Not Working: State Unemployment and Neo-Conservatism in Canada by Stephen McBride (Book review)

Abstract

Mass unemployment, defined as official rates of 9% or over, only hit the OECD countries in the 1980s. Canada, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom were among the first countries to experience this. Stephen McBride's data do not carry through to the 1990s when further economic dislocation must have added to unemployment levels and make his concerns even more relevant. This book presents a carefully constructed argument about the contribution of state activity (and inactivity) to the development of mass unemployment in Canada over the 1970s and 1980s. But it is not an idiographic or nationally focussed account. The argument is developed in explicitly comparative and theoretical terms. The assessment of programs is done comparatively and the conclusions and main hypothesis are articulated in a theoretical framework that is easy to apply to other national experience. The arguments and data are of immediate interest and use to Australian scholars.