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Business & Economics Economic History

Business and Social Reform in the Thirties

by (author) Alvin Finkel

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.

Alvin Finkel's profile page