Agathangelou, Power and the Law, and Labor

Hey all,

Today I was working on history research and I was reminded of our class discussion on Agathangelou.  I didn’t get the chance to read Agathangelou’s piece, but I remember discussing how oppressed groups might desire power within an oppressive system, leading them to endorse laws that enact “revenge.”  This revenge is the only way for them to feel power, and in a way it is a distraction by the ruling class, which will grant them some legal rights to revenge, instead of sweeping reform that eliminates the need for those types of laws.

My history research is on anti-labor violence in the early twentieth century, and in researching this I came across a parallel idea.  In the Introduction to the book The Day Wall Street Exploded, about the 1920 bombing of Wall Street, Beverly Gage writes, “As late as the early 1930s, the significance of ‘class violence’ in shping the nation’s economic and political development seemed self-evident to many observers.  ‘To me,’ the social critic Louis Adamic wrote in his 1931 book Dynamite, ‘ it appears to be an inevitable result of the chaotic, brutalizing conditions in American industry, a phase of the dynamic drive of economic evolution in the United States.’  Adamic’s book was the first major work to survey the use of violence, especially terrorism, by the ‘have-nots against the haves.’ It was also the last.  Within a few years, as federal legislation reduced the level of violence in labor conflicts, the issue of bombings and assassinations began to lose some of its currency.” (*the bolding is mine)

Basically, the history of labor struggle in this country is pretty violent.  Because of the violently oppressive conditions of labor–for example, deaths in coal mines, injuries in factories–more radical workers turned towards violent methods to try to gain power.  There were assassinations of political or corporation leaders; there were bombings.  However, legislation (like the New Deal) that granted workers the right to joining a union or collective bargaining gave workers SOME legal support, eliminating the need for direct violence, but did nothing to reform the system.

Anyway, hope that makes sense! Just some thoughts that I connected from an American labor history context to ideas of power and the law, from our Agathagelou class discussion.