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ABSTRACTHayek's criticisms on the government prerogative of making money, the mystique of legal tender and the difficulty for government to adopt optimal policies, seem grounded. Nevertheless, the advocated solutions of free trade in money have the disadvantage of not standing historically, and above all do not fully integrate the new dynamic competition in financial services. As a matter of fact, alongside a financial market which is more and more autonomous and where the key to higher profit lies in marketing a large volume of debt, a model of a currency competition could easily converge to an oligopolistic market by the emergence of dominant currencies.

ABSTRACTThis paper reviews the too-much neglected historical experience of large-scale emigration from Canada over the last four decades of the nineteenth century. It is shown that this involved anglophone Canadians as well as French. The paper focuses on the similarities and also on some of the contrasts in the emigration characteristics of the two ethnic groups. An explanation of the emigration is offered in terms of a rate of growth of industrial employment insufficient to absorb the rapid population growth that was occuring in a rural society that had run out of cultivable land onto which to expand settlement. The major change in tariff policy in the United States that was brought about in the 1860s is identified as an important reason for the insufficient growth of industrial employment.

AbstractWatsuji Tetsurô, Modernity, and Japanese CultureWatsuji Tetsurô, a Japanese philosopher, was a member of a loose group of Japanese intellectuals who tried to question the Western idea of modernity in the 1930s. Watsuji criticized the West for ils individualism and ils tendency to separate what should be united. To counter the influence of Western modernity in Japan, Watsuji defined an ethical System based on the inclusion of individuals in collectivities. In doing to, he made use of Western philosophical means, in particular the concepts devised by Husserl and Heidegger. Moreover, he adopted a définition of the nation as the most inclusive group, a definition that took ils inspiration from modem Western ideas of the Nation-State. Watsuji thus defined anti-modernity in the terms of modernity.Key words : Bernier, Watsuji, modernity, ideology, philosophy, Japan

AbstractAttention to social classes in Japan has been rejected in favour of a vision of a national community or one that presents the society as homogenous. Instead, this article defends the position that class analysis is appropriate for understanding the history and current situation of Japan. Classes are defined as positions in socio-economic relations. Before 1868 official ideology divided the society into classes. This division officially disappeared with the regime change in 1868 but distinct classes continued to exist in both the agricultural sector and the new industrial one. Reforms undertaken between 1945 and 1948 altered the situation by reducing income differentials and changing relations in the workplace. Nonetheless, key differences in income and in power remained within companies. In addition, minority political control of the whole society and large corporations (the flagships of Japanese capitalism) was reinforced. Such differences in wages and political control indicate that people are differentially situated in social relations, and that therefore there are social classes.

