Description
Book SynopsisSince the mid-nineteenth century, public officials, reformers, journalists, and other elites have referred to the labour question. The labour question was rooted in the system of wage labour that spread throughout much of Europe and its colonies and produced contending classes as industrialization unfolded. Answers to the Labour Question explores how the liberal state responded to workers’ demands that employers recognize trade unions as their legitimate representatives in their struggle for compensation and control over the workplace.
Gary Mucciaroni examines five Anglophone nations Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States whose differences are often overlooked in the literature on political economy, which lumps them together as liberal, market-led economies. Despite their many shared characteristics and common historical origins, these nations’ responses to the labour question diverged dramatically. Mucciaroni identifies
Table of Contents
1. Answers to the Labour Question 2. Why the Anglophone Nations Diverged 3. How the Regimes Emerged 4. The Statist Answer: Australasia 5. The Voluntarist Answer: Great Britain 6. Elusive Answers: The United States before the 1930s 7. The Legalist Answer: The United States 8. Limited Statism: Canada’s First Answer 9. Canada Capitulates to Legalism 10. Conclusions Appendix Notes Works Cited Index
