The Determination of Occupational Health and Safety Standards in Ontario 1860-1982: From Markets to Politics to...?

The author reviews the historical development of the decision-making frameworks within which courts and the Legislature have made choices regarding the allocation of risks to health and safety in the workplace. Arguing that this development has been conditioned by the necessity of satisfying in a capitalist democracy conflicting demands to facilitate capital accumulation and to justify to the electorate the manner in which choices regarding the structure of the processes of production have been made, the author contends that recent pressure to adopt cost-benefit analysis to satisfy the demands of legitimation and accumulation, and challenges its adequacy as a normative and a political principle. In setting his criticism in the context of a broad view of the political and historical aspects of legal rule-making, the author can address the limits on present allocations of risk imposed by the structure of society, and discuss the possibility of significant future reform