Regulatory Legislation and the Legitimation Crisis of the State: The Enforcement of the Shops Act (1950)

The Shops Act (1950), which regulates hours and conditions of retail operation and employment in England and Wales, reflected the wishes of certain retail sectors relating to economic factors such as the intensity of competition and the prevailing form of labour use extant in the first half of the 20th century. At present, changing retail conditions have brought the state, through the Act, into conflict with some sectors of the retail trade who often openly defy the law, The state is forced simultaneously to redefine its intervention within the market and to preserve its legitimacy as an independent law-making and law-enforcing body, The inertia of the state apparatus, coupled with the influence of certain fractions of retail capital who perceive major change in the law as being deleterious to their interests, has prevented legislative change, despite numerous attempts at repeal and reform. The problem is aggravated by the contradictions involved between the preservation of the concept of the ‘rule of law’ and the moral ambivalence felt by consumers, retailers, and enforcement agents toward the law itself.