“Whatever happened to Solidarity?” is an often heard question, echoing the passivity of organized labor during the transition to capitalism throughout Eastern Europe. The position of the working class is especially puzzling in view of Solidarity's role in bringing down communist power in Poland and beyond. Yet the mighty force of the 1980s became a shadow of itself during the construction of markets and democracy, losing members' loyalty, organizational power, and political influence as the country embraced the ideology of neoliberalism. David Ost offers a powerful and original answer to the question of Solidarity's demise, one that goes beyond the oft-repeated claims about economic and social dislocation rendering the working class the “losers” in the postcommunist reconstruction. Rather than adhering solely to structural explanations, Ost focuses on political agency as determining the fate of the working class. His bold, persuasive assertion is that workers were abandoned by intellectual allies and union leaders. The new Polish elite embraced a radical vision of the liberal, capitalist future that left little room for accommodation with the working class. Even worse, by overlooking the interests of labor, the liberal establishment pushed the workers to channel their resentment in a populist direction, ultimately embracing the ideology and political parties of the nationalist Right (pp. 66, 95–96).

The author's theory is based on a detailed ethnographic study grounded in repeated fieldwork in the industrial towns of Poland, where Ost visited factories, talked to union activists and rank and file, and interviewed community leaders. This is thick description at its best, painting a detailed, nuanced portrait of the industrial working class during the difficult days of economic transformation. His focus on political action goes beyond prior work on the emasculation of labor activism (e.g., Paul J. Kubicek, Organized Labor in Postcommunist States: From Solidarity and Infirmity, 2004). It also challenges interpretations of labor protest in the early 1990s as compatible with the democratic project (Grzegorz Ekiert and Jan Kubik, Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1999). Instead, Ost argues that labor's anger in the face of economic hardship was deliberately ignored and silenced, resulting in the marginalization of the working class that, in turn, had a negative effect on the country's political development. Anger is “structurally intrinsic” to capitalism (p. 28) and must be properly channeled through the inclusion of the working class as an economic force to sustain political democracy.

How did the political and managerial class succeed in sidetracking organized labor and excluding it from politics? The argument looks to the substance of the policy adopted to reconstruct the country, the strategy selected to implement the program, and the political consequences of the choices. Together, these developments alienated the working class, deflated mass participation in politics, and undermined the consolidation of democracy.

In post-1989 Poland, an extreme neoliberal ideology equated the salvation of Poland with a laissez-faire capitalism that was an essential foundation of liberal democracy. At first, workers were persuaded that shock therapy was necessary for national recovery, and so, for example, the union protests of the early 1990s sought to assure the survival of enterprises in the market economy, rather than protect the class interests of industrial labor (p. 151). Even more damaging was the strategy employed to implement the reform. An elitist style was thought to provide the best guarantee for successful transformation without impediments posed by social and economic protectionism. The fear was that a strong working class represented by effective unions would derail market competition, economic globalization, and democratic progress (p. 38). The sentiment was rendered most famously by Lech Walesa: “We will not catch up to Europe if we build a strong union” (p. 53). For the political leadership, it was best to move ahead without consultations with the working class, and so instead of political inclusion, “capitalism by design” was driven by rituals, slogans, and promises that were detached from the emerging reality of social dislocations and economic hardships.

The failure to consult workers extended even to the Solidarity-led government coalition during 1997–2001. The political arm of the Solidarity union continued to advocate the liberal program without sufficient attention to the plight of workers, reinforcing the message of labor's neglect. Rather, to diffuse the growing discontent and anger, the politicians sought to rally workers around the values of solidarity, nation, and church (pp. 107–8). This strategy exposed the bankruptcy of the Solidarity program to protect the economic well-being of its constituents. The workers felt abandoned by former allies among the intelligentsia, betrayed by the national Solidarity leaders, and neglected by factory union activists. The result was a continuing decline of the union infrastructure and membership, eradicating Solidarity as an effective arm of labor's interests (p. 175). Under these conditions, significant elements of the working class had no recourse but to migrate to alternative political solutions, in many cases embracing the populist movement as an expression of workers' needs.

In the end, rather than bind labor to the political process of democratization, the neoliberal strategy had the effect of alienating the working class. Over time, the divide between the political elite and industrial labor undermined the very foundation of a liberal democratic society. Ost makes a good case that the failure to reach out to the workers, to develop mechanisms of consultation, and to listen to union voices endangered the very essence of a pluralist society. Instead, labor felt unwelcome both in its own union organizations and in liberal political institutions.

The value of the work rests in its emphasis on political choices as defining the place of class in building democracy, a contribution that goes well beyond the specific case of Poland to address the capacity to build inclusive, democratic societies (p. 185). The argument is tied to a general theory of politics that stresses the importance of responding to and channeling workers' resentment in order to establish open, pluralist societies. The inclusion of the working class in public discourse is essential for sustaining the democratic process. But in the Polish case, advocates of the neoliberal order feared that a worker's voice in the politics of transformation would culminate in overt opposition, derailing the capitalist future. As a result, they proceeded to silence and devalue the labor class, in the process turning workers away from adherence to the liberal project and into the embrace of a populist agenda.

Some issues in the study remain underspecified, even while considered in the concluding chapter. Given the emphasis on agency as a determinant of political development and the strong participatory ethos of pre-1989 Solidarity, why did the working class accept the dislocations ushered in by shock therapy? After all, industrial labor proved to be a powerful actor in the past, but during the postcommunist transformation, it has remained on the receiving end of policies and strategies initiated by the intelligentsia and the political class. Perhaps there are features of capitalist liberalization that deflate the initiative of the workers and undermine organized opposition to economic dislocations.

Still, by moving beyond the confines of structural determinism that condemns the working class to the losing side of history in the neoliberal project, David Ost treats us to a provocative analysis that offers an alternative vision. Political leaders, economic managers, and union activists have political choices, and their actions can lead to the building of open, democratic societies that embrace all citizens. As such, The Defeat of Solidarity is much more than an account of the fate of the working class in Poland or the path of postcommunism. The book goes to the heart of democratic theory by tackling the issue of inclusionary politics, and persuades the reader that only the incorporation of the most vulnerable citizens in the political process can culminate in successful democratic societies.