The invisible welfare state: Class struggles, the American Legion and the development of veterans' benefits in the twentieth century United States

The theoretical issue addressed in this dissertation is the relationship between militarism, class formation, political struggles, and the form of the state (in particular, the form taken by the welfare state) under contemporary capitalism. The dissertation originates in the discovery that veterans' benefits have, throughout this century, been an unrecognized or "invisible" part of the American Welfare system.After "establishing this phenomenon" empirically, I reveal the origins of this "invisible" veterans' welfare state. While in Europe with the American Army during World War I, leading members of the American capitalist class had seen firsthand both the intensity of postwar class struggles and the role that soldiers could play in them. In response they organized the American Legion. I show that their intention in forming the Legion was twofold: to combat radicalism in the working class by providing a conservative nationalist alternative to class ideologies and to deny the power of soldiers to the left in the postwar class struggles. In both tasks, they were successful. The unintended consequence of their actions, was the creation of a powerful lobby which proceeded, contrary to the wishes of its founders, to fight for and win massive veterans' benefits.The primary evidence for the decisive role of capitalists in organizing the American Legion is the large proportion of capitalists among its founders. However, I also provide an analysis that predicts that the particular capitalists who take this particular action at this particular time should be members of a distinctive social type or "coalesced class segment" and I then show empirically, by a collective biographical (or prosopographical) analysis that this was so, that is, they were typically members of the "Establishment" within the capitalist class. Second, I show that these Establishment capitalists had been associated with several major militarist organizations before World War I and had long seen nationalism as a means of muting class conflict. Thus, the formation of the Legion is a logical next step.In sum, the veterans' welfare state was the unintended consequence of the actions of Establishment capitalists engaged in class struggles after World War I.