books
A Woman’s Wage: Historical Meanings and Social Consequences
By Alice Kessler-Harris

US History as Women’s History: new feminist essays
LK Kerber, A Kessler-Harris, KK Sklar

Law, Labor, and Ideology in the Early American Republic -
CL Tomlins

Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development in the United States -
K Orren

The State and the Unions: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America -
CL Tomlins

Labor Law in America: Historical and Critical Essays -
CL Tomlins, AJ King

The Accidental Republic -
John Witt

Couldn’t you say the same thing about most industrial conflicts or protests, though - that big pieces of the class struggle don’t stand or fall with them, and their consequences are likely to be small and localised?

At any rate I think we disagree over either 1) the importance of ideas in class struggle; or 2) the relative importance of academia in the realm of ideas. I don’t want to overstate either, especially not (2), but I certainly think _some_ elements of class struggle are at stake in _some_ kinds of scholarly work. I would definitely rate them politically more important than either Mexican food or punk rock (though I wouldn’t necessarily say punk rock is entirely without political consequence… on Mexican food I’m not so sure!)

Finally, I think it helps more than it hinders that academic workers believe in the importance of what they do. If you were organising most other kinds of worker you would hardly try to win them over by insisting that pride in their work was ridiculous and politically misplaced! From my experience pride in one’s work is more likely to lead to conflict with the employers than would otherwise be the case, because capital only has an interest in quality if it pays. Quality issues are especially important where the workers do not see themselves as materially disadvantaged, as is often the case in the university.

Mike, I don’t mean to say academic work can’t possibly be political. But like … “here’s this important social problem that needs changing, changing it will involve conflict with some entrenched powers. I want to fight that fight. So, I’m going to grad school!” That’s a bit silly, right? Now, if it’s like “look, I feel I can maybe make a minor contribution to this important stuff in the long term in a way which is also compatible with having a decent life for myself and family,” then yes absolutely. But the “I’m a radical, I make a difference to The Struggle, I teach classes on Marx (or Hegel or Deleuze or Derrida or whatever) at uni!” self-concept (surely you’ve encountered this sort of thing on occasion?) is simply false, and in a self-serving way. That’s what I’m trying to say.

I’m not convinced it’s all that important to defend those areas of academia, if by ‘important’ you mean ‘big pieces of the class struggle stand or fall with them’. I think the consequences are more likely to be smaller and more localized (despite the fact that a lot of that stuff is important to me in the way that punk rock and mexican food is important to me - those things are valuable and should be defended, but that value and that defense aren’t somehow of major political importance). They’re still important and should be defended, but no more so than decent unionized jobs or militant sections of the class.
Is that clearer?
take care,
Nate