Workers social wage struggles in the Great Depression and the era of Neo-Liberalism: International Comparisons

Abstract

This paper looks globally at the ways in which workers attempted to win a degree of income stability through state guarantees of social entitlements in two periods: first, the Great Depression, when income stability via jobs proved untenable, and the period of neo-liberalism from 1975 onwards when social wage programs won from the Depression onwards came under steady attack from conservative forces who alleged that they limited economic growth. The paper suggests reasons why workers in some countries and on some continents made more gains than other during these two periods.