Socializing Security
Subtitle: Progressive-Era Economists and the Origins of American Social Policy
Edition: Reissue edition
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: October 6, 1995
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 264
ISBN-13: 9780674815025
Subjects: Central government policies; Economic history; Social issues; Social welfare & social services; 20th century; History: World; Economic History - 20th Century; Social Policy; United States; History - General History; Law and legislation; History: American; Labor laws and legislation; Industrial welfare; Labor & Industrial Relations - General; United States - General; History / General; General; Social security; History
Description: Socializing Security examines the early movement for worker-security legislation in the United States. It focuses on a group of academic economists who became leading proponents of social insurance and protective labor legislation during the first decades of the twentieth century. These economists - including John R. Commons and Richard T. Ely - founded the American Associates for Labor Legislation (AALL).

As intellectuals and political activists, they theorized about the social efficiency of security legislation, proposed policies, and drafted model bills. They campaigned vigorously for industrial safety laws, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, and compulsory health insurance.

. The AALL reformers were successful in some of their legislative campaigns, but failed in two of their most important ones, those for unemployment insurance and health insurance. In examining the obstacles that the reformers faced, David Moss highlights a variety of political and institutional constraints, including the constitutional doctrine of federalism and gender-biased judicial decisions.