This study explores the evolution of the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), and its interaction with the French public sphere, between 1900 and 1920. Kenneth Tucker examines the triumph of this productivism and instrumental rationality, in contrast with other visions of society and the future. He gives a Habermasian twist to the recent linguistic turn in labour history, focusing on the role of competing bodies of knowledge in influencing the self-understanding and strategies of the CGT. He also goes further to situate the rise of productivism within the social and cultural context of the French Third Republic.