Running Steel, Running America: Race, Economic Policy, and the Decline of Liberalism by Judith Stein

From the Publisher

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a provocative revision of postwar American history, she argues that it was the primacy of foreign commitments and the outdated economic policies of the state, more than the nation's racial conflicts, that transformed American liberalism from the powerful progressivism of the New Deal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.

Library Journal

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

What People Are Saying

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

Product Details

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Table of Contents