Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T09:31:15.740Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Model of Welfare Capitalism? The United States Rubber Company in Southeast Asia, 1910–1942

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2015

Shakila Yacob
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Welfare capitalism, the management ethos adopted by American business leaders in the early twentieth century, emphasizes the role of business rather than trade unions or government in taking care of its workers. This article focuses on the reasons why the United States Rubber Company (USRC), one of the four largest U.S. rubber manufacturers, promoted welfare capitalism at its rubber plantations on the east coast of Sumatra and Malaya between 1910 and 1942. In addition, this study assesses the development of USRC's system of welfare in the areas of housing, profit sharing, pension plans, health care, and recreation. This article argues that USRC's intention was not to forestall unionization (the intention of U.S.-based companies in adopting welfare capitalism), as union formation in Southeast Asia during that period was very unlikely, but to overcome labor shortages and high turnover rates and to ensure labor stability. With reduced labor costs, the availability of financial resources allowed for technical innovations and R & D, which ultimately would lead to increased productivity.

Type
Articles
Information
Enterprise & Society , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 136 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2007. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography of Works Cited

Books

Allen, G.C., and Donnithorne, Audrey G. Western Enterprise in Indonesia and Malaysia: A Study in Economic Development. London, 1962.Google Scholar
Allen, Richard B. Slaves, Freedmen, and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius. Cambridge, U.K., 1999.Google Scholar
Babcock, Glenn D. History of the United States Rubber Company. Bloomington, Ind., 1966.Google Scholar
Baritz, Loren. The Servants of Power: A History of the Use of Social Science in Industry. Middletown, Conn., 1960.Google Scholar
Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920–1933. Boston, 1960.Google Scholar
Brandes, Stuart D. American Welfare Capitalism, 1880–1994. Chicago, 1970.Google Scholar
Breman, Jan, Taming the Coolie Beast: Plantation Society and the Colonial Order in Southeast Asia. Singapore, 1994.Google Scholar
Brody, David. Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle. Oxford, U.K., 1980.Google Scholar
Carter, Marina. Servants, Sirdars, and Settlers: Indians in Mauritius, 1834–1874. New York, 1995.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lizabeth. Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939. New York, 1990.Google Scholar
Cowan, C.D., ed. The Economic Development of Sout heast Asia. London, 1964.Google Scholar
Drabble, John H. An Economic History of Malaysia, c.1800–1990: The Transition to Modern Economic Growth. London, 2000.Google Scholar
Drabble, John H. Rubber in Malaya, 1876–1922, The Genesis of the Industry. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1973.Google Scholar
Froh, Riley. Davis, Edgar B. and Sequences in Business Capitalism: From Shoes to Rubber to Oil. New York, 1993.Google Scholar
Gamba, Charles. The National Union of Plantation Workers: The History of the Plantation Workers of Malaya, 1946–1958. Singapore, 1962.Google Scholar
Gordon, Colin. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920–1935. Cambridge, U.K., 1994.Google Scholar
Gould, James W. Americans in Sumatra. The Hague, 1961.Google Scholar
Hennock, E.P., British Social Reform and German Precedents: The Case of Social Insurance, 1880–1914. Oxford, U.K., 1987.Google Scholar
Hoefte, Rosemarijn. In Place of Slavery: A Social History of British Indian and Javanese Laborers in Suriname. Gainesville, Fla., 1998.Google Scholar
Houben, Vincent J.H., et al. Labour in Colonial Indonesia: A Study of Labour Relations in the Outer Islands, c.1900–1940. Wiesbaden, Germany, 1999.Google Scholar
Jackson, J.C. Planters and Speculators: Chinese and European Agricultural Enterprise in Malaya, 1786–1921. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1968.Google Scholar
Jacoby, Sanford M. Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism since the New Deal. Princeton, N.J., 1997.Google Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey. Merchants to Multinationals: British Trading Companies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Oxford, U.K., 2000.Google Scholar
