Coercion, Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century

Erscheinungsjahr 2010
ISBN: 978-0-521-77360-7
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 342 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 707 g

Reihe: Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society

This book presents a fundamental reassessment of the nature of wage labor in the nineteenth century, focusing on the common use of penal sanctions in England to enforce wage labor agreements. Professor Steinfeld argues that wage workers were not employees at will but were often bound to their employment by enforceable labor agreements, which employers used whenever available to manage their labor costs and supply. In the northern United States, where employers normally could not use penal sanctions, the common law made other contract remedies available, also placing employers in a position to enforce labor agreements. Modern free wage labor only came into being late in the nineteenth century, as a result of reform legislation that restricted the contract remedies employers could legally use.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Steinfeld, Robert J.

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Arbeitsmarkt
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: free wage labor in the history of the West; Part I. American Contract Labor and English Wage Labor: The Use of Pecuniary and Nonpecuniary Pressure: 1. 'Free' contract labor in the United States: an anti-essentialist view of labor types I; 2. 'Unfree' wage labor in nineteenth-century England: an anti-essentialist view of labor types II; 3. Explaining the legal content of English wage labor; 4. Struggles over the rules: the Common Law Courts, parliament, the people, and the master and servant acts; 5. Struggles under the rules: strategic behavior and historical change in legal context; 6. Struggles to change the rules; 7. Freedom of contract and freedom of person; Part II. 'Free' and 'Unfree' Labor in the United States: 8. 'Involuntary servitude' in American fundamental law; 9. Labor contract enforcement in the American north; Conclusion.