Looks like we missed this book when it came out earlier this year:
England's Great Transformation: Law, Labor, and the Industrial Revolution (University of Chicago, 2016), by
Marc W. Steinberg (Smith College). Here's a description from the Press:
With England’s Great Transformation, Marc W. Steinberg throws a
wrench into our understanding of the English Industrial Revolution,
largely revising the thesis at heart of Karl Polanyi’s landmark The Great Transformation.
The conventional wisdom has been that in the nineteenth century,
England quickly moved toward a modern labor market where workers were
free to shift from employer to employer in response to market signals.
Expanding on recent historical research, Steinberg finds to the contrary
that labor contracts, centered on insidious master-servant laws,
allowed employers and legal institutions to work in tandem to keep
employees in line.
Building his argument on three case
studies—the Hanley pottery industry, Hull fisheries, and Redditch
needlemakers—Steinberg employs both local and national analyses to
emphasize the ways in which these master-servant laws allowed employers
to use the criminal prosecutions of workers to maintain control of their
labor force. Steinberg provides a fresh perspective on the dynamics of
labor control and class power, integrating the complex pathways of
Marxism, historical institutionalism, and feminism, and giving readers a
subtle yet revelatory new understanding of workplace control and power
during England’s Industrial Revolution.
A few blurbs:
“Steinberg’s
meticulous study rethinks the relationship between the labor process and
the state, between market and society, and between base and
superstructure during Britain’s industrial revolution. The law was
thoroughly embedded in relations of production, and in ways that varied
with local configurations of technology, labor requirements, and
political power. That finding leads Steinberg to uncover other
surprises: ‘free labor’ came to England later than usually thought, and
it came with the backing of organized labor seeking protection, not by,
but from the state. The book is compelling reading for students of
labor, political economy, and comparative-historical sociology.” -- Jeffrey M. Haydu
“Steinberg
returns us to the question of labor control in nineteenth-century
England, and in meticulous detail shows how the law becomes an
instrument of capitalist exploitation. England’s Great Transformation’s
focus on the legal basis of work organization is not only of historical
significance—it is as pertinent to today’s on-demand economy as it is
to Chinese state capitalism. A thrilling book that plunges into the
important debates about the nature of workplace politics.” -- Michael Burawoy
More information is available
here. And for even more, check out
this interview with Professor Steinberg on the New Books Network.
