ABSTRACT
Power and material possessions have always been focal points of antagonism and opposition amongst human populations. In industrial relations, these potent sources of conflict have been expressed in a continuing struggle for control within the workplace, in perennial disputes over ownership, income and pay, and in the search for a lasting accommodation of interests by industrial democracy and distributive justice. Here the division of income between specific groups in the population, pay differentials, the rank order of occupations in terms of remuneration and the redistribution of income and wealth through welfare state expenditures are all assessed amongst nations in terms of the unified conceptual approach of the investigation as a whole.
