Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870Recasting labor studies in a long-term and global framework, the book draws on a major new database on world labor unrest to show how local labor movements have been related to world-scale political, economic, and social processes since the late nineteenth century. Through an in-depth empirical analysis of select global industries, the book demonstrates how the main locations of labor unrest have shifted from country to country together with shifts in the geographical location of production. It shows how the main sites of labor unrest have shifted over time together with the rise or decline of new leading sectors of capitalist development and demonstrates that labor movements have been deeply embedded (as both cause and effect) in world political dynamics. Over the history of the modern labor movement, the book isolates what is truly novel about the contemporary global crisis of labor movements. Arguing against the view that this is a terminal crisis, the book concludes by exploring the likely forms that emergent labor movements will take in the twenty-first century. |
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This book is simply extraordinary in its scope and empirical evidence. A must read for all who struggle to understand the social changes our world is going through time and again as something other than simply the work anonymous, systemic forces of capital, state and war. In this study, Silver manages to show the relation between labor struggles and large scale social change - the gradual globalization of particular production cycles and industries, from textile to automobiles and beyond.
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Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870 Beverly J. Silver Limited preview - 2003 |
Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870 Beverly J. Silver No preview available - 2003 |
Common terms and phrases
argued Arrighi auto automobile industry autoworkers Brazil capital capitalist Chapter core countries crisis of labor decades economic employers employment expansion factory financial fix Fordist geographical relocation Giovanni Arrighi global hegemonic historical impact investment labor force labor internationalism labor militancy labor movements labor power labor unrest mentions labor unrest waves labor-capital lean production major waves marketplace bargaining power mass production mobilization Moreover multinational Nevertheless nineteenth century organization patterning of labor post-Fordist postwar processes product cycle product fixes profitability proletarian protest repression resistance Second World Second World War shift social contracts South South Africa spatial fixes strategy strike wave strong workplace bargaining struggles teachers technological fixes textile industry textile workers Third World tion trade unions transformations transportation twentieth century U.S. South United United Kingdom wages waves of labor Western Europe WLG database working-class formation workplace bargaining power World Labor Group world labor unrest world-scale
Bibliographic information
| Title | Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870 Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics |
| Author | Beverly J. Silver |
| Editors | Robert H. Bates, Peter Lange |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 2003 |
| ISBN | 0521520770, 9780521520775 |
| Length | 238 pages |
| Subjects | › › Political Science / General Political Science / Public Policy / Economic Policy Social Science / Sociology / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |