Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-pfhbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-15T20:02:40.794Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Relative Autonomy Revisited: The Origins of Canadian Unemployment Insurance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Leslie A. Pal
Leslie A. Pal
Affiliation:
University of Calgary
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The concept of “relative autonomy” is now routinely used by Marxist and non-Marxist students of public policy to describe the state's independence from class forces. A rare attempt to use the concept empirically is Carl J. Cuneo's work on Canadian unemployment insurance (UI) in the 1930s. This article argues that Cuneo focusses too narrowly on class struggle, and thus misses important aspects of Canadian UI policy. Relative autonomy must be more broadly conceived in terms of the state's administrative expertise, fiscal capacity, and jurisdictional divisions. It is constituted within, not outside, the state. The article illustrates these internal forces through a re-examination of the evolution of Canadian UI in the 1930s.

Résumé

Les études marxistes et non-marxistes utilisent couramment le concept d'autonomie relative pour décrire lindépendance de I'État par rapport aux pressions des classes sociales. Une des rares tentatives d'utilisation empirique de ce concept se retrouve dans les travaux de Carl J. Cuneo sur I'assurance-chômage dans les années 30. Cet article soutient que Cuneo met l'accent de manière trop restrictive sur la lutte des classes, et qu'il laisse ainsi de côlé des aspects importants de la politique de l'assurance-chômage. L'autonomie relative devrait être considérée de manière plus large en termes d'expertise administrative, de capacité fiscale et de répartition des pouvoirs législatifs. Elle se situe à l'intérieur et non à l'extérieurde I'État, comme I'illustre un nouvel examen de l'évolution de I'assurance-chômage au cours des années 30.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 71 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Poulantzas, Nicos. Political Power and Social Classes (London: New Left Books. 1975). 256.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., 284–284 (emphasis in original).

3 Cuneo, Carl J.. “State. Class, and Reserve Labour: The Case of the 1941 Canadian Unemployment Insurance Act.” Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 16 (1979). 147–70:CrossRefGoogle ScholarCuneo, Carl J.. “State Mediation of Class Contradictions in Canadian Unemployment Insurance. 1930–1930.” Studies in Political Economy 3 (1980). 37–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Cuneo. “State Mediation,” 38.

5 Cuneo, “State, Class, and Reserve Labour,” 149.

6 Cuneo, “State Mediation,” 37.

7 Ibid., 47.

8 Ibid., 47–47.

9 Cuneo persists in referring to the “1941 Act”: his confusion may arise from the fact that while the legislation was passed in 1940. benefits payments only began in 1941.

10 Cuneo. “State. Class, and Reserve Labour.” 149.

11 Ibid., 149.

12 Cuneo, “State Mediation,” 75.

13 Cuneo, “State. Class and Reserve Labour,” 149.

14 For instance, see Cuneo, “State Mediation,” 47.

15 Struthers, James, No Fault of Their Own: Unemployment and the Canadian Welfare State, 1914–1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983). While this article covers some of the same ground as Struthers. its interpretation of the actuarial ideology and the role of federalism is different.Google Scholar

16 Cuneo, “State Mediation,” 47.

17 Ibid., 61.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid., 52, note 88.

20 Gough, Ian, The Political Economy of the Welfare Slate (London: Macmillan, 1979), 157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Block, Fred, “Beyond Relative Autonomy: State Managers as Historical Subjects,” in Miliband, Ralph and Saville, John (eds.). The Socialist Register 1980 (London: The Merlin Press, 1980), 227–42.Google Scholar

22 Offe, Claus, Contradictions of the Welfare State, ed. by Keane, John (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984), 105.Google Scholar

