"This led me to understand that trade unionism, the instrument of working-class liberation and of social change could, and indeed should, be also an instrument of industrial progress"
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Jouhaux is trying to pry the labor movement loose from a romantic self-image: the union as a battering ram against capital, full stop. The line turns on a strategic pivot - “could, and indeed should” - a moral upgrade that smuggles in a practical bargain. If trade unionism is truly an “instrument” of liberation, he argues, it can’t afford to be merely oppositional; it must also be constructive, a force that organizes production rather than only resisting its abuses. That’s not a retreat from class politics so much as a bid to redefine power: influence inside the machinery, not just pressure from outside it.
The subtext is defensive and forward-looking at once. In early 20th-century Europe, unions were constantly framed as saboteurs of growth and stability, a charge that became sharper after World War I when reconstruction, inflation, and political radicalization made “order” a fetish of governments and employers. Jouhaux, a French trade-union leader who later won the Nobel Peace Prize, is positioning labor as a legitimate co-author of modernity: capable of boosting productivity, rationalizing industry, and keeping democracy from tipping into either authoritarian “stability” or revolutionary rupture.
“Industrial progress” is doing heavy rhetorical lifting. It’s a reassurance to the middle that unions won’t tank the economy, and a message to workers that progress shouldn’t be something done to them by managers and technocrats. The intent is coalition-building: protect class interests while claiming stewardship over national prosperity, turning the union into a civic institution rather than a permanent insurgency.
The subtext is defensive and forward-looking at once. In early 20th-century Europe, unions were constantly framed as saboteurs of growth and stability, a charge that became sharper after World War I when reconstruction, inflation, and political radicalization made “order” a fetish of governments and employers. Jouhaux, a French trade-union leader who later won the Nobel Peace Prize, is positioning labor as a legitimate co-author of modernity: capable of boosting productivity, rationalizing industry, and keeping democracy from tipping into either authoritarian “stability” or revolutionary rupture.
“Industrial progress” is doing heavy rhetorical lifting. It’s a reassurance to the middle that unions won’t tank the economy, and a message to workers that progress shouldn’t be something done to them by managers and technocrats. The intent is coalition-building: protect class interests while claiming stewardship over national prosperity, turning the union into a civic institution rather than a permanent insurgency.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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