The German case provides a good point of departure for a study of the politics of skill formation. Germany has long been considered exemplary for its vocational training system, which even despite current strains (discussed in Chapter 5) continues to attract large numbers of German youth and to produce an abundance of high-quality skills (Streeck 1992b; Culpepper and Finegold 1999; Green and Sakamoto 2001: 73). Since the turn of the century, observers from abroad have looked to the German training model as a source of ideas and inspiration (see, for example, Cooley 1912; and, more recently, Reich 1991). This chapter examines the genesis and early evolution of the German system. As we will see, this system was not created “of a piece” but rather, evolved as successive layers were patched on to a rudimentary framework developed at the end of the nineteenth century. The critical legislative innovation around which the whole system was constructed was passed by an authoritarian government, initiated and originally conceived as part of a deeply conservative political strategy aimed mostly against the country's nascent organized labor movement. This chapter begins to track the processes through which this system evolved subsequently into what is now considered a pillar of social partnership between labor and capital in Germany today.

To preview the argument: The crucial starting point in Germany was the survival of an independent artisanal sector, formally (and legally) endowed with rights to regulate training and to certify skills.