"In the 1970s, the economic and social foundations of Western Europe underwent an unprecedented transformation. Old industries like coal and steel disappeared, millions of people lost their jobs and formerly flourishing towns and cities went into decline. Traditional political agendas gave way...

"Starting in the mid-19th Century, public officials, reformers, journalists, and other elites often referred to “the labor question” or “the labor problem”. The labor question was rooted in the system of wage labor that spread throughout much of Europe and its colonies and produced...