Class Conflict and Institutional Change: Otto Kahn-Freund (1900–1979) and the Invention of Labor Law

Wolfgang Streeck and Ruth Dukes (University of Glasgow)

The project investigates the invention of labor law as a distinct field of legal doctrine and scholarship. Invention and reinvention as understood here are ongoing processes, scholarly and political at the same time, involving the defense of existing institutions and the development of new ones. Employing the lens of the life and work of Otto Kahn-Freund (1900–1979), developments considered span the twentieth century, from the end of the First World War to the struggle over the second postwar settlement in the 1970s and thereafter. Following Kahn-Freund, labor law scholarship is conceived as an interdisciplinary endeavor, combining insights from legal theory, the sociology of law, political economy, and empirically-oriented industrial relations. In particular, the project will address two questions: How was legal scholarship on the conflict between capital and labor related to both contemporary history and simultaneous developments in the social sciences, and what may be learned from this today in what is seen by many as a “crisis of labor law”? Ruth Dukes is Professor of Labour Law at the University of Glasgow.