Answers to the labour question : industrial relations and the state in the anglophone world, 1880-1945

"Starting in the mid-19th Century, public officials, reformers, journalists, and other elites often referred to “the labor question” or “the labor problem”. The labor question was rooted in the system of wage labor that spread throughout much of Europe and its colonies and produced contending classes of employers and employees as industrialization unfolded. But the labor question was not simply an objective set of economic circumstances. It was also a social construct that meant different things to different people. Whether one viewed the labor question in terms of social justice or social order, industrial capitalism posed a great challenge for the state, particularly in countries with democratic forms of government. The liberal state, unavoidably drawn into these conflicts, responded with a variety of answers to the labor question. The situation challenged two bedrock assumptions of liberalism--one, that capital and labor could coexist in harmony and two, that the state could maintain a “neutral” role in class relations. Labor leaders, employers, public officials and reformers sought answers to the labor question on the terrain of industrial relations. This manuscript elucidates the answers to the labor question that emerged in five nations and provides an explanation for why these nations developed dramatically different industrial relations regimes. It also examines how the paths that each nation took to the adoption of its regime reflected a different pattern or logic of institutional change. Thus, while the focus is on explaining regime divergence, the broader aim is to understand institutional change beyond the domain of industrial relations."--