23 Gilbert, B. B.. The Evolution of National Insurance in Great Britain (London: Michael Joseph, 1973).Google Scholar

24 Struthers. No Fault of Their Own, chap. 1.

25 PAC, Bennett Papers. Memorandum from R. K. Finlayson to Bennett, n.d., 504027–504027.

26 Bennett Papers, Memorandum from G. D. Finlayson. December 12. 1932. 504014 (emphasis in original).

27 Ibid., 504015.

28 Ibid., Letter from Bryce Stewart to W. C. Clark, January 16, 1933, 501799.

29 Ibid., Memorandum from W. C. Clark to R. B. Bennett. January 18, 1933, 501802.

30 Ibid., Letter from S. L. Holmes to R. K. Finlayson, November 17, 1933, 502991–502991.

31 PAC, Department of Insurance, Memorandum from A. D. Watson to R. K. Finlayson, April 3, 1934, v. 24. file 3–3–1–1.

32 Ibid., A. D. Watson “Actuarial Report on the Contributions Required to Provide the Unemployment Insurance Benefits Within the Scheme of the Draft of an Act Entitled “The Employment and Social Insurance Act.’” November 2. 1934. v. 24. file 3–3–1–1.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., H. Wolfenden, “The Employment and Social Insurance Act: Actuarial Report on the Rates of Contribution for the Unemployment Insurance Benefits and the Provisions with Respect to Supplementary Unemployment Benefits,” February 1, 1935, v. 24, file 3–3–1–1.

35 Struthers (No Fault of Their Own, 121–121) adduces “non-actuarial” reasons for the Act's restricted scope, such as the sheer expense of broad coverage and the political usefulness of driving a widge between skilled and unskilled workers by having the former supported under UI and the latter under the more humiliating and less generous relief. This is plausible, but the logic of the restrictions can be easily explained by reference to the actuarial ideology alone.

36 PAC, Department of Insurance, A. D. Watson. “Memorandum re Brief of Canadian Bankers' Association against Inclusion of the Banks in any general Scheme of Unemployment Insurance.” March 5. 1938. v. 24. file 3–3–1–1.

37 Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Special Committee on Bill No. 98 Respecting Unemployment Insurance. Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence (Ottawa. 1940). 26–26.

38 Ibid., 30.

39 Ibid., 33.

40 Ibid., 273.

41 Ibid., 274.

42 Ibid.

43 See Russell, Peter H., Leading Constitutional Decisions: Cases on the British North America Act (3rd ed.: Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1982). 41.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., 55.

45 Ibid., 59.

46 Struthers (No Fault of Their Own, 24) asserts that in 1920 the only barrier to federal assumption of UI was political, not constitutional or legal. While his judgment for this period is correct, he gives less weight to the trend of judicial decisions than he should when discussing policy-maker's views at the end of that decade. By 1928, the problem had indeed taken on a constitutional aspect, and was not entirely political, though it must be conceded that Struthers persuasively shows the extreme political reluctance of the King government of those years to consider UI or even assistance for municipal relief.

47 See testimony by William S. Edwards, deputy minister of justice in Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Select Standing Committee on Industrial and International Relations, Minnies of Evidence, May 10, 1928, No. 7, 113.

48 Ibid., Final Report 1928, 10.

49 Ibid., 10–10.

50 See Bryden, Kenneth, Old Age Pensions and Policy-Making in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press and the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, 1974), 61–101.Google Scholar

51 Select Standing Committee on Industrial and International Relations. Final Report 1928. II.

52 Ibid., Minutes of Evidence. April 23. 1929. 56.

53 Struthers, No Fault of Their Own, 41.

54 Canada, Parliament, Debates of the House of Commons, February 27, 1930, 107.

55 Ibid., April 29, 1931.

56 PAC. Bennett Papers. “Memorandum for the Prime Minister.” n.d., 504028.

57 Ibid., 504031.

58 Stmthers. No Fault of Their Own. 86.

59 PAC. Mackenzie King Papers. Memoranda and Notes Series. c151128–151128.

60 Ibid., “Memorandum for the Prime Minister Re Unemployment Insurance.” April 22. I93S. c150839–150839.

61 Ibid., cl.150842-c 150847.

62 Debates, June 6, 1938.

63 Nordlinger, Eric A., On the Autonomy of the Democratic State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1981). 1.Google Scholar

64 See, for example, Doern, G. Bruce and Phidd, Richard W., Canadian Public Policy: Ideas, Structure, Process (Toronto: Methuen, 1983). 145–49Google Scholar; Wilson, V. Seymour, Cnadian Public Policy and Administration: Theory and Environment (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1981). 56–59Google Scholar; Atkinson, Michael M. and Chandler, Marsha A. (eds.). The Politics of Canadian Public Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985). 3–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar