Peter Giraudo | Boston College (original) (raw)
I work on nineteenth- and twentieth-century European political thought. I received my PhD in political theory from Princeton University in 2023. My book project excavates a tradition of German and French thought that stressed unions’ unique political significance as 'laboratories' of a new cooperative culture and institutions that constructed a disciplined class struggle with capitalists.
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Publications by Peter Giraudo
History of European Ideas , 2023
This paper offers a reinterpretation of Eduard Bernstein's theory of evolutionary socialism. It d... more This paper offers a reinterpretation of Eduard Bernstein's theory of evolutionary socialism. It does so by examining the leading role that he envisioned for unions of skilled workers in the socialist movement. During his time in London in the 1890s, Bernstein's engagement with English Fabianism led him to emphasize the proletariat's differentiated nature. He claimed skilled workers most readily organized and became the first proletarians to develop class consciousness. Unskilled workers, on the other hand, remained largely unorganized and estranged from the socialist movement. Bernstein opposed the socialist political strategy of nationalization because it would subordinate unskilled workers to party revolutionaries rather than realize cooperative self-government in industry. This focus on promoting industrial selfgovernment made Bernstein stress the importance of workers' further unionization and adoption of skilled unionists' method of collective bargaining. This would produce socialist cooperation because it facilitated cooperative wage determination. In Bernstein's view, skilled unionists influenced the socialist party to take political action to organize and elevate more proletarians to class consciousness. In contrast to those who claim Bernstein prioritized the party's autonomous ethical appeals and legislation, I emphasize his focus on union-party interactions and defense of unions as central for the advance to socialism's cooperative society.
History of European Ideas , 2023
This paper offers a reinterpretation of Eduard Bernstein's theory of evolutionary socialism. It d... more This paper offers a reinterpretation of Eduard Bernstein's theory of evolutionary socialism. It does so by examining the leading role that he envisioned for unions of skilled workers in the socialist movement. During his time in London in the 1890s, Bernstein's engagement with English Fabianism led him to emphasize the proletariat's differentiated nature. He claimed skilled workers most readily organized and became the first proletarians to develop class consciousness. Unskilled workers, on the other hand, remained largely unorganized and estranged from the socialist movement. Bernstein opposed the socialist political strategy of nationalization because it would subordinate unskilled workers to party revolutionaries rather than realize cooperative self-government in industry. This focus on promoting industrial selfgovernment made Bernstein stress the importance of workers' further unionization and adoption of skilled unionists' method of collective bargaining. This would produce socialist cooperation because it facilitated cooperative wage determination. In Bernstein's view, skilled unionists influenced the socialist party to take political action to organize and elevate more proletarians to class consciousness. In contrast to those who claim Bernstein prioritized the party's autonomous ethical appeals and legislation, I emphasize his focus on union-party interactions and defense of unions as central for the advance to socialism's cooperative society.