Labor Power and Mobile Capital the Market Geography of Solidarity

Democracies depend on countervailing power. Opposition to authoritarian regimes requires large-scale counter-mobilization. Labor organization—be it in the form of unions or social movements—is often key to both. But by most measures labor power is decreasing just when corporate power appears to be increasing. Union membership, electoral and lobbying pressure, and protest, the indicators we generally use to assess labor clout, all appear to be waning, especially in the economically advanced democracies (Ebbinghaus and Visser 2000; Wallerstein, Golden, and Lange 1997; Wallerstein and Western 2000; Western 1997). With the simultaneous expansion of global finance and trade much of the blame for the seeming decline of labor power has been laid at the feet of “globalization”, particularly in the popular press (e.g., Greider 1997). Diminishing legal, political, and technological barriers to cross-border trade, capital, and credit increasingly empower employers vis-à-vis workers and the state. Productive capital and cheap credit can easily move to more business