Unemployment as a Problem in the Development of Industrial Societies: The English Experience

Abstract

Unemployment, as a concept and as a mass phenomenon, is a relatively new thing in western society. It was largely elaborated and experienced in the period from the 1890s to the 1930s. What did it mean to be ‘unemployed’ before that time? What was the nature of ‘the economy of the poor’, and how far did unemployment in the household and informal economy balance unemployment in the formal economy? Using largely the evidence of Poor Law policies and practices, this paper considers the attitudes to the unemployed since Elizabethan times, and what this tells us about the conditions of life and work of the labouring population in England before the public recognition and definition of the specific status of being unemployed. It then considers the period, from the 1890s to the 1940s, in which ‘full employment’ came to be inscribed on the banner of all industrial societies. Finally it considers the implications of this account for full employment in the future of industrial societies, and the extent to which we should continue to regard this as a possible or desirable aim.