Crossed Wires, Noisy Signals: Language, Identity, and Resistance in Caribbean Literature

I ask the question: is it possible to posit a Return that is historically informed by the disjunctive, fractured narratives of the Caribbean, one which both challenges and negotiates what Spivak has termed the neo-colonial structures of violence? Likewise, can the Caribbean subject articulate a space for communal identity, self-representation, and historical agency, in opposition to the disempowering dissection of the (neo-)colonizing gaze? I would argue that such a discursive project is possible, indeed necessary, in order to continue developing the insurgent narrative of resistance to colonialism that traces its roots back to the arrival of the first white colonizers in the islands. For it is important to remember that although we are discussing these questions of identity and agency at the level of language and culture, they cannot simply be viewed allegorically, somehow divorced from political systems of domination. Ultimately, the question is one of political power, a struggle against neo-colonial hegemony and oppression. The two works I have chosen to study in this thesis as a means of answering these questions highlight the tremendous diversity of literary production in the Caribbean, while also exhibiting many examples of the recurring patterns and linkages that form the noisy networks of the Caribbean meta-archipelago. The criteria for selection can only be described as arbitrary at best, as there is so much to choose from. I have managed to include works by two major (meaning better-known) authors from two of the major linguistic traditions: the Martinician Aimé Césaire, and the St. Lucian Derek Walcott. Both works deal in some way with questions of Caribbean identity, and both are written from a strongly anti- colonialist framework. I would not consider these works representative of any particular literature, although they do share certain relations. Most of all, I simply view them as particular points of entry into the tangled web of signals that constitutes Caribbean cultural production

How the power of Canada’s unions helped slow the growth of inequality.

As has been the case in the U.S., the level of inequality in Canada has been on the rise since the 1980s, though at a slower rate. In new research, Barry Eidlin explores the reasons behind this divergence. He argues that one major factor which has received little attention is the power of Canada’s unions. He writes that because unions have been able to keep their role and legitimacy as defenders of working class interests, they have largely retained their power. He argues that in order to address inequality, we need to talk more about the growing divide between the wealthy and the working class, and the role that unions can play in decreasing that divide

Long read: Why Canada has a labor party and the US does not

In this year’s Democratic presidential primary, Bernie Sanders ran as a Democrat, despite describing himself as a ‘socialist’. In other countries, Sanders would have run as part of a ‘labor’ party, a political grouping that the US lacks. Barry Eidlin explores why the US does not have such a party, while its neighbor, Canada, does. He writes that in the 1930s, President Roosevelt co-opted labor and workers’ interests into the New Deal coalition; while at the same time, Canadian parties’ repression and neglect for workers’ created an opportunity for a new party to emerge which eventually became the New Democratic Party

State Coercion and the Rise of U.S. Business Unionism: The Counterfactual Case of Minneapolis Teamsters, 1934-1941

This paper examines a key shift within the U.S. labor movement in the 20th century, whereby the worker upsurge of the 1930s led to the emergence of the conservative “business union” model as the dominant organizational form in the postwar period.Against deterministic arguments that view this transformation as an unavoidable result of organizational development or of deeply ingrained American ideological beliefs, I show that it was in fact the outcome of a political battle between competing models of working-class organization. I also argue that accounts that emphasize internal anticommunist faction fights or long-term legal processes overlook an important factor: state coercion. I contend that at certain critical junctures, coercive state intervention shaped the labor movement by cutting off other potentially viable trajectories.I develop this argument through a deviant case analysis of a key local of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), Minneapolis Local 574/544. While the IBT as a whole was an archetypal business union in most respects, the Trotskyist-led Local 574 embodied a potential alternate path, based on a competing social unionist vision.Using counterfactual analysis, I seek to ascertain whether the Minneapolis model truly did constitute a viable alternate path for the Teamsters, and if so, why that path was not taken. My findings corroborate the hypothesis that Local 574/544 did in fact present a viable alternate path which enjoyed strong support, and that it was business union advocates mobilizing coercive state power that ultimately removed the Minneapolis model as an option.In posing the questions of “what if Minneapolis had won?” and “why didn’t it?” this case study offers important insights into this critical juncture of U.S. labor history, enriches our theoretical analysis of how this fundamental shift occurred, and enhances our understanding of the ways in which the state enables and constrains processes of social change more broadly

