Answers to the Labour Question: Industrial Relations and the State in the Anglophone World, 1880–1945

“Answers to the Labour Question accounts for the divergent types of industrial relations regimes adopted by five Anglophone countries during the twentieth century. It introduces an original typology that highlights the distinctive role of the state. The book draws on government documents, published accounts, memoirs, and news accounts to show why these countries, so similar in many ways, have such different approaches to industrial relations.” Margaret Weir, Wilson Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science, Brown University

“Class conflict convulsed England and its former settler colonies for much of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, exposing the tension between capitalist development and democracy. But despite their many historical and political similarities, these countries sought to resolve this tension in very different ways. In this first-of-its-kind study, Gary Mucciaroni seeks to explain these differences with care, rigor, and attention to nuance. The result is a vital piece of scholarship that will be essential reading for scholars of labour, politics, policy, and social change.” Barry Eidlin, Associate Professor of Sociology, McGill University, and author of Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada