Peter Giraudo

This project examines a tradition of thought in fin-de-siècle Europe on the role of socialist trade unions in capitalist society. Georges Sorel, Gustave Rouanet, Eugène Fournière, Eduard Bernstein, Jean Jaurès, and Max Weber saw unions as the “laboratories” of a new cooperative culture, institutions that could provide a new educational framework for the class struggle with capitalists. Peter Giraudo argues that a deeper understanding of the culture and politics of unionism in the period when socialism became a mass movement in Europe can elucidate its potential present functions. The project deals with two research questions: how do unions grow their membership and expand a working-class movement? And what useful functions can they serve in capitalist society?