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

by Judith Stein

The history of modern liberalism has been hotly debated incontemporary politics and the academy. Here, Judith Stein usesthe steel industry-long considered fundamental to the U.S. economy-to examine liberal policies and priorities after WorldWar II. In a provocative revision of postwar American history, she argues that it was the primacy of foreign commitments and theoutdated economic policies of the state, more than the nation'sracial conflicts, that transformed American liberalism from thepowerful progressivism of the New Deal to the feeble policies ofthe 1990s. Stein skillfully integrates a number of narratives usuallytreated in isolation-labor, civil rights, politics, business, and foreign policy-while underscoring the state's focus on thesteel industry and its workers. By showing how those whointervened in the industry treated such economic issues as freetrade and the globalization of steel production in isolation fromthe social issues of the day-most notably civil rights and theimplementation of affirmative action-Stein advances a largerargument about postwar liberalism. Liberal attempts to addresssocial inequalities without reference to the fundamental andchanging workings of the economy, she says, have led to thefoundering of the New Deal state.

Genres: History, Economics, Race, Labor, American History

428 pages, Paperback

First published October 5, 1998

Reviews

[Wesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dense, challenging, ambitious and expansive.
Judith Stein analyzes the steel industry through race relations and macroeconomic policies from Truman through Clinton to show how the US has de-industrialized and why. She covers both the microeconomic policies that shaped the labor movement and civil rights in the first half, and the macroeconomic trade, monetary, and sector policies in the second half. Juxtaposing these realities in this way showed the dynamics of how racial resentment rose, and the lack of clarity policy-makers had about the US economy through de-industrialization.
Stein's thesis is this: "it was the foreign commitments and economic policies of liberalism, not the excesses of racial reformers or the racism of the culture, that transformed American politics in the postwar era."
Stein's narrative is inspiring and ambitious in depth and scope.

I wouldn't recommend this book for those seeking a casual read. It is dense and requires full attention to be able to absorb the economic dynamics taking place.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Using the steel industry as a microcosm of America in the postwar years, Stern manages to show how the economic decline perpetuated by the decline of steel undercut the liberal consensus of the New Deal years.