The Value of Work since the 18th Century: Custom, Conflict, Measurement, and Theory ed. by Massimo Asta and Pedro Ramos Pinto
本书收录十三篇论文，探讨18世纪以来工资制度的形成、劳动报酬的影响因素，以及经济学家和劳动者在工资斗争中的角色，适合经济史、经济思想史和劳动经济学研究者。
How were wages systems developed? Who and what shaped how labor is remunerated? What have economists and laborers contributed to debates on wage struggles? Massimo Asta and Pedro Ramos Pinto have nicely curated thirteen essays that respond to these questions and contribute to the literature on the history of labor relations and the history of economic thinking on wage determination and labor policies.The editors divide the chapters into two parts. The first part, titled “Custom and Conflict,” includes seven papers that may be especially appealing to economic historians. It examines wage practices and the role of social conventions, strikes, gender, caste, and industry across several different contexts. The second part, titled “Measurement and Theory,” may be more appealing to historians of economic thought, given its focus on regional understandings of wages, the development of cost-of-living indices and the notion of a living wage, and theories of labor markets.However, historians of economic thought will be happy to know that both parts offer a great deal of discussion on measurement and methods throughout several different periods in history. For example, the first chapter in part 1 is Craig Muldrew's work outlining the conceptualization of wool spinners’ wages in preindustrialized England. Muldrew's archival work engages with recent debates originated by Humphries and Allen on how economic historians should attempt to measure rates of spinning per week (Humphries and Schneider 2020; Allen 2020). Although many historians of economic thought leave these particular issues of quantitative data measurement to economic historians, Muldrew's meticulous and transparent walk through his archival material helped to quell some of the debates in which he contextualized his work. As a historian of economic thought, this made me wonder how we can improve the transparency and replicability of our archival work as we provide further evidence that illuminates historical debates.Wearing my feminist economist's hat, I found that one of my favorite chapters from part 1 is Samita Sen's on wages and rights for domestic workers in India. Sen opens with an approachable and compelling hook, reminding readers of the recent unionization and uprisings of domestic workers in India in response to exploitation within the informal market. Sen explores the history of action around extending minimum wage regulation to domestic work sectors, all the while confronting feminist economists with their uneven and sometimes caviler use of the term care work in this sector. In particular, Sen highlights that domestic work is not only work but also an institution, echoing some of the literature on social reproduction theory and global care chains (Ray and Qayum 2009; Fraser 2017). In this way, Sen pushes historians of feminist economic thought to consider the development of the term care work and reconsider how it might be used in current research. Additionally, this chapter is especially accessible in terms of its language and could prove useful for labor organizers looking to consider alternative bargaining strategies and for to academics curious about this particular history.For most historians of economic thought, part 2 will offer some more familiar analyses. For instance, Antonella Stirati in chapter 11 dives into Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Theory of Moral Sentiments to consider how Smith conceives wage determination and the corresponding role of social norms and institutions. This chapter builds off her own 1994 book (Stirati 1994) as well as work by Rothschild (1992) and Rasmussen (2016). In the final chapter of part 2, Zoe Adams argues that ontologies of capitalism have shaped the concept of a living wage, often drawing from Marx himself ([1867] 1967) as well as historians of Marxian economic thought, including Palermo (2007, 2016). Historians of radical political economy may also enjoy continuing their reading of Tiago Mata's body of work (including Mata 2009, 2018, and 2019) with chapter 12, in which Mata delves into labor market theories as conceptualized within radical political economy, with a special focus on the development of segmented labor market theory.In their respective chapters, Mata, Muldrew, and Sen are especially attentive to the role that gender and patriarchal structures play in wage determination and labor exploitation. Indeed, one of the best aspects of this volume is its consistent commitment to engage in questions of gender, race, and colonialism. The editors weave together an impressive array of country-specific research that is not limited to the Global North, despite the fact that the authors reside mostly in North America and Europe. For example, in addition to Sen's chapter on domestic work in India, Limin Teh presents work on labor contracts in China before 1949 (chap. 6), Grace Davie offers work on the role of the poverty line in racially equitable pay in South Africa (chap. 8), and Béatrice Touchelay writes on wage measurement for colonized workers in the Belgian Congo and French sub-Saharan Africa during the early 1900s (chap. 9). And although never explicitly stated, many of the works in part 1 tell stories of wage history from the perspective of labor, which I enjoyed not just from a political economy perspective but also from a methodological perspective, given it is sometimes much harder to uncover these voices in archives. Ultimately, I am impressed with the book's approach: the editors curated chapters that were focused yet covered a wide swath of countries and were often attentive to gendered, racial, caste, and colonial power dynamics. Given that these latter traits are relatively difficult to find in economic research (Koechlin 2019; Cohen 2022; Kvangraven and Kesar 2023), I suspect this book will offer something novel and interesting for most readers.Some chapters may be of interest to labor organizers, as I suggested with Sen's work, while others have accessible language that may be appropriate for students. For instance, I would consider assigning chapter 3 at the beginning of an advanced course on data analysis: Sigrid Wadauer shows how questions of reliability arise from a close examination of work documents in Austria during the late nineteenth century. While outside the typical reading for a data analysis course, Wadauer's work could very easily show students how quantitative data are often developed under political motivation and are not free from bias. Additionally, progressive policymakers may benefit from some chapters: for instance, chapter 10, in which Massimo Asta shows how cost-of-living statistics were weaponized against working-class Italians in the 1910s through 1930s. Overall, however, the book's primary audience is academic: historians of economic thought, labor economists, and economic historians will likely absorb a great deal from the text.