| This study is an attempt to analyze the relationship between class struggle, class conflict, and the capitalist state apparatus in the United States during the world economic crisis of the 1930's. In specific, the study examines the formulation as well as the impact of the National Industrial Recovery Act. The National Industrial Recovery Act provides the vehicle for examining aspects of the complex relationship between class struggle, state policy, and capitalist development in the United States.;The major argument presented is that the formulation and the impact of capitalist state policies are shaped by the nature and character of the class struggle between wage-labor and capital, and the conflicts within the capitalist class both economically and politically. This study examines the limits imposed on political decision-making by the exigencies of uninterrupted capital accumulation and the balance of class forces. Ultimately, the National Industrial Recovery Act and succeeding New Deal policies provided the mechanisms for a fundamental restructuring of capitalist development in the United States. This restructuring involved (1) the political hegemony of monopoly capital, (2) diffusion of labor militancy and general ideological consensus, and (3) the incorporation of significant portions of the working class into a clearly subordinate position vis-a-vis monopoly capital and the incorporation of organized labor into the political bargaining process. |
