State, class, and reserve labour: the case of the 1941 Canadian Unemployment Insurance Act*

Cet article presente une analyse comparative des theories marxiste-instrumentaliste et marxiste-structuraliste du capitalisme d'Etat dans une etude de cas basee sur l'introduction de la Loi d'Assurance-Chomage canadienne de 1941. Il examine l'influence de l'accumulation de capital, du controle social du travail et du salaire de survie ouvrier sur cette legislation. Cette analyse revele que l'Etat federal a Cree l'assurance-chomage pour controler l'agitation sociale parmi les ouvriers non-employes et pour contribuer a sa propre accumulation de capital dans le contexte historique de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Les capitalistes se sont systematiquement opposes a l'assurance-chomage d'Etat de 1920 a 1941, bien que leur opposition se soit quelque peu temperee au cours de la crise des annees 1930. Les organisations ouvrieres ont systematiquement defendu l'assurance-chomage depuis 1919, le radicalisme de certaines de leurs revendications culminant au cours de la crise. L'Etat federal ayant impose l'assurance-chomage malgre l'opposition des milieux d'affaires canadiennes, on peut affirmer que la theorie marxiste-structuraliste qui accorde a 1'Etat une certaine independance vis-a-vis des milieux d'affaires, ce qui lui permet de satisfaire certaines revendications de la classe ouvriere, est la theorie qui rend le mieux compte du cas presente. Using the introduction of the Canadian Unemployment Insurance Act in 1941 as a case study, the comparative validity of the Marxist instrumental and structural theories of the capitalist state is considered. The bearing of the interests of capital accumulation, social control of labour, and labour's wage subsistence on this legislation is examined. The analysis mainly shows that the federal state introduced unemployment insurance to control unrest among the unemployed and to assist its own accumulation of capital in the context of World War II. The capitalist class consistently opposed state unemployment insurance between 1920 and 1941, although its opposition weakened somewhat during the Depression of the 1930s. Labour organizations have consistently supported unemployment insurance since 1919. The radicalness of some of their proposals reached a high point during the Depression. Because the federal state introduced unemployment insurance largely over the objections of Canadian business, it is concluded that the Marxist structural theory, in which the state displays a relative autonomy from business and thereby accommodates some working-class demands, is the most valid theory for the case under examination.