Belated Feudalism: Labor, the Law, and Liberal Development in the United States (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780521422543)

Contrary to the idea that the United States was liberal from its inception, Orren argues that both capitalism and constitutionalism proceeded upon a remnant of ancient feudalism. This was the common law of master and servant, embedded in the judiciary, cutting off the fundamental area of labor governance from democratic politics. The fully legislative polity that defines the modern liberal state was brought on through the industrial actions of trade unions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and was established with the institutions of collective bargaining under the New Deal. The book represents a reinterpertation of American political development and of the role of the labor movement as a creator of liberalism, not a spoiler of socialism.

Author: Karen Orren
ISBN-10: 052142254X
ISBN-13: 9780521422543
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/31/1992
Pages: 252
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.76lbs
Size: 9.03h x 6.05w x 0.69d