The Labor Movement in the U.S. at an Early Stage

The Labor Movement in the U.S. at an Early Stage

How the contradictions between labor and capital in the 19th century formed the early prerequisites for both the rise and decline of socialist tendencies in American politics?

Mykhailo Mizin

As industrialization was rapidly transforming the economic fabric of the nation, tensions between laborers and capitalists intensified, driven by disparities in power, wealth distribution, and working conditions. The expansion of industrial capitalism brought about exploitative labor practices, including long hours, low wages, unsafe working environments, and child labor, fueling discontent among the working class. Simultaneously, the consolidation of capital in the hands of a few powerful industrialists highlighted the stark contrasts in wealth accumulation and economic influence. These contradictions between the interests of labor and capital created fertile ground for the rise of socialist ideologies that advocated for worker empowerment, economic equality, and social justice.

Amidst the sweeping industrialization that characterized 19th-century America, the formation of the working class was deeply shaped by the interplay of industrial development and the socio-economic circumstances confronting wage workers. Italian syndicalist politician Arturo Labriola once said, referring to this process: “The different socialist forms of thought and action which have appeared and disappeared in the course of the centuries, so different in their causes, their aspects, and their effects, are all to be studied and explained by the specific and complex conditions of the social life in which they were produced.” (Labriola 1)

For the United States, a time period that is usually referred to as the start of an industrial revolution goes somewhere between the last third of the XVIII century and the middle of the XIX century. In the analytical sense of history, the point of view of those researchers who attribute its genesis to the beginning of the 19th century is, however, more justified, as it is a period that can be associated with factory production itself with greater certainty than the last third of the 18th century. At that time, the spread of machines in production was still too narrow, the enterprises using them were unstable, and the production process from raw materials to the finished product was not fully mechanized.

The upper limit of the chronology of this phenomenon (the 80s-90s of the XIX century — the beginning of the XX century) sounds much more unambiguous due to the beginning of an active process of monopolization of American industry: the emergence of monopolies clearly indicates the completion of the industrial revolution on a national scale. Therefore, the outlined period of the industrial revolution in the USA can be marked from the beginning of the XIX century to the turn of the XIX–XX centuries. Which, in turn, is quite a significant period: almost a century of industrialization.

By 1859, the population of the United States employed in industry (including artisanal domestic production) amounted to around 1,311,246 people (The Eighth Census). To understand the scale, it makes sense to cite the results of the population census for 1860, according to which 31,443,321 people lived in the country at that time, and 4 million of them were slaves. Therefore, indicating the impossibility to talk about the completion of the industrial revolution throughout the United States even by the 1860s.

But the decisive breakthrough in the industrial development of the United States in the second half of the 19th century was primarily associated with the victory of the North in the Civil War and the final approval of the industrial path of development of the country as opposed to the agrarian orientation of the South. However, the United States was also possessing a huge space — about 9 million square kilometers, on which 39,818,449 people lived in 1870 (The Ninth Census). This gave a very low population density for that time, which further spurred American industry to develop “machine production by machines.”

The completeness of the industrial revolution in the United States by the end of the century is also well evidenced by the number of the already firmly established working class. Contrary to the previous data, already in the 80s, the number of workers in the manufacturing industry alone amounted to about 4,730,000 people, which was more than the number of workers in all industries in the middle of the century (The Eleventh Census).

As a result, during the industrial revolution in the United States, both general and special factors, which significantly influenced subsequent events from the history of the labor movement and the country, could be distinguished. The period of manufacture, the beginning of a revolution primarily in the textile industry, followed by the growth of other industries, ending with the formation of a wide stratum of industrial workers and industrialization — the emergence of heavy industry associated with the production of "machines by machines". Depending on the estimates, the duration of the industrial revolution is determined in the region for 100 years, and the continuous colonization of the so-called "Wild West" throughout the 19th century largely contributed to the seemingly inexhaustible expansion of the domestic market.

Nevertheless, the United States could not avoid such a natural outcome of the industrial revolution as the emergence of all-powerful monopolies, which actually destroyed the ideal of the free market. The concentration of production in the hands of a few contributed not only to an increase in the productivity of the industry as a whole, but also to the creation of a monopsony in the labor market in each individual industry, which inevitably led to a deterioration in the situation of hired workers and social conflicts.

Speaking about the situation of industrial workers in the United States during the years of the industrial revolution, it is necessary to take into account two key features in the economic development of the country, which had a huge impact on the specifics of this situation. The first is the presence of a huge undeveloped land fund in the West, which has already been mentioned above when considering the specifics of the industrial revolution. The second one was only briefly touched upon in the previous part of the study, but it is most directly related to the issue of the situation of wage workers: the outside migration and its impact on the labor market.

As for the first feature, it should be understood that thanks to it a lot of proletarian rural residents or the unemployed did not accumulate in cities, creating an explosive mass. They went to the Wild West, where they again became small proprietors or artisans. This significantly hindered the formation of stable forms of the organized labor movement, and gave a sporadic character to clashes between workers and entrepreneurs. In essence, it made it possible to maintain some kind of illusion that the difficult financial situation of each individual worker is easily correctable within the framework of the existing social system.