Democracy Against Labor Movement: Japan’s Anti-Labor Developmental State and Aftermaths

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-58
Author(s):  
Mahito Hayashi
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Development Phase ◽  
Relational System ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Labor Control ◽  
Japanese Capitalism

This paper investigates the labor-controlling orientation of the Japanese developmental state and its consequences today. Developmental state studies has given us a robust epistemological grid whereby we can make non-Western state formation intelligible. Yet, mainstream authors have tended to treat the working class as a mere appendage to state– business relations, relegating labor politics at the analysis of state– society relations. By using democratic Japan—a prime example of this sort of obfuscation—in combination with Marxian state theory, this paper outlines the difficulties, addresses them, and extends the scope of developmental state studies to labor. After identifying main tenets of the literature, the author constructs a theory of labor control as a stabilizer of relative state autonomy. The author applies this to Japanese labor movements since 1945 and interprets events and processes of labor oppression/regulation through which Japanese capitalism subsumed the working class under the aegis of the developmental state. Labor control, emerging out of an “exceptional state” (Poulantzas, 1974), evolved into a refined socio-relational system that insulated developmental goals from labor movements. This Japanese trajectory keenly mobilized big business and elite labor, which transformed labor control into a bilateral and then a tripartite league in defense of industrial policy and its deskilling/reskilling intervention. By the 1970s, this achieved the famous docility of Japanese labor. The historically constructed character of docile labor force was exploited once again when Japan made a neoliberal turn in its post-development phase.

Why the Global Labor Movement is in Crisis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Marcel van der Linden
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
The World

Abstract One of the great paradoxes of the current era is that the world working class continues to grow, while at the same time many labor movements are experiencing a crisis. How can we explain this paradox? The global simultaneity of the crisis suggests that the failure of individual organizational leaderships is not the main cause, but that more general factors play an important role. The article argues and attemps to partly explain why the first wave of founding workers‘ organizations (mainly in the North, from the 1860s until the 1920s) was not repeated elsewhere after World War ii; and why many movements in the North declined since the 1980s.

Gatekeepers and “Americanizers”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Barrett
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Irish Nationalism ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Political Machines ◽  
Labor Activism ◽  
American Working Class

This essay focuses on the later rather than the Famine-era migrants, on the American-born Irish, and on their impact on working-class America. Irish American workers were entrenched in workplaces and unions by the late nineteenth century, and their attitudes and actions had enormous consequences as the American working-class population was continually remade through later waves of migration. Too often their actions marginalized immigrants, the unskilled, women, and people of color, tendencies that left an enduring mark on the labor movement in the United States. They were architects of the conservative business unionism that came to dominate the labor movement and of the political machines that dominated many cities. But I also stress a tradition of progressive labor activism that helped lay the foundation for a new multiethnic movement in the course of the early twentieth century. This was especially true during the organizing drives in basic industry during World War I and in the unsuccessful efforts to organize an independent labor party in the wake of the war. We find important differences between the US and Australian cases in terms of the role of the Church, the character of Irish nationalism, the attitude toward independent labor politics, and elsewhere, but we risk misunderstanding Irish workers in both societies if we ignore the nuances in the narratives.

Historical Overview

2018 ◽  
pp. 12-38
Author(s):  
Viviana Patroni
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Country Specific

To contextualize Labor Politics in Latin America’s country-specific discussions of Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela, this chapter provides the historical and comparative background essential to account for the particular ways in which global and regional transformations affected labor and labor legislation in Latin America during the critical 1990s and their aftermath in the new century. In the development of this background, the author also explores key concepts that are essential to understanding the book’s case studies. Starting with early experiments in working-class organization, the chapter revisits the contours of mass politics and labor movements in the region and their reconfiguration starting in the 1980s that so deeply transformed the conditions under which workers had struggled to advance and protect their rights.

Labor and the New Millennium: Class, Vision, and Change. The Twenty-second North American Labor History Conference

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 212-215
Author(s):  
William J. Mello
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
North American ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
State University ◽  
Wayne State University ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Labor

Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan, once again hosted the twenty- second North American Labor History Conference (NALHC). Held between October 19–21, 2000, the conference was an incursion into cutting-edge scholarly research, examining the history of working-class and labor movements in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Mexico, as well as Central and Latin America. NALHC explored the deep-rooted relations among work and race, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, and the economy. A unique and particularly interesting aspect of the conference was that many of the panels were composed of both activists and academics of the labor movement, which made the examination of past and present issues of working-class life highly informative.

