absolutist system, such as the paternalist German Empire, this sense of moral obligation rests upon what Max Weber called “traditional power”.29 In a liberal constitutional state, however, the typical form of legitimisation is legal “rationality”.The law thus appears as a neutral and rational body of rules, discovered by objective principles, which commands universal respect.30 Hepple raises the question whether this legal rationalisation in general, has been paralleled in a growth of rationality in the sphere of labour relations, and if so, at what speed this growth of rationality has developed. His conclusion is that labour law as it developed in Europe can be seen as an alternative both to laissez-faire and to the creation of some form of socialism.31 Alan Supiot has also treated the changing function of legal institutions. He points out that the idea of contract means obligations for both parties; work in exchange for money.At the same time it is impossible to disregard the fact that the theory of a contract has been able to remain only through a complete mutation of the old idea of the letting of services (locatio conductio) and by including some central parts of pre-industrial and paternal notions, especially the recognition of the employee’s personal obligations to his opposite party. The basic legal concept concerning the relation between employer and employee is built upon inequality. Labour law and its actors are fed by this tension between the idea of freedom of contract, which presupposes the autonomy of the parties, and the idea of subordination, which excludes this autonomy.This fact explains the influence of public law on labour law, which is the political system’s effort to correct some effects resulting from the principal of inequality. Supiot also focuses on an issue which is of special interest when analysing Swedish labour law history before its formative period, which started around1885.According to Supiot, theWestern p a r t 1 , c h a p t e r 1 28 29 Weber 1947, pp. 328-329. 30 Wennström2003, pp. 19-20. 31 Hepple 1986a, pp. 12-30.
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