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"The new dominant class warped the old institutions to its own purposes, introduced a new method of production and exchange, imposed its will upon the balance of society and thereby established a new civilization. The Chattel Slave System of the Roman Patriciate gave way to Serf System of the Feudal Lords. Feudalism disappeared before Capitalism with its Wage Slave System of factory and machine production. The lesser Capitalism now moves aside for Plutocracy with its highly centralized form of Corporate Ownership and Industrial Control, and we seem about to enter upon a new era—the age of Industrial Feudalism. ... The breaking up of the Feudal relations changed the method of land tenure. Many of the serfs became peasant proprietors, while others were transformed into mere farm laborers, or drifted into the factory towns. The handicraftsmen thronged the factories and under the new "divine" (?) right of contract, sold their labor-power at whatever price the Capitalists chose to pay for it. Property in the lands and tools of production still continued. The Wages System was, in essence, another form of servitude, and fiercely aggravated by the fact that the payment of the stipulated wage cancelled all the obligations between the man and his master. The freedom so loudly proclaimed was, for the workers merely a freedom to change from a bad master to a worse one, or at the worst to starve. Realization of PROFITS was the sole consideration for continuing production. When profits ceased, industry ceased, or the scale of wages went down until there was a sufficient margin of surplus value to induce the proprietor to again open the factory doors." This books deals with the evolution of the Working Class from Wage Slavery to Freedom.
An important treasure of Old Left scholarship made available to a new generation of students and scholars
An enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of the antebellum US and our present crisis. Roediger shows that in a nation pledged to independence, but less and less able to avoid the harsh realities of wage labor, the identity of "white" came to allow many Northern workers to see themselves as having something in common with their bosses. Projecting onto enslaved people and free Blacks the preindustrial closeness to pleasure that regimented labor denied them, "white workers" consumed blackface popular culture, reshaped languages of class, and embraced racist practices on and off the job. Far from simply preserving economic advantage, white working-class racism derived its terrible force from a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforced stereotypes and helped to forge the very identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks. Full of insight regarding the precarious positions of not-quite-white Irish immigrants to the US and the fate of working class abolitionism, Wages of Whiteness contributes mightily and soberly to debates over the 1619 Project and critical race theory.
The fight for a "living wage" has a long and revealing history as documented here by Lawrence B. Glickman. The labor movement's response to wages shows how American workers negotiated the transition from artisan to consumer, opening up new political possibilities for organized workers and creating contradictions that continue to haunt the labor movement today.Nineteenth-century workers hoped to become self-employed artisans, rather than permanent "wage slaves." After the Civil War, however, unions redefined working-class identity in consumerist terms, and demanded a wage that would reward workers commensurate with their needs as consumers. This consumerist turn in labor ideology also led workers to struggle for shorter hours and union labels.First articulated in the 1870s, the demand for a living wage was voiced increasingly by labor leaders and reformers at the turn of the century. Glickman explores the racial, ethnic, and gender implications, as white male workers defined themselves in contrast to African Americans, women, Asians, and recent European immigrants. He shows how a historical perspective on the concept of a living wage can inform our understanding of current controversies.
Labor and Freedom: The Voice and Pen of Eugene V. Debs is a collection of writings and speeches by socialist leader Eugene Debs, with a focus on labor, freedom and the importance of the working class.
Enlisting memory in a new fight for freedom From the Gilded Age through the Progressive era, labor movements reinterpreted Abraham Lincoln as a liberator of working people while workers equated activism with their own service fighting for freedom during the war. Matthew E. Stanley explores the wide-ranging meanings and diverse imagery used by Civil War veterans within the sprawling radical politics of the time. As he shows, a rich world of rituals, songs, speeches, and newspapers emerged among the many strains of working class cultural politics within the labor movement. Yet tensions arose even among allies. Some people rooted Civil War commemoration in nationalism and reform, and in time, these conservative currents marginalized radical workers who tied their remembering to revolution, internationalism, and socialism. An original consideration of meaning and memory, Grand Army of Labor reveals the complex ways workers drew on themes of emancipation and equality in the long battle for workers’ rights.