The Middle Class Vision of Autonomy

Every other system within the American political economy was operating against them and working to neutralize them. The Republican Party, Main Street, Main Street USA, Chamber of Commerce types, big industrialists, everybody knew this wasn't good in the long term for them. And so they pushed where they could. That meant red baiting against the labor union and media with the red scare. But it also meant giving the rank and file something because the rank andfile was politically mobilized and effective,. So they had to be dealt with and they were. In so doing, they created this new middle class identity that obliterated their ability to act as self interested members of a working class.