The Full Employment Horizon in 20th-Century America: The Movement for Economic Democracy

Through moments of social protest, policy debate, and popular mobilization, this book follows the campaign for economic democracy and the fight for full employment in the United States. Starting in the 1930s, Dennis explores its intellectual and philosophical underpinnings, the class struggle that determined the fate of legislation and the role of left-wing civil rights activists in its revival.

With an emphasis on the grassroots perspective, The Full Employment Horizon in 20th-Century America
highlights how social movements reshaped the idea of full employment, expanding its democratic parameters and showing its potential to liberate workers across the racial and ethnic spectrum. Demonstrating how the campaign for full employment intersected with movements for women's liberation and civil rights, it explores how social groups and oppressed minorities interpreted and appropriated the promise of full employment and economic emancipation. In this book, Dennis uncovers the class dimensions and the resistance to full employment in the US, and demonstrates how the inequalities and inherent tensions within a capitalist society meant the social vision of full employment would continue to challenge the assertion that capitalism automatically generated employment for all.