[Rezension zu W. Carl Tait: Die Arbeiter-Schutzgesetzgebung in den Vereinigten Staaten]

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk: Review of W. Carl Tait (1887)

Böhm-Bawerk’s brief review assesses Tait’s survey of American worker-protection laws as valuable but incomplete. It moves from this appraisal to the political impetus for legislation, the uneven achievement of workers’ demands, and a comparison with Europe.

Der Anstoss zur Thätigkeit der Gesetzgebung wurde fast immer durch Agitationen der Arbeiter gegeben.

English translation: The impulse to legislative activity was almost always given by agitations of the workers.

Worker agitation, rather than autonomous legislative initiative, supplies the review’s causal emphasis. Böhm-Bawerk traces the American labor movement to the early 1830s and notes the subsequent emergence of a socialist party. The eight-hour day remains unrealized, but workers have secured protections concerning association, workplace safety and health, liability, and women’s and children’s labor.

Interessant ist, dass in dem jungen Colonialstaate sich so rasch im Arbeiterstand Verhältnisse, Bewegungen und Bedürfnisse gezeitigt haben, die einen vollständigen Parallelismus mit unserem „alten“ Europa aufweisen.

English translation: It is interesting that in the young colonial state there have so rapidly matured, within the labouring class, conditions, movements, and needs which display a complete parallelism with our "old" Europe.

This closing observation gives the review its comparative significance: America’s youth has not prevented the rapid formation of labor conditions, movements, and needs parallel to those of Europe. The legislative survey thus becomes evidence of shared social pressures across otherwise contrasting historical settings.