Legal Studies 397CC - ST-Organized Labor & Lib Democ

Liberal democracy, like all systems of thought and action, carries some tensions and contradictions within itself. This course focuses on one of these areas in particular: the tension between the rights of individual and the rights of the group. We will examine this set of contradictions within liberal democratic thought by studying labor unions, which occupy a unique position in our society. On the one hand, unions have often been accused of being communist front organizations (seeking to impose the ?good? of the group over that of any individual), while on the other hand they are also often accused of being houses of corruption and havens for organized crime (going above and around the law to benefit only themselves). Despite this twin set of accusations, unions are also given special rights and privileges under the law of the United States. In this course, we will examine the ways in which the legal, social, and theoretical history of labor unions can help us to understand the ways in which this tension between the individual and the group plays out in liberal democracy.

Pre Req: LEGAL 250