Labor Politics in Latin America

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul W. Posner ◽  
Viviana Patroni ◽  
Jean François Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Labor Legislation ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
Time Frames

Labor Politics in Latin America assesses the capacity of working-class organizations to represent and advance working people’s demands in the era of globalization and neoliberalism, in which capital has reasserted its power on a global scale. The book’s premise is that the longer-term sustainability of development strategies for the region is largely connected to the capacity of working-class organizations to secure a fairer distribution of the gains from growth through labor legislation reform. Its analysis suggests the need to take into consideration the wider structural changes that reconfigured the political maps of the countries examined (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Venezuela), for example, globalization and its impact on democratic transformation in the region, operating within longer time frames. It is precisely this wider structural analysis and historical narrative that allows the book’s case studies to show that, even in the uncovering of substantial variation, what becomes evident in the study of Latin America over the last three decades is the overwhelming reality that for most workers in the region, labor reform—or the lack thereof —in essence increased precarity and informality and weakened labor movements.

Labor Movements in Latin America

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico M. Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Informal Workers ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Labor

The history of Latin America cannot be understood without analyzing the role played by labor movements in organizing formal and informal workers across urban and rural contexts.This chapter analyzes the history of labor movements in Latin America from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. After debating the distinction between “working class” and “popular sectors,” the chapter proposes that labor movements encompass more than trade unions. The history of labor movements is analyzed through the dynamics of globalization, incorporation waves, revolutions, authoritarian breakdowns, and democratization. Taking a relational approach, these macro-dynamics are studied in connection with the main revolutionary and reformist strategic disputes of the Latin American labor movements.

scholarly journals Kebijakan Developmental State Indonesia dalam Perdagangan Komoditas Hortikultura, Hewan, dan Produk Hewan

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Septian Nur Yekti
Keyword(s):  
World Trade Organization ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Dispute Settlement ◽  
Developmental State ◽  
State Theory ◽  
Trade Barriers ◽  
Trade Restriction ◽  
Animal Products ◽  
Trade Dispute ◽  
National Welfare

Indonesia insists to defend its regulation on trade of horticulture, animals, and animal products after its loss on New Zaeland’s indictment in Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of World Trade Organization (WTO). Indonesia appealed the DSB decision, despite previous findings in DSB panel which reports that Indonesia’s regulations contains trade restriction and various trade barriers. This paper analyzes the reason why Indonesia appealed the DSB Panel decision, despite the fact that Indonesia violates WTO principles which lead to free trade barriers. This paper uses law perspective to find out whether Indonesia really violates the law or not. Besides, this paper also uses developmental state theory to analyze the case. The theory takes root in the merchantilism which emphasizes on export, domestic production, and national welfare. Developmental state’s position lies between liberalization and centered-plan policy which means that the country that applying this policy joins the globalization and plays its role in international order to reach national welfare.Keywords: developmental state, trade dispute settlement, trade restriction

Renewed Activism for the Labor Movement: The Urgency of Young Worker Engagement

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maite Tapia ◽  
Lowell Turner
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Development ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Labor Movements ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Young Workers ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Movement Building

In this article, the authors consider the findings of a multi-year, case study-based research project on young workers and the labor movement in four countries: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The authors examine the conditions under which young workers actively engage in contemporary labor movements. Although the industrial relations context matters, the authors find the most persuasive explanations to be agency-based. Especially important are the relative openness and active encouragement of unions to the leadership development of young workers, and the persistence and creativity of groups of young workers in promoting their own engagement. Embodying labor’s potential for movement building and resistance to authoritarianism and right-wing populism, young workers offer hope for the future if unions can bring them aboard.

Sustaining Labor Politics in Hard Times: Race, Labor, and Coalition Building in Racine, Wisconsin

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-63
Author(s):  
Naomi R Williams
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Industrial Workers ◽  
Labor Politics ◽  
Working People ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract This article explores the shifting politics of the Racine, Wisconsin, working-class community from World War II to the 1980s. It looks at the ways Black workers’ activism influenced local politics and how their efforts played out in the 1970s and 1980s. Case studies show how an expansive view of the boundaries of the Racine labor community led to cross-sector labor solidarity and labor-community coalitions that expanded economic citizenship rights for more working people in the city. The broad-based working-class vision pursued by the Racine labor community influenced local elections, housing and education, increased the number of workers with the power of unions behind them, and improved Racine's economic and social conditions. By the 1980s, Racine's labor community included not only industrial workers but also members of welfare and immigrants’ rights groups, parents of inner-city students, social workers and other white-collar public employees, and local and state politicians willing to support a class-based agenda in the political arena. Worker activists’ ability to maintain and adapt their notion of a broad-based labor community into the late twentieth century shows how this community and others like it responded to the upheaval of the 1960s social movements by creating a broad and relatively successful concept of worker solidarity that also incorporated racial justice.

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