There have been dramatic shifts in the behavior of labor markets and the conduct of industrial relations in the last century. This volume explores these changes in the context of four very different societies: Germany, Sweden, Britain and Japan. Despite their manifest differences, the author demonstrates that for long periods their labor markets were similar in many respects. The book discusses the failure of neo-corporatism in Britain in the 1970s and the subsequent rise of Thatcherism; the rise of Japan as a model for orderly industrial relations in the 1970s; and the collapse of the German and the success of the Swedish labor markets in the 1930s.