Interest Heterogeneity and Organizing Capacity Two Class Logics of Collective Action?*

Abstract

This chapter looks at capitalist associations under whose rules members are defined as, or stand for, independent production units competing in markets for goods and services. It compares the number of trade unions and business associations representing the interests of capitalists and workers located and producing in identical economic sectors. The structural power of the capitalist class, expressed in its ability to pursue important objectives through individual action in the market, translated into political power through an absence of organizational power at the level of collective action. Being located in a privileged market position, capitalists could afford weak associations. Class theory has been shown to imply that trade unions should be organizationally more fragmented than business associations. Differently heterogeneous inputs result in differently demanding organizational process requirements. Interest heterogeneity makes "the problem of creating and maintaining unity among members and of mobilizing members' resources considerably more serious" for labor than for capital associations.

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