Labour Law or Social Competition Law? ― On Labour in Its Relation With Capital Through Law

In this work, author Marc Rigaux uncovers the parameters that European labor legislators used in the development of labor protection. He formulates a number of theses that allow him to establish a theory of labor law. The themes dealt with fit into an overall vision on labor in its relation with capital as dealt with in law. In this concept, labor law is seen as a field of tension between an economically imposed, mainly free labor market on the one hand and citizenship ensuing from the political order as the ultimate justification of the correction of the market on the other. The steps taken by the labor and social legislator do indeed hover between those two poles. Even though the legislator does not want to (and is not able to?) question the principle of the free labor market, he does give shape to a person's fundamental right to have a decent life within the domain of labor relations and social relations. Through the study of labor law as a synthesis of citizenship and social competition, the fundamental relationship between the economic and political order is examined. The protection offered by labor law is pressed between citizenship and the social competition imposed by the economic order. The labor legislator invokes the political legitimacy (of the sovereign nation) to adjust the economic power and economic order.