not free (Bruner, 2002, 27). In the face of accumulated economic power and the private rules established by the strongest players, free markets exclude more than they include. Free markets are only free in the sense that rational humanistic control over them has been extinguished. An equity model of economics is intended to introduce rational and humanistic control over the economy. Achieving this equity has been a dominant thrust behind much labor organization in this country and animates the desire of the working-class to speak with an impassioned voice. Working toward this equity is as important today as this work has been for the past one hundred and fifty years; the barriers to achieving such equity are as real today as they have been previously.

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