The fabrication of labor : Germany and Britain, 1640-1914

This monumental study demonstrates the power of culture to define the meaning of labor. Drawing on massive archival evidence from Britain and Germany, as well as historical evidence from France and Italy, The Fabrication of Labor shows how the very nature of labor as a commodity differed fundamentally in different national contexts. A detailed comparative study of German and British wool textile mills reveals a basic difference in the way labor was understood, even though these industries developed in the same period, used similar machines, and competed in similar markets. These divergent definitions of the essential character of labor as a commodity influenced the entire industrial phenomenon, affecting experiences of industrial work, methods of remuneration, disciplinary techniques, forms of collective action, and even industrial architecture. Starting from a rigorous analysis of detailed archival materials, this study broadens out to analyze the contrasting developmental pathways to wage labor in Western Europe and offers a startling reinterpretation of theories of political economy put forward by Adam Smith and Karl Marx. In his brilliant cross-national study, Richard Biernacki profoundly reorients the analysis of how culture constitutes the very categories of economic life. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996. Cover Series Editors Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: The Task of Explanation The Initial Test Cases Culture in Labor History The Ambiguity of Practice Theory Taxonomies of Production Practice and Subjective Meaning A Look Ahead Part One. The Cultural Structure of the Workplace 2. Concepts and Practices of Labor The Logic of the Weavers' Piece-Rate Scales Defining Fines The Circulation of Labor Traders and Capitalists The Strategy for Specifying Culture's Effect 3. The Control of Time and Space Time Measurements Time Jurisdiction Frontiers of Discipline The Partitioning of Space Theory in the Mill Yard 4. The Cultural Location of Overlookers Imagining the Overlookers' Contribution Belabored Fictions Forms of Authority Culture's Contemporaneous Effect Concluding Reflections on Part One Part Two. Pathways to the Definition of Labor as a Commodity 5. The Disjoint Recognition of Markets in Britain The Codification of a Market in Products The Compass of the Commodity The Institutionalization of a Market in Labor Adam Smith's Substance The Transmission of Labor in the Age of the Factory The Insincerity of the Historical Process 6. The Fused and Uneven Recognition of Markets in Germany Corporate Regulation The Recognition of Labor as a Commodity Marx's Replication of Economic Theory in Germany The Guilds' Residual Control over the Supply of Labor The Feudal Contribution Three Conditions for the Cultural Outcome 7. A Conjunctural Model of Labor's Emergence in Words and Institutions Northern Italy: A Preparatory Application of the Model France: A Suggestive Extension The Hierarchy of Motivating Conditions Concluding Reflections on Part Two Part Three. The Structure of the Workers' Countersigns 8. The Monetization of Time Units of Payment and Production The Influence of Concepts of Time on Strike Demands Real Abstractions 9. Theories of Exploitation in the Workers' Movements The Place of Culture in Labor Movements A Puzzle in the Workers' Reception of Ideas Economic Ideologies in the Workers' Movements of Britain Economic Ideologies in the Workers' Movements of Germany The Practical Foundations for the Reception of Ideology Practical Analyses of Exploitation The Labor Process as an Anchor for Culture 10. The Guiding Forms of Collective Action Scripts on Stage and on Paper The Formulation of Strike Demands Overlookers' Role in Strikes Concluding Reflections on Part Three 11. Conclusion. Under the Aegis of Culture The Explanatory Method The Fetishism of Quantified Labor Forms of Passage Bibliography Index This study demonstrates the power of culture to define the meaning of labour. Drawing on archival evidence from Britain and Germany, as well as historical evidence from France and Italy, the text shows how the very nature of labour as a commodity differed in different national contexts.