This article presents the main results of research on eight local unions in Quebec's metallurgy and paper industries. The locals, which are affiliated with the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CNTU — Confederation des syndicats nationaux), negotiated agreements on union participation in the management of work organization in the early 1990s. The main focus of the research was the analysis of the contexts, processes and results of these experiments with union participation in the management of work organization. The research involved a longitudinal study that sought to explain the evolution of union-management cooperation in the eight cases over the period 1990 to 1997.A number of studies (Cooke 1990; Eaton and Voos 1992; Cutcher- Gershenfeld, Kochan and Verma 1991 ; Verma and Cutcher-Gershenfeld 1993) have demonstrated that the economic context in which an establishment or enterprise operates is a key element in triggering union-management cooperation in the management of organizational change aimed at increasing labour productivity. Moreover, numerous studies have confirmed that the nature and scope of the changes observed in work organization vary according to the composition of the work force, establishment size and industry.In particular, employee involvement in work teams is greater in large industrial establishments whose employees are more skilled and autonomous (Applebaum and Batt 1994; Betcherman et al. 1994; Osterman 1994). Other studies show that work reorganization involves modifying the provisions in collective agreements that deal with job definition, job classifications, work force movement and forms of compensation based on qualifications or economic performance (Bourque and Rioux 1994; Cappelli and McKersie 1987; Chaykowski and Verma 1992; Katz and Keefe 1992). Finally, one of the few studies that deal with the determinants of the success or fallure of union participation in the management of work organization (Eaton 1994) concluded that the determining factor in whether or not these experiments were continued was the active commitment and support of managers and union representatives.Increased competition and the resulting job insecurity played an important role in the emergence of the union-employer cooperation experiments examined, since these were the two main motives referred to by union representatives to explain the union's decision to participate in the management of work organization. In most of the case studies, agreements on union participation in the management of work organization were concluded against a background of a significant reduction in the number of unionized employees during the preceding years; and the fear of additional job losses in the future was mentioned by many union officiais to justify their members' acceptance of management demands for work reorganization. Another factor favouring union-management experiments that was identified by union representatives was a generally favourable attitude towards union involvement in the management of work organization on the part of employers; indeed, in most of the cases, the employer initiated the process of joint management of organizational change and negotiated an agreement to that end with the unions. Interviews conducted with union representatives regarding the motives for union participation in work reorganization revealed two strategie orientations among the unions studied. The first orientation can be described as "defensive participation" and is characterized by union involvement aimed at influencing management work reorganization projects so as to reduce the negative impacts on working conditions and job security. The second strategie orientation puts more importance on the objective of workplace democratization through active participation of the union and workers in decisions related to the management of the workplace. This "pro-active" orientation was more frequent in the paper workers' unions, whose representatives in most cases pushed for the development of a joint process of work reorganization and the implementation of teamwork. Union representatives in the metallurgy industry, on the other hand, put much more importance on measures to protect jobs than on workers' participation in the management of work organization.The nature of the organizational changes introduced in the establishments studied provides valuable information on the different models of human resources management being tried out in unionized work places. Several recent studies (Applebaum and Batt 1994; Betcherman et al. 1994; Kochan and Osterman 1994) promote a model of human resources management that focuses on the participation of unions and employees in work organization, continuous negotiation of organizational change, training based on increased work force flexibility, and incentive-based compensation models aimed at increasing productivity and product quality. However, the data gathered for this study clearly demonstrate that this management model is not predominant in the establishments examined. In all of the cases, work reorganization was carried out by modifying collective agreements in order to increase the polyvalence of employees by merging classifications and decompartmentalizing occupations. The duration of collective agreements increased in all of the cases, which, compared to negotiating rounds during the previous two decades, gives the firm a longer period of protection from conflicts that can occur when collective agreements are renegotiated. According to most of the union representatives interviewed, work reorganization in six of the eight establishments mainly involved task enlargement for a majority of employees, and has been accompanied by an intensification of work. Moreover, in a majority of cases, the involvement of union representatives in the management of work organization declined after a few years of experimentation. At the same time, only a minority of employees were involved in teamwork, with the exception of two establishments in the paper industry where, during the past few years, the socio-technical model of work organization was introduced. Finally, the new forms of incentive-based compensation introduced in three of the establishments during the period studied put more emphasis on financial results than on productivity gains. Our study of the eight cases reveals that experiments with unionmanagement cooperation in the management of work organization are fragile and that their development depends on numerous contingent factors. Although the longitudinal analysis reveals that an establishment's economic viability is not a sufficient condition for continuing experiments with union participation in work organization management, the development of experiments in three of the case studies nevertheless shows that the struggle for the establishment's economic survival often serves as a catalyst for implementing the most advanced forms of worker participation in workplace management. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that the objectives of workplace democratization are more pronounced in those cases in which organizational changes have focused on teamwork. This study also reveals that the employer's attitude toward the union and employees' participation in work organization management, the existence of joint mechanisms of cooperation and consultation as well as the unequivocal support of members for the involvement of union representatives in work organization management are the key determinants of the success of these experiments. In contrast, in those cases where organizational changes were imposed unilaterally by employers, and where employees and their representatives perceived that the gains resulting from work reorganization were being distributed unequally, unionmanagement cooperation was likely to be questioned and to decline.