Worker Resistance to “Social” Reform and the Rise of Anarchism in Spain, 1880–1920

Abstract

AbstractThis article focuses on the relationship between the labor movement and the state in Spain. Its main object of analysis is unionized Spanish workers’ indifference or hostility to state intervention in labor relations during the period when the first set of social reforms was discussed and implemented (1880–1923). The article shows that unionized workers’ and reformist politicians’ contradictory attitudes toward social reforms derived from their irreconcilable perspectives about the nature of labor conflicts and the role of the state. These attitudes were in turn based on different notions of “society” (contractual and organic) that prefigured the actions workers and reformists took to deal with labor conflicts. In analyzing this issue, the article builds from the main results of recent studies on the rise of “the social” and examines a heterogeneous array of primary sources (including union manifestos, official inquiries, and intellectual and political debates about social laws).