Abstract

The essay intends to develop the theme of freedom in labour law through dialogue with two strands of philosophical-political thought: neo-republicanism and the neo-Hegelian theory of social freedom. Labour law, in the current historical phase, seems to need a new legitimation and a new theoretical impetus, after years of attacks by neoliberal economic thought. Labour law can draw on these two currents of political philosophy to consolidate its own value paradigm and to identify a new regulatory project. Freedom as non-domination and as social freedom, that is to say forms of freedom different from the negative one of classical liberalism, converge towards the construction of social rights (such as the right to codetermination) which find a particular axiological project in labour law.