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Overview
Capital, Labor, and State is a systematic and thorough examination of American labor policy from the Civil War to the New Deal. David Brian Robertson skillfully demonstrates that although most industrializing nations began to limit employer freedom and regulate labor conditions in the 1900s, the United States continued to allow total employer discretion in decisions concerning hiring, firing, and workplace conditions. Robertson argues that the American constitution made it much more difficult for the American Federation of Labor, government, and business to cooperate for mutual gain as extensively as their counterparts abroad, so that even at the height of New Deal, American labor market policy remained a patchwork of limited protections, uneven laws, and poor enforcement, lacking basic national standards even for child labor.
Synopsis
Capital, Labor, and State is a systematic and thorough examination of American labor policy from the Civil War to the New Deal. David Brian Robertson skillfully demonstrates that although most industrializing nations began to limit employer freedom and regulate labor conditions in the 1900s, the United States continued to allow total employer discretion in decisions concerning hiring, firing, and workplace conditions.
Editorials
American Political Science Review
Capital, Labor, and State has many virtues and makes a substantial contribution. It is distinguished by its careful conceptualization of labor market policy, thorough research in both primary and secondary literature, focused and well-developed argument, and effective blending of historical, institutional, and political-economic analysis. To my knowledge no other work analyzes developments before the New Deal so comprehensively and systematically or with such careful and sustained attention to all four actors—unions, employers, academic reformers, and government. Yet, any reservations are themselves overwhelmed by Robertson's remarkably rich and impressive study of an issue that so agitated American politics from the late-nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. Capital, Labor, and State is a considerable achievement that should be widely read and discussed.— Andrew Battista
Business History Review
Robertson's analysis is insightful, ambitious, and systematic.— Alan Draper
CHOICE
A very concise, insightful examination of the ongoing struggle of unions, employers, and the government to establish the precise boundaries of U.S. labor-management relations in the post-Civil War era. Recommended for upper-division undergraduate through professional collections.Eh.Net
In this book political scientist David Brian Robertson offers an account of American labor exceptionalism that appeals to the uniqueness of American political and legal institutions. . . . Economic historians interested in labor or political economy will find much to sink their teeth into here. . . . It is a virtue of David Brian Robertson's stimulating historical interpretation that both sides of the debate will find much to learn and ponder.— Sundstrom, William A.
Enterprise & Society
Robertson provides a persuasive multicausal explanation for the patchy and limited charachter of American labor policy that belongs on the bookshelf on anyone interested in workers, employment law, and political development in the United States. Robertson provides a complex and convincing interpretation of American labor policy that anyone working on the subject must consider.H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online
In this book political scientist David Brian Robertson offers an account of American labor exceptionalism that appeals to the uniqueness of American political and legal institutions. . . . Economic historians interested in labor or political economy will find much to sink their teeth into here. . . . It is a virtue of David Brian Robertson's stimulating historical interpretation that both sides of the debate will find much to learn and ponder.— William A. Sundstrom
Industrial and Labor Relations Review
David Robertson has written a fine interpretation of labor policy in the United States during the seven decades of industrialization.Journal of American History
Robertson's systematic approach, which brings together the full range of labor market programs, adds an unusual an interesting dimension to the study. The constant comparison with British, European, and even Australasian labor market experiences is extremely enlightening. The emphasis on the influence of America's political institutions in shaping its exceptional labor market regime should remind social historians of the importance of that broad institutional/political context. This significant study offers a clearly written and provocative interpretation of American labor market history, and it deserves a wide audience.— William J. Breen
Journal of Economic History
The argument that Robertson advances here for the importance of political institutions as a determining force in the development of American labor markets is provocative and should be of interest to many economic historians. Robertson is an effective advocate of this interpretation, and goes a long way toward documenting the way in which American policymaking institutions shaped this country's labor markets.— Joshua Rosembloom