Politics, Industrialization and Citizenship: Unemployment Policy in England, France and the United States, 1890–1950

Abstract

With the “forward march of labor halted”, and labor movements everywhere in retreat, T.H. Marshall's state-based emphasis on social welfare as “social right” has reminded those interested in reform that appeals to membership in a national community, the essence of citizenship, have served to rally groups to successful struggles for reform. Those aspects of Marshall's ideas, best summarized in his classic 1949 address, “Citizenship and Social Class”, with the greatest resonance for modern social theorists revolve around the relationship between citizenship, rights and markets. For Marshall, “the universal status of citizenship” was a plane of equality such that “all who possess the status (of citizenship) are equal with respect to the rights and duties with which the status is endowed”. Rights were embodied in a common culture and enforced by state power. Marshall believed that, gradually, one particular kind of rights, “social rights”, would come to limit the power of the market. While markets would continue to exist and to generate social inequality, government redistribution would increasingly expand the plane of equality to include the most important aspects of material and cultural life. The distinctive feature of these social rights according to Marshall is that they were not exemptions, privileges or paternalistic solicitude for those excluded from what he labels the “national community”, but social rights were benefits given to members of the community to encourage and facilitate their continued participation.

The “Good Citizen” as a “Respectable Worker:” State, Unemployment, and Social Policy in the United Kingdom and Italy, 1930 to 1950

“…Citizenship‐based rhetoric and social policy aimed to also integrate the unemployed, who traditionally did not fully enjoy membership in the political community. This stance was reinforced by the fact that the growth of unemployment benefits historically connected to political and social rights (Cohen and Hanagan 1995).…”

The Making of Public Labour Intermediation: Job Search, Job Placement, and the State in Europe, 1880–1940

“…Bilateral agreements regulated not only seasonal labour in agriculture 63 but also in industrial work. 64 In reaction to the demands of organized labourers who feared competition from European immigrants, the US government passed the Alien Contract Labor (or Foran) Law in 1885, which forbade migrants to conclude a contract with a US employer prior to their arrival. 65 Consequently, migration policy was seen as an important tool for regulating movement, protecting national labour markets, 66 and prohibiting the exploitation of migrants, while also preventing epidemics, including cholera.…”

From ‘Relief’ to ‘Justice and Protection’: The Maintenance of Deserted Wives, British Masculinity and Imperial Citizenship, 1870–1920

“…While earlier in the century rural inhabitants dominated the migrant stream, from the 1880s it was urban workers who became most associated with emigration, pushed by emigration societies concerned with unemployment and overpopulation, and pulled by the hope of economic success. 56 Indeed, the empire was viewed as a means to help with the increasing problem of unemployment in the late nineteenth century, with subsidised emigration schemes focusing on settling men in the dominions which were hungry for their labour. 57 Men sought prosperity overseas, often leaving behind families to pursue the possibility of work.…”