Belated Feudalism
Belated Feudalism
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Traditional theories of American political development depict the American state as a thoroughly liberal state from its very inception. In this book, first published in 1992, Karen Orren challenges that account by arguing that a remnant of ancient feudalism was, in fact, embedded in the American governmental system, in the form of the law of master and servant, and persisted until well into the twentieth century. The law of master and servant was, she reveals, incorporated in the US Constitution and administered from democratic politics. The fully legislative polity that defines the modern liberal state was achieved in America, Orren argues, only through the initiatives of the labor movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and was finally ushered in as part of the processes of collective bargaining instituted by the New Deal. This book represents a fundamental reinterpretation of constitutional change in the United States and of the role of American organized labor, which is shown to be a creator of liberalism, rather than a spoiler of socialism.
- A challenge to the traditional view of the role of labor relations in the political development of the USA
- Orren sees labor as the champion of liberalism rather than the defeated proponent of socialism
Reviews & endorsements
"The author...provides a carefully wrought and provocative argument that opposes the central tenets of American 'exceptionalism.'" Harvard Law Review
"...a brilliant tour de force..." Staughton Lynd, The Journal of American History
"Belated Feudalism is a provocative and highly original work of critical legal history on class formation and political development. Its underlying lesson--no labor, no liberalism--simultaneously challenges the restraining myths of America's pristine past and alerts us to the possiblities of a more democratic future." Contemporary Sociology
"Orren provides a useful guide to the application of master-and-servant doctrine to the changing work environment and she raises challenging points about the role of labor in creating the undercarriage of the post-New Deal institutional order. These are significant contributions." Reviews in American History
"Belated Feudalism is a stunning reinterpretation of the American political order as a whole. Labor and law are avenues to a broad vista. Orren reconceptualizes the logic of American political development, the relation of public and private in American politics, and the place of labor history in American political history. On all of these dimensions, one cannot read this book without having one's views shaken up and permanently altered." Jeffrey K. Tulis, The University of Texas at Austin
"Orren's insight about the persistence of feudal relations in the workplace is a stunning way of accounting for the subservience that characterized employers' expectations and workers' drudgery." Wythe Holt, Labor History
Product details
- Published: January 1992
- Format: Paperback
- ISBN: 9780521422543
- Length: 252 pages
- Dimensions: 235 × 156 × 23 mm
- Weight: 0.457kg
- Availability: Available
Table of Contents
- Preface
- 1. Introduction: liberalism and labor in developmental perspective
- 2. The transition to liberalism and the remnant of American labor
- 3. Belated feudalism: the order of the workplace in late-nineteenth-century America
- 4. The old order and collective action
- 5. Masters, servants, and the new American state
- 6. Conclusion: the state of liberalism
- Index.
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