(Note to friend that I posted on his FB site)

First on the UAW, the weakening of the left (and the Party in particular) in the auto industry and union was a factor in the making of “The Treaty of Detroit,” but not the main one. As I see it, that honor goes to the favorable and non-repeatable conditions for capital accumulation in the auto industry and U.S. economy in the post WWII period.

That period, however, came to an end in the early 1970s as conditions in the auto industry (and the U.S. economy as a whole) deteriorated markedly so much so that UAW President Doug Fraser under immense pressure from Chrysler and the Carter Administration did what Walter Reuther would have done had he been alive, that is, agreed to major concessions in jobs, benefits, and productive capacity. What bothered Fraser wasn’t so much Chrysler’s insistence on concessions, but the extent and depth of them.

In other words, concessions as such were not out of the question for Fraser given the cyclical and structural troubles of the auto industry at that moment, but they should be, in his social democratic calculus, reasonable and shared. Not suprisingly, the auto companies (and the ruling class) would have none of it. They were governed by a different calculus: the restoration of their profits and dominance in what was an increasingly global auto market. In their mind and subsequent practice the restructuring of the industry at the expense of labor was absolutely necesary and had only begun.

These concessions then were but the opening salvo of a general corporate offensive in the auto industry. More were to come. The halcyon days of the postwar period in the auto industry (and economy as a whole) were over! The class struggle, whether the UAW (and the rest of the labor movement) were ready for it, was back in full swing! Postwar Keynesianism and the “Golden Age” of capitalism were departing the scene and the wrecking ball of neoliberalism was announcing its arrival.

As for the impact of Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate minority majority congressional districts in the South, it will turn, as is happening, Black Congressional representation in the South into a memory. Moreover, coming on the heels of earlier decisions of the Robert’s Court weakening Black voting rights and representation in that region, no one can honestly claim to have been caught off guard by the court’s decision.

That there hasn’t been a far more robust response to the Court’s series of decisions, I agree, is deeply concerning, but not altogether surprising. While it reflects negatively on Black electeds in the South and the broader movement across the country, it also brings into bold relief the absence of a popular movement in the South and nationally to defend and expand voting rights.

I’m not suggesting that the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s be  exactly reproduced, but something like that is necessary, along with the defeat of Trumpism this fall and in two years.