Conquerors, Employers, and Arbiters: States and Shifts in Labour Relations 1500–2000, Introduction

The introductory article to this volume offers an analytical framework for the capacities in which states have historically affected labour relations. The framework captures the full range of possible manifestations of state power, including early states, empires, regional authorities, and city stat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International review of social history 2016-12, Vol.61 (S24), p.1-26
Main Authors: Hofmeester, Karin, Kessler, Gijs, Moll-Murata, Christine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
17th century
20th century
Abolition of slavery
Capital
Economic development
Empires
Employers
Employment
History
Human capital
Labor relations
Labour relations
Loanwords
Political development
Social history
State formation
State power
State-society relations
Taxonomy
Workshops
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The introductory article to this volume offers an analytical framework for the capacities in which states have historically affected labour relations. The framework captures the full range of possible manifestations of state power, including early states, empires, regional authorities, and city states. It distinguishes between the state as a direct actor or participant, carrying out tasks deemed essential for its functioning, and the state as an arbiter, redistributor, or regulator. As conquerors or employers, states are confronted with a basic dilemma: how to extract and allocate the labour resources required to accomplish state tasks. Borrowing from Charles Tilly, the two broad categories of capital and coercion are used as a heuristic device to bring order to the ways in which states have solved this dilemma. Contrary to Tilly’s trajectories of state formation, states’ reliance on capital or coercion is subject to a great degree of flexibility, both over time and across space. In their capacities as mediators and regulators, modern states came to have an even more profound impact on labour relations, as state building moved away from the single focus on organizing the extraction of resources to a wider mission of fostering welfare, economic development, and human capital formation.
ISSN:0020-8590
1469-512X
DOI:10.1017/S0020859016000523