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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
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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

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References

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

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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

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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.

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57 Ibid., 504031.

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