New Deal

Labor Watch
BEST OF 2023: Creation of the Labor-Progressive Alliance
The ties that bind organized labor to the left-of-center infrastructure, the Democratic Party, and the modern expansionist administrative state date predate the Wagner Act of 1935. While early labor movements…
by Michael Watson on December 29, 2023

Philanthropy
A Conversation With Liberty Lost Author Robert E. Wright (Part 1 of 2)
The American Institute for Economic Research senior research fellow talks with Michael E. Hartmann about his research, why Tocquevillian voluntary association became such a beneficial part of America’s social contract,…
by Michael E. Hartmann on December 6, 2023

Labor Watch
Creation of the Labor-Progressive Alliance: Industrialization and Labor Unionism
The ties that bind organized labor to the left-of-center infrastructure, the Democratic Party, and the modern expansionist administrative state date predate the Wagner Act of 1935. While early labor movements…
by Michael Watson on July 7, 2023

Labor Watch
Creation of the Labor-Progressive Alliance: Why Unions Came to Be
Labor organization before the Civil War was typically local, short term, and haphazard. Mass industrialization that took off following the end of the conflict drew millions out of farm work…
by Michael Watson on July 7, 2023

Labor Watch
Creation of the Labor-Progressive Alliance: Defining the Workforce
Aiding Gompers’s shift from Marxist-influenced radicalism to the capital-P Progressive mainstream of the early 20th century was a debate within organized labor that continues to the present day. Should the…
by Michael Watson on July 7, 2023

Labor Watch
Creation of the Labor-Progressive Alliance: Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
The story of organized labor’s development and rise to prominence from the end of the Civil War through the elections of 1946 is complicated. That the difficult, poorly paid, and…
by Michael Watson on July 7, 2023

Labor Watch
A Mandate for Labor Error: Statism from the Right
For almost 80 years, the conservative movement and the Republican Party that has served as its imperfect electoral vehicle have sought to advance three goals related to labor relations. But…
by Michael Watson on May 22, 2023

Labor Watch
A Mandate for Labor Error: Big Labor Radicalizes
As conservatives advanced their moderate aims in the post–New Deal era, Big Labor started radicalizing. As workers’ freedom not to join unions thrived under right-to-work laws led to stalled growth…
by Michael Watson on May 22, 2023

Labor Watch
A Mandate for Labor Error: Strange Bedfellows
A Mandate for Labor Error Statism from the Right | Big Labor Radicalizes Strange Bedfellows | Coming to Policy at Last…
by Michael Watson on May 22, 2023

Labor Watch
A Mandate for Labor Error: Coming to Policy at Last
Project 2025 did not fully abandon the policies of the Taft-Hartley consensus. The document rejects the Biden administration–Big Labor approach to expanding union power and membership. But the worst proposal…
by Michael Watson on May 22, 2023