We observed over the greater part of the history of American labor an
alternation of two planes of thought and action, an upper and a lower.
On the upper plane, labor thought was concerned with ultimate goals,
self-employment or cooperation, and problems arising therefrom, while
action took the form of politics. On the lower plane, labor abandoned
the ultimate for the proximate, centering on betterments within the
limits of the wage system and on trade-union activity. Labor history in
the past century was largely a story of labor's shifting from one plane
to another, and then again to the first. It was also seen that what
determined the plane of thought and action at any one time was the state
of business measured by movements of wholesale and retail prices and
employment and unemployment. When prices rose and margins of employers'
profits were on the increase, the demand for labor increased and
accordingly also labor's strength as a bargainer; at the same time,
labor was compelled to organize to meet a rising cost of living. At such
times trade unionism monopolized the arena, won strikes, increased
membership, and forced "cure-alls" and politics into the background.
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