Abstract

This article undertakes an analysis of the prospects for global labour law from the perspective of long-run capitalist dynamics associated with phases of industrialisation. The article argues that Britain’s early industrialisation owed much to legal institutions, including the poor law and factory legislation, which supported labour mobility and improvements in productivity. Labour standards constructed around this model achieved a global reach by the middle decades of the twentieth century. Although weakened during the period of neoliberal policy dominance which began in Europe and North America in the 1980s, these institutions have proved surprisingly resilient, and have been strengthened in certain regions. If neoliberalism is ending, and it is not yet clear what will replace it, it is possible to predict that labour law will continue to have a future in mediating the impacts of markets and technology on humans and nature.