The Class Idea: Politics, Ideology, and Class Formation in the United States and Canada in the Twentieth Century

Why are class politics more prevalent in Canada than in the U.S., even though the two countries share similar cultures, societies, and economies? Many view this cross­border distinction as a byproduct of long­standing differences in political cultures and institutions, but I find that it is actually a relatively recent divergence resulting from how the working class was politically incorporated in both countries before, during, and after World War II. My central argument is that in Canada, this incorporation process embedded "the class idea"--the idea of class as a salient, legitimate political category--more deeply in policies, institutions, and practices than in the U.S.Out of the social and political struggles of that period emerged two working class movements that, although bearing a surface resemblance, were organized along different logics. In Canada, the working class was incorporated as a class representative, whereas in the U.S. It was incorporated as an interest group. That difference in political incorporation enabled or constrained labor's legitimacy and organizational capacity in different ways in both countries. Canadian labor's role as a class representative legitimized it and expanded its organizational capacity, while U.S. labor's role as an interest group delegitimized it and undermined its organizational capacity.I show this through a detailed analysis of trajectories of labor movement strength in both countries over the course of the twentieth century, as measured by unionization rates, or union density. Starting from the observation that union density was very similar in both countries until the mid-1960s, then diverged, I first examine competing explanations for this divergence. Having illustrated their strengths and limitations, I then develop an argument showing how the divergence in working class organizational strength was the outcome of struggles for political incorporation.I identify two key moments that shaped these different processes of political incorporation. The first was the restructuring of party-class alliances in both countries in the 1930s and 40s, where U.S. labor decisively abandoned the project of building an independent working class party in favor of an alliance with the Democratic Party, at the same moment that Canadian labor forged an independent class alliance with progressive agrarian forces under the banner of the CCF. The second was differences in the effects of postwar Red scares on the relationship between labor and the left in both countries. While anti-Communism took its toll on working class movements in both countries, the labor-left alliance was severed in the U.S., but only strained in Canada. The outcome of these processes was a U.S. labor movement that conceived of itself more as an interest group representing a specific constituency within the Democratic Party, and a Canadian labor movement that conceived of itself more as a class representative with closer ties to a broader social movement.Differences in labor's political incorporation also shaped the formation and development of the regimes governing labor-management relations in both countries. The Canadian labor regime was created as a result of working class upsurge from below, whereas the U.S. labor regime was created as part of an elite reform project from above. This original difference influenced the organizing logics of each regime. Whereas the Canadian labor regime was organized around recognizing the existence of class conflict and seeking to mitigate it, the U.S. regime was organized around protecting workers' individual rights. Although this created a more interventionist Canadian system that restricted labor's scope of action in important ways, it also reinforced a collective, oppositional class identity vis-à-vis both employers and the state. Meanwhile, the U.S. system's focus on rights led to a stronger focus on legalistic proceduralism and imposing a formal equality between labor and management that obscured the power imbalance inherent in the employment relationship. Additionally, labor drew different lessons from these different processes of regime formation. Whereas Canadian labor learned the value of winning gains through disruptive mass mobilization, U.S. labor learned the value of winning gains through sympathetic politicians and favorable legal precedents.The combination of a more protective and institutionally stable labor regime and a labor movement more accustomed to winning gains through mass mobilization, Canadian labor was better positioned to defend itself than its U.S. counterpart when employers began a counter-offensive beginning in the late 1960s. While U.S. labor spiraled into decline, Canadian labor proved more resilient, leading to the divergence in union density rates