THE IRONY OF STATE INTERVENTION: AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS POLICY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE, 1914-1939

Larry G. Gerber

ISBN 10: 0875803474 / ISBN 13: 9780875803470

Editore: Northern Illinois University Press, US, 2005

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Small red stamp on first free end paper. Pages are otherwise clean with no additional markings from previous owners. Binding is square and tight. Boards are clean with minor edgewear. Text block is lightly soiled on foredge. Dust jacket is clean, bright, and unmarked with slight edgewear. PICTURES PROVIDED UPON REQUEST.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: THE IRONY OF STATE INTERVENTION: AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS POLICY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE, 1914-1939
• Editore: Northern Illinois University Press, US
• Data di pubblicazione: 2005
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0875803474
• ISBN 13: 9780875803470
• Rilegatura: Hardcover
• Condizione: Very Good plus
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: Near Fine

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Embracing individualism and antistatism, the United States traditionally has favored a limited role for government. Yet state intervention both against and on behalf of labor has a long history, culminating in the labor law reforms of the New Deal. How do we account for this irony? And how do we explain why, between World War I and the Great Depression, another leading industrial nation with similar ideological commitments, Great Britain, developed a different model?

By comparing the United States and Britain, Larry G. Gerber makes clear that, in the development of industrial relations policies, ideology was secondary to economic realities—the structure of business, the market system, and the configuration of unions. Nonetheless, industrial policy developed within the broader context of the transition from the individualistic laissez-faire capitalism of the nineteenth century to a collectivist political economy in which the state and organized groups played increasingly important roles while pluralist and corporatist models contended for influence.

In Britain, where most business enterprises remained comparatively small, collective bargaining between workers and management became the norm. In the United States, however, large-scale corporations quickly rose to dominance. Eager to retain control of the production process, corporate elites resisted negotiating with workers and occasionally called upon the state to resolve labor crises. American workers, who initially opposed state involvement, eventually turned to the state for assistance as well. The New Deal administration responded with a series of new labor policies designed to balance the interests of employers and employees alike.

Since state intervention did nothing to permanently change employers' hostility toward unions, the New Deal legislation was short-lived. Gerber's broad study of this momentous period in labor history helps explain the conundrum of a nation with a typically limited government whose intense intervention in labor relations caused long-lasting effects.

Informazioni sugli autori

Larry G. Gerber is Professor of History at Auburn University.

Larry G. Gerber is Professor of History at Auburn University.