In the end, Dray’s account is evenhanded—not all bosses are bad, not all activists good—but it is clear where his sympathies...
Exemplary history of the American labor movement, from its time-shrouded beginnings to its murky present.
Working in the tradition of Eric Foner and Studs Terkel, Dray (Capitol Men: The Epic Story of Reconstruction Through the Lives of the First Black Congressmen, 2008, etc.) tells a story of heroes and villains. At the dawn of the republic, he writes, came the “country’s fervent hope that its democratic virtues would forge sufficient regard between labor and capital.” Alas, it would not be so, and the author locates the origins of a homegrown labor movement in that early avatar of the Industrial Revolution, the mill town of Lowell, Mass.—a movement that was launched by “an unassuming young woman off the farm” who would not take being oppressed by the bosses. As the narrative progresses, a few trends become apparent: the continued recalcitrance of capital when it came to sharing wealth and the increased militancy of labor, especially when its ranks were swelled by immigrants who had been oppressed enough in their home countries. During the nation’s centennial year, there were massive strikes and demonstrations. One sterling example was a “standoff” in Susquehanna, Pa., over fair pay, which showed to the workers how powerful they were in their ability to halt commerce over vast distances—and showed to the bosses how “clearing railroad tracks of belligerent people required soldiers with guns.” Dray revisits some of the usual stations on labor’s way, from Lowell to Ludlow, from Haymarket Square to the ill-fated 1981 PATCO strike, but he also capably introduces lesser-known incidents and characters into the picture, as well as unexpected foes of organized labor, such as Bobby Kennedy.
In the end, Dray’s account is evenhanded—not all bosses are bad, not all activists good—but it is clear where his sympathies lie, especially in his prescriptions for a renewed international labor movement for the future.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-385-52629-6
Page Count: 784
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2010
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.
A well-constructed critique of an economic system that, by the author’s account, is a driver of the world’s destruction.
Harvard Business School professor Henderson vigorously questions the bromide that “management’s only duty is to maximize shareholder value,” a notion advanced by Milton Friedman and accepted uncritically in business schools ever since. By that logic, writes the author, there is no reason why corporations should not fish out the oceans, raise drug prices, militate against public education (since it costs tax money), and otherwise behave ruinously and anti-socially. Many do, even though an alternative theory of business organization argues that corporations and society should enjoy a symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit, which includes corporate investment in what economists call public goods. Given that the history of humankind is “the story of our increasing ability to cooperate at larger and larger scales,” one would hope that in the face of environmental degradation and other threats, we might adopt the symbiotic model rather than the winner-take-all one. Problems abound, of course, including that of the “free rider,” the corporation that takes the benefits from collaborative agreements but does none of the work. Henderson examines case studies such as a large food company that emphasized environmentally responsible production and in turn built “purpose-led, sustainable living brands” and otherwise led the way in increasing shareholder value by reducing risk while building demand. The author argues that the “short-termism” that dominates corporate thinking needs to be adjusted to a longer view even though the larger problem might be better characterized as “failure of information.” Henderson closes with a set of prescriptions for bringing a more equitable economics to the personal level, one that, among other things, asks us to step outside routine—eat less meat, drive less—and become active in forcing corporations (and politicians) to be better citizens.
A readable, persuasive argument that our ways of doing business will have to change if we are to prosper—or even survive.Pub Date: May 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5417-3015-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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