Reading Kathleen Thelen’s perceptive review of my book leaves me both encouraged and deeply troubled. I was encouraged because the comparative research she highlights in her review reinforces my core argument that labor’s decline in the United States has resulted in the near disappearance of the country’s key equalizing institution. The vital role of organized labor in deepening democracy and mitigating economic risk for working- and middle-class citizens exists across the advanced democracies. Simply put, weakened labor movements and high rates of inequality—political and economic—go hand in hand. If they did not, then my own arguments concerning the consequences of union decline in the United States would rest on shakier ground.

In addition, I was troubled because the comparative research highlighting the importance of organized labor in mitigating the effects of globalization, alongside my conclusion that we should not expect a rapid turnaround in labor’s fortunes anytime soon, points to the continuation of a long-term, disequalizing trend. And here Thelen could have highlighted her own recent, and excellent, book, Varieties of Liberalization and the New Politics of Social Solidarity. In it, she emphasizes the importance of labor movements that have high density rates and that maintain robust cross-occupational ties in shaping a nation’s liberalization trajectory. Those countries with powerful and unified labor movements are more likely to embark on a liberalizing pathway that is equalizing—that promotes mobility while also offering strong social protections.

The U.S. labor movement is neither strong nor particularly unified. In the private sector, establishment-level bargaining, combined with virulent employer opposition, has prevented labor from reversing decades-long losses in density. The absence of union presence in many regions—and the powerful interests eager to maintain the status quo—has stymied labor’s legislative efforts to change the country’s collective bargaining laws. Current congressional dysfunction makes it extremely difficult to pass significant legislation of any sort, let alone on something as polarizing as labor unions.

The implications of Thelen’s book along with my own for the United States in the twenty-first century are clear: the continuing transfer of risk from institutions to individuals, alongside growing inequality in the economy and elections. That is a sobering and, I believe, quite likely scenario. But since the publication of both of our books, we have seen a rising chorus from the president on down the leadership ladder decrying inequality, and a rising social movement—one that remains organizationally and financially beholden to organized labor—pushing for, among other demands, higher minimum wages and greater unionization. On the minimum wage front, this movement has already scored important victories. The pathway to increasing union density, however, remains opaque. But just as Thelen highlights how liberalization takes different forms, some egalitarian, others not, a powerful labor movement in twenty-first-century America need not look exactly like its twentieth-century predecessor, while still working to fulfill its historic role as the key equalizing institution. What shape, if any, will it take? The answer remains in the balance.