Abstract
This postface reflects upon the conceptual scope of the present edited volume on the internationalisation of the labour question. It offers two main lines of consideration: First, it critically evaluates the older traditions of research on labour internationalism, their crisis since the 1990s, and their subsequent revitalisation through transnational and global perspectives. The present volume is discussed as part of these efforts which currently point to the need of systematically and comprehensively contextualising all experiences of labour-related international organisations in a broader sphere of internationalism. Second, the postface stresses the need to situate studies on the internationalisation of the labour question in the context of general political and economic conditions. Taking up cues from both Arno J. Mayer and Antonio Gramsci, cycles of internationalisation and de-internationalisation are understood in terms of ‘revolution’, ‘counterrevolution’ and ‘passive revolutions’.
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Notes
- 1.
For a survey from the late 1980s, see Frits van Holthoon and Marcel van der Linden (eds.), Internationalism in the Labour Movement, 1830–1940, vols. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1988).
- 2.
Beverly Silver, Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization Since 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Marcel van der Linden, Workers of the World: Essays Toward a Global Labor History (Leiden: Brill, 2009): Ch. 12.
- 3.
Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).
- 4.
For an overview, see Klaas Dykmann and Katja Naumann, “Changes from the ‘Margins’: Non-European Actors, Ideas, and Strategies in International Organizations: Introduction,” Comparativ 23, nos. 4–5 (2013): 9–20.
- 5.
Arno J. Mayer, “Internal Causes and Purposes of War in Europe, 1870–1956: A Research Assignment,” The Journal of Modern History 41, no. 3 (1969): 298.
- 6.
Versailles Treaty, Part XIII, Section 1, Preamble.
- 7.
Samuel Bowles and Robert Boyer, “A Wage-Led Employment Regime: Income Distribution, Labour Discipline, and Aggregate Demand in Welfare Capitalism,” in The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience, eds. Stephen A. Marglin and Juliet B. Schor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990): 212.
- 8.
Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt (eds.), Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
Bibliography
Bowles, Samuel, and Robert Boyer, “A Wage-Led Employment Regime: Income Distribution, Labour Discipline, and Aggregate Demand in Welfare Capitalism,” in The Golden Age of Capitalism: Reinterpreting the Postwar Experience, eds. Stephen A. Marglin and Juliet B. Schor (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990): 187–217.
Dykmann, Klaas, and Katja Naumann, “Changes from the ‘Margins’: Non-European Actors, Ideas, and Strategies in International Organizations: Introduction,” Comparativ 23, nos. 4–5 (2013): 9–20.
Hirsch, Steven, and Lucien van der Walt (eds.), Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870–1940: The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Revolution (Leiden: Brill, 2010).
Linebaugh, Peter, and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).
Mayer, Arno J., “Internal Causes and Purposes of War in Europe, 1870–1956: A Research Assignment,” The Journal of Modern History 41, no. 3 (1969): 291–303.
Silver, Beverly, Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization Since 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
van der Linden, Marcel, and Frits van Holthoon (eds.), Internationalism in the Labour Movement, 1830–1940, vols. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1988).
van der Linden, Marcel, Workers of the World: Essays Toward a Global Labor History (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
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Mayer, D., van der Linden, M. (2020). Labour Internationalism in Context Small and Large. In: Bellucci, S., Weiss, H. (eds) The Internationalisation of the Labour Question. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28235-6_18
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