The “Social Question” since the 19th Century

The aim of this chapter is to present a number of mainly qualitative characteristics of or having to do with the labour market. These characteristics have been well established and are subject to wide consensus among the jurists, sociologists, historians and contemporary witnesses that have expressed views on the subject. However, these characteristics have been given little attention or else ignored by economists. They can be called “stylised facts”, the terminology used by Nicholas Kaldor.1 These generally very elementary facts are related to (1) the nature of the wage relation and the interpretation made of it by jurists; (2) the conflictual nature of this relation and the upheavals historically associated with it — the famous “social question” of the 19th century; (3) the content and recurrence of the claims made by employees and the organisations that represent them; (4) the reception given to these claims by employers and economists; and (5) the public intervention that this conflictual nature triggers with the edification of laws specific to only wage labour, a point that should be emphasised. In parallel, we shall examine other economic and social facts linked to this problem of salaried employment, in particular the fluctuations of the economy through different crises.