Business & Economics Economic History
Business and Social Reform in the Thirties
- Publisher
- James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers
- Initial publish date
- Jan 1979
- Category
- Economic History
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780888622358
- Publish Date
- Jan 1979
- List Price
- $16.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781552773420
- Publish Date
- Feb 2008
- List Price
- $45.00
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Description
This book challenges the commonly accepted view that governments enacted social reforms in the 1930s in response to demands for more equitable redistribution of wealth in a time of trouble, robbing from the rich to give to the poor.
Alvin Finkel demonstrates conclusively that Canadian big business was overwhelmingly in favour of more state intervention during the Thirties in the economic and social sphere. Private enterprise in Canada has always depended on government aid--capital grants, high tariffs, the repression of organized labour--and in the 1930s, the corporations' need for help was more acute than ever before. They realized that the capitalist system could not survive without legislated structural reforms that would provide safeguards for private investment and profit under the guise of social welfare.
Examining the emergence of an unprecedented intertwining of business and government management during the Depression, Business and Social Reform in the Thirties analyzes an inordinate concentration of power that remains with us today.
About the author
ALVIN FINKEL is a founding member of the Alberta Labour History Institute, an emeritus professor of History at Athabasca University where he taught for 36 years and the past president of the Canadian Committee on Labour History.
He was the book review editor for the journal Labour/Le Travail for 11 years and is still a member of that journal’s editorial board. A prolific author, Alvin’s 13 books have sold over 150,000 copies. They include textbooks on Canadian history and the history of social policy as well as labour history and the history of the events leading to World War II. On the latter topic, he co-wrote The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion with Clement Leibovitz (Lorimer 2011). He lives in Edmonton Alberta.
Other titles by
Humans: The 300,000-Year Struggle for Equality
Compassion
A Global History of Social Policy
The Frontier of Patriotism
Alberta and the First World War
Our Lives
Canada after 1945
Working People in Alberta
A History
The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion
The The West and Beyond
New Perspectives on an Imagined Region
The West and Beyond
New Perspectives on an Imagined Region
Social Policy and Practice in Canada
A History
Our Lives: Canada after 1945
First Edition