Recasting 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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Editorial Reviews
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"Forces of Labor is fresh, compelling, and a must read for all interested in labor unrest and the future of the world's labor movements." American Journal of Sociology
"By broadening the geography for understanding labor struggles, Silver shows us that these are going strong in many parts of the world even as they have weakened and fizzled in the North Atlantic. A great contribution to contemporary debates about the politics of contestation." Saskia Sassen, The University of Chicago
"Beverly Silver's new book is a challenge to political economists and economic sociologists and even to those historians who still care about capitalism trajectories. Avoiding the deceptive poles of both "race to the bottom" pessimism and liberal optimism, availing herself of both an immense database and of deep historical knowledge, Silver traces the recurring rises and declines of the world labor movement along two dimensions of capital mobility: its spatial displacement and its shift to new product lines--both in response to labor militancy. Sweeping and detailed, ponderous but readable, comparative and historical, this book takes the political economy of world systems to a new level." Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University
"By broadening the geography for understanding labor struggles, Silver shows us that these are going strong in many parts of the world even as they have weakened and fizzled in the North Atlantic. A great contribution to contemporary debates about the politics of contestation." Saskia Sassen, The University of Chicago
"Beverly Silver's new book is a challenge to political economists and economic sociologists and even to those historians who still care about capitalism trajectories. Avoiding the deceptive poles of both "race to the bottom" pessimism and liberal optimism, availing herself of both an immense database and of deep historical knowledge, Silver traces the recurring rises and declines of the world labor movement along two dimensions of capital mobility: its spatial displacement and its shift to new product lines--both in response to labor militancy. Sweeping and detailed, ponderous but readable, comparative and historical, this book takes the political economy of world systems to a new level." Sidney Tarrow, Cornell University
Book Description
The book analyzes the global dynamics of labor movements, introducing a major new database on labor unrest events worldwide from 1870 to 1996. The book's purpose is to assess the contemporary crisis of labor movements, but it argues that to do so effectively labor movements need to be studied in a longer historical and wider geographical framework than is normally done. Key themes include the relationship between labor unrest and capital mobility in various global industries (automobiles, textiles, semiconductors, and service industries) and the inter-relationship between world labor unrest and world politics over the past century.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A World-Historical Hope for Labor,
This review is from: Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870 (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) (Paperback)
In response to various theorists and historians who claim that labor has very little role to play in creating a better world, Silver's book is an attempt to say that the labor movement is not dead. She by no means is looking to the US or various European labor movements to save the world but instead, by locating labor and capital in a world-historical perspective Silver is able to argue that auto workers in the global south are today strategically located in the same place auto workers in Detroit were located in the 1930s. Her basic argument is that wherever capital relocates, workers are then proletarianized, and organized working class resistance begins. She does an excellent job of illustrating that capital has always been mobile, and that through spatial fixes and product cycles, resistance follows capital's mobility.
10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Book on Contemporary Labor Studies,
This review is from: Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870 (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) (Paperback)
As a labor educator for 22 years, director of a labor education center, and adjunct professor of labor studies, this is simply the best book on labor studies I have ever read. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in figuring out what is happening to the world labor movement today. I can't say enough or recommend it enough.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good coverage for labor unrest,
By Donald Hsu (NYC, United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Forces of Labor: Workers' Movements and Globalization Since 1870 (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) (Paperback)
The history events on labor movements for the past 130 years were put together in this book. However, the book has very few tables and figures, making it very dry to read.
It will be better to cover just a narrow range, say year 1956 to 2006, for more graphical illustrations. It is a useful reference book for researchers.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
During the last two decades of the twentieth century, there was an almost complete consensus in the social science literature that labor movements were in a general and severe crisis. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
world labor unrest, workplace bargaining power, marketplace bargaining power, labor unrest waves, transportation labor unrest, nonstrike forms, new labor internationalism, metropolitan aggregate, autoworker militancy, structural bargaining power, complex technical division, associational power, new leading industries, unrest shifts, mechanized textile production, financial fix, core labor force, world automobile industry, intercapitalist competition, interimperialist rivalries, capital relocation, spatial fixes, strike statistics, responsible unionism, product fixes Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Third World, Second World War, First World War, South Africa, South Korea, North America, Cold War, Great Depression, Latin America, World Labor Group, General Motors, Sao Bernardo, Fall River, Living Wage, New England, New York Times, Hyundai Group, International Monetary Fund, Los Angeles, New Deal, Sao Paolo, American Dream, David Harvey, New York City New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
During the last two decades of the twentieth century, there was an almost complete consensus in the social science literature that labor movements were in a general and severe crisis. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
world labor unrest, workplace bargaining power, marketplace bargaining power, labor unrest waves, transportation labor unrest, nonstrike forms, new labor internationalism, metropolitan aggregate, autoworker militancy, structural bargaining power, complex technical division, associational power, new leading industries, unrest shifts, mechanized textile production, financial fix, core labor force, world automobile industry, intercapitalist competition, interimperialist rivalries, capital relocation, spatial fixes, strike statistics, responsible unionism, product fixes Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, Third World, Second World War, First World War, South Africa, South Korea, North America, Cold War, Great Depression, Latin America, World Labor Group, General Motors, Sao Bernardo, Fall River, Living Wage, New England, New York Times, Hyundai Group, International Monetary Fund, Los Angeles, New Deal, Sao Paolo, American Dream, David Harvey, New York City New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
See all 100 books this book cites
- Working-Class Formation: Nineteenth-Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States by William H. Sewell Jr. in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Social Reconstructions of the World Automobile Industry: Competition, Power and Industrial Flexibility (International Political Economy) by Frederic C. Deyo in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The First World War (The two world wars) by W.F. Norton in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Puzzle of Strikes: Class and State Strategies in Postwar Italy (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) by Roberto Franzosi in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Capitalist World-Economy (Studies in Modern Capitalism) by Immanuel Wallerstein in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 100 books this book cites
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