The demise of postwar liberalism is blamed in part on the mounting tension between the labor and civil rights movements, notably the foot dragging of AFL-CIO leaders on integrating unions and the civil rights groups whose patience had run out. In Forging Rivals, Reuel Schiller takes this national clash to the local level, chronicling the relationship between labor and civil rights advocates in five vignettes that take place across three decades in postwar San Francisco. Through this local lens, the author argues that postwar liberalism’s breakdown was not due simply to labor’s intransigent leaders or fiery clashes between white and black workers; instead, Schiller documents many well-meaning individuals within both movements who initially believed in each other’s goals, but became rivals because they operated within different, conflicting, legal doctrines.

The author argues that the postwar liberal consensus solidified two separate legal regimes that were incompatible with each other. To empower unions, labor law was premised on workplace majoritarianism, the inviolability of collective bargaining agreements (CBA’s), and, distrustful of the state, arbitration to resolve disputes. In contrast, to protect minorities in the workplace, fair employment law focused on individual anti-discrimination protections and welcomed court involvement to ensure equal opportunity. These two legal regimes placed liberalism on an “unstable legal foundation” as labor law saw the postwar power structure through a class lens and sought to empower workers as a collective unit, whereas fair employment law saw the power structure through a racial lens and recognized that the majority often failed to protect or include minorities in the workplace (p. 8). “The result,” Schiller concludes, “was a fatal weakening of liberalism” as the two legal doctrines were at odds (p. 5).

The strength of Schiller’s account lies in the thick description within his five vignettes, which detail key moments in the relationship between labor and civil rights groups in 1940s–1960s San Francisco. Examining the national clash within the left at the local level reveals how divisions were formed between seemingly kindred movements. Schiller ably demonstrates how the separate legal regimes fomented conflict: The two movements framed their goals using the language of the different legal regimes—majoritarian versus individual rights—and sought protection and empowerment through different routes—labor through CBA’s and arbitration, civil rights groups through the courts challenging the majoritarian rules of the unions. In the vignettes, familiar explanations for the breakdown of liberalism are challenged because conflict is as much due to labor and civil rights groups talking past each other as it is about failures of leadership, deindustrialization, outright racism, or clashing cultures. This book is a valuable addition to the debate over the causes of postwar liberalism’s demise because it is a firm reminder that leadership decisions, interactions between labor and civil rights groups, and economic decline were all filtered through legal institutions that shaped and constrained actors’ behavior. The divided legal regime influenced how labor and the civil rights groups came to understand their goals and strategies, as well as how they reacted to outside forces and each other.

The local level lens adds new insight into understanding the breakup of postwar liberalism and makes Forging Rivals a valuable and compelling read. However, Schiller could have taken more time justifying and considering the limits of focusing on San Francisco. The case selection means some alternative explanations are not fully considered. Schiller concentrates on conflict within the left, but deemphasizes outside pressures, notably passage of Taft-Hartley and employer resistance to unionization and integration. Further, the South is little discussed in this book because of its setting. This omission is problematic because Schiller seeks to not only explain the breakdown of postwar liberalism, but also the desertion of white workers to the Republican Party. Schiller attributes this desertion in part to the rival legal regimes, which placed the interests of white workers within a labor law regime that “would be unsympathetic to the needs of African American workers” (p. 249). The author’s account simplifies the desertion of white workers to the Republican Party: This phenomenon was mainly confined to the South (Larry Bartels, “What’s the Matter with What’s the Matter with Kansas,” Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2006) and largely did not happen within the ranks of organized labor (Peter L. Francia, “Do Unions Still Matter in U.S. Elections?” The Forum, 2012). Further, the South is a potent force shaping the fortunes of labor and civil rights throughout this period. I wonder how well conflicting legal regimes would hold up as an explanation for the decline of postwar liberalism if the cases were set in another location, particularly the South. There are certainly legitimate reasons to site the research in San Francisco, but a careful consideration of what is gained and lost in this decision is needed.

Forging Rivals could also benefit from more analytical precision in the theory. First, how does this argument fit with Nelson Lichtenstein’s account of the legal clash between class solidarity and rights consciousness (State of the Union, 2002)? Second, the author talks about these legal doctrines as inherently at odds, dooming liberalism from the very forging of the postwar consensus (pp. 253–254). However, these two legal regimes do not seem set in stone: The vignettes discuss how both legal doctrines were interpreted and developed by leaders of both movements and through crucial NLRB and court cases. It was unclear to what extent these legal regimes were rivals from the beginning versus developed over time, contingent on other factors, into more conflicting versions. Would labor have defended their CBA’s so forcefully against civil rights groups if they were not under pressure from Taft-Hartley and employer pushback? Likewise, if organized labor had not been deradicalized through measures like the non-communist affidavits in Taft-Hartley, would the legal regimes have been so at odds as radical labor leaders might have negotiated more inclusive CBA’s? Considering such counterfactuals is a useful enterprise in this instance because it demands more precision in the causal force(s) at work: When were labor and civil rights groups forged as rivals and did this rivalry change, develop, or solidify as a result of forces outside the legal regime?

Finally, the book ends on the “melancholy irony” that postwar liberalism needed a commitment to both class and racial equality but these two legal regimes were fundamentally in conflict (p. 246). This conclusion raised one final question: If labor and fair employment law were inherently at odds and destined to destroy the postwar order, was there an alternative? Can we conceive of a postwar legal regime that could have supported both class and racial equality, strengthening unions and racial and ethnic minorities at the same time? If so, what does that regime look like? Without detailing this alternative, Schiller’s argument feels incomplete because it is hard to accept that the divided legal regime was so consequential if there was not an alternative path available. Moreover, today—when fair employment law has supplanted labor law, and economic inequality is a pressing problem—this question has contemporary importance as well. Schiller ably demonstrates how these two legal regimes led to conflict between two groups who were the foundations of the postwar liberal order. This begs the question: Is there a different path forward today that can transform rivalry into solidarity? My criticism is in many ways a compliment to Forging Rivals because, after reading this compelling, well-researched account, I found myself with a wealth of new evidence to evaluate, asking new questions, and considering new causes for the demise of postwar liberalism and their implications.