Work and Politics develops a historical and comparative sociology of workplace relations in industrial capitalist societies. Professor Sabel argues that the system of mass production using specialized machines and mostly unskilled workers was the result of the distribution of power and wealth in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Great Britain and the United States, not of an inexorable logic of technological advance. Once in place, this system created the need for workers with systematically different ideas about the acquisition of skill and the desirability of long-term employment. Professor Sabel shows how capitalists have played on naturally existing division in the workforce in order to match workers with diverse ambitions to jobs in different parts of the labor market. But he also demonstrates the limits, different from work group to work group, of these forms of collaboration.
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'Work and Politics is an imaginative and suggestive look at contemporary Western European and U.S. industrialism, with occasional historical digressions ... Sabel argues that different types of workers approach employment not only with different skills and habits but with different expectations and desires as well. Using a wide range of examples - petrochemical workers in Germany and Britain, auto workers in Turin and Hamtramck - Sabel portrays the social personalities of each major subgroup within the working class, from common laborers to workers with plant-specific skills to craftsmen with generalized problem-solving abilities.' The Nation
'Sabel's main contributions are demonstrations that simple pluralistic and class models of work politics are inadequate, that economic structures are influenced politically, and that relations among working class strata centrally explain collective behavior. Sabel's firm grasp of the French, German, and Italian literature is also impressive.' Contemporary Sociology
'Sabel's main contributions are demonstrations that simple pluralistic and class models of work politics are inadequate, that economic structures are influenced politically, and that relations among working class strata centrally explain collective behavior. Sabel's firm grasp of the French, German, and Italian literature is also impressive.' Contemporary Sociology
Book Description
A comprehensive and comparative study of work-place relations in industrial capitalist societies. It explores the divisions within the labor force, shows how the strategies of particular groups of workers correspond with particular aims of capital, and illuminates the surprising consequences of these collaborations.
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This review is from: Work and Politics: The Division of Labour in Industry (Cambridge Studies in Modern Political Economies) (Paperback)
This book is a pretty good overview of workplace struggles and working class behavior, as well as the cunning of capitalism to dash workers' dignity against the rocks. The text is obviously left-wing, but I think it could afford to be slightly more Marxist. Also, Sabel could expound more on theory, rather than concentrate so heavily on ethnography. The book is written in an accessible style, and actually sometimes goes a little too fast. The book feels like it was written with a deadline flashing inside the author's mind. Despite this harsh criticism, I liked the book and at the prices offered on Amazon.com, I'd be sure to get a copy. It's worth reading, that's for sure.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
This is an essay about the reasons industrialists create different kinds of factory jobs, about why workers put up with these jobs when they do, and about what they want when they do not. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
articulated cooperation, ghetto workers, peripheral plants, innovative small firms, relazioni industriali, autunno caldo, workshop sector, unstable sector, other work groups, machine setters, upgraded skills, factory hierarchy, skill hierarchy, wage hierarchy, different work groups, special workers, unskilled migrants Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, West German, Great Britain, World War, Christian Democrats, General Motors, Eastern Europe, New Deal, Western Europe, American South, Fleet Street, Socialist Party, Iron Age, Old New, Social Democratic, South Korea, Third World New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
This is an essay about the reasons industrialists create different kinds of factory jobs, about why workers put up with these jobs when they do, and about what they want when they do not. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
articulated cooperation, ghetto workers, peripheral plants, innovative small firms, relazioni industriali, autunno caldo, workshop sector, unstable sector, other work groups, machine setters, upgraded skills, factory hierarchy, skill hierarchy, wage hierarchy, different work groups, special workers, unskilled migrants Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
United States, West German, Great Britain, World War, Christian Democrats, General Motors, Eastern Europe, New Deal, Western Europe, American South, Fleet Street, Socialist Party, Iron Age, Old New, Social Democratic, South Korea, Third World 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
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24
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- The Bureaucratic Phenomenon by Michel Crozier on 4 pages
- Dualism and Discontinuity in Industrial Societies by Suzanne Berger on 4 pages
- Contested Terrain by Richards Edwards in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Fields Factories and Workshops (Collected Works of Peter Kropotkin) by Peter Kropotkin in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- A History of Labour in Sheffield (Modern Revivals in Economic & Social History) by Sidney Pollard in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
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- The Cambridge Social History of Britain 1750-1950; Volume 2: People and Their Environment by F. M. L. Thompson on page 190, and Back Matter
- Marxism at Work: Ideology, Class and French Socialism during the Third Republic by Robert Stuart on page 63, and page 144
- Creative Technological Change: The Shaping of Technology and Organisations (Routledge Studies in the Management of Technology and Innovation) by Ian Mcloughlin in Back Matter
- High Skills: Globalization, Competitiveness, and Skill Formation by Phillip Brown in Back Matter
- Post-Fordism: A Reader (Studies in Urban and Social Change) by Ash Amin on page 38
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