Jomo, Kwame Sundram. A Question of Class: Capital, the State and Uneven Development in Malaya. Singapore, 1988.Google Scholar
Kale, Madhavi. Fragments of Empire: Capital, Slavery, and Indian Indentured Labor in the British Caribbean. Philadelphia, 1998.Google Scholar
Leong, Yee Fong. Labour and Trade Unionism in Colonial Malaya. A Study of the Socio-economic and Political Bases of the Malayan Labour Movement, 1930–1957. Penang, Malaysia, 1999.Google Scholar
Lewis, Cleona. America’s Stake in International Investment. Washington D.C., 1938.Google Scholar
Lim, Teck Ghee. Origins ofa Colonial Economy: Land and Agriculture in Perak, 1874–1941. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1976.Google Scholar
Manderson, Leonore. Sickness and the State: Health and Illness in Colonial Malaya, 1870–1940. New York, 1996.Google Scholar
Martin, Susan M. The UP Saga. Copenhagen, Denmark, 2003.Google Scholar
Meyer, Stephen. The Five Dollar Day: Labor, Management, and Social Control in the Ford MotorCompany, 1908–1920. Albany, N.Y., 1981.Google Scholar
Nelson, Daniel. American Rubber Workers and Organized Labor, 1900–1941. Princeton, N.J., 1988.Google Scholar
Northrup, David. Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism: 1834–1922. Cambridge, U.K., 1995.Google Scholar
Ozanne, Robert. A CenturyofLabor-Management Relations at McCormick and International Harvester. Milwaukee, Wis., 1967.Google Scholar
Parmer, J.Norman. Colonial Labor Policy and Administration: A History ofLabor in the Rubber Plantation Industry in Malaya, c. 1910–1941. New York, 1960.Google Scholar
Ramachandran, Selvakumaran. Indian Plantation Labour in Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1988.Google Scholar
Ramasamy, P. Plantation. Labour, Unions, Capital, and the State in Peninsular Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 1994.Google Scholar
Ravindra, Jain. South Indians on the Plantation Frontier. New Haven, Conn., 1970.Google Scholar
Rimmer, Peter, and Allens, Lisa, eds. The Underside of Malaysian History: History Pullers, Planters and Prostitutes. Singapore, 1990.Google Scholar
Rodgers, Daniel T. Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age. Cambridge, Mass., 1998.Google Scholar
Shineberg, Dorothy. The People Trade: Pacific Island Laborers and New Caledonia, 1865–1930. Honolulu, 1999.Google Scholar
Smith, Chris, Child, John, and Rowlinson, Michael, eds. Reshaping Work: The Cadbury Experience. Cambridge, U.K., 1990.Google Scholar
Stenson, Michael. Class, Race and Colonialism in West Malaysia: The Indian Case. St. Lucia, Queensland, 1980.Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann Laura. Capitalism and Confrontation in Sumatra’s Plantation Belt, 1870–1979. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1985.Google Scholar
Temperley, Howard, ed. After Slavery: Emancipation and Its Discontent. Portland, Oregon, 2000.Google Scholar
Tone, Andrea. The Business of Benevolence: Industrial Paternalism in Progressive America. Cornell, New York, 1997.Google Scholar
Tregonning, K.G., ed. Papers on Malayan History. Singapore, 1962.Google Scholar
Walton, Look Lai. The Chinese in the West Indies, 1806–1995: A Documentary History. Kingston, Jamaica, 1998.Google Scholar
Walton, Look Lai. Indentured Labor, Caribbean Sugar: Chinese and Indian Migrants to the British West Indies, 1838–1918. Baltimore, Md., 1993.Google Scholar
Watson, Malcolm. The Prevention of Malaria in the Federated Malay States: A Record of Twenty Year’s Progress. London, 1921.Google Scholar
Yen, Ching-Hwang. Coolies and Mandarins: China’s Protection of Overseas Chinese duringthe Late Ch’ing Period (1851–1911). Singapore, 1985.Google Scholar
Zunz, Olivier. Making America Corporate, 1870–1920. Chicago, 1990.Google Scholar

Articles and Essays

Emmer, Pieter. “Freedman and Asian Indentured Laborers in the Post-Emancipation Caribbean, 1834–1917.” In In After Slavery: Emancipation and its Discontent, ed. Temperley, Howard Portland, Oregon, 2000, pp. 150–68.Google Scholar
Khoo, Kay Kim. “Malayan Agriculture, 1920–21.” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 72 (Dec. 1999): 17–47.Google Scholar
Gordon, Alec. “Towards a Model of Asian Plantation Systems.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 31 (Aug. 2001): 306–30.Google Scholar
Griffiths, John. ‘“Give my regards to Uncle Billy…:The Rites and Rituals of Company Life at Lever Brothers, c1900–c1990.” Business History 37 (Oct. 1995): 25–46.Google Scholar
Hotchkiss, H. Stuart. “Operations of an American Rubber Company in Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula.” Annals ofthe American Academy ofPolitical and Social Sciences 112 (March 1924): 154–63.Google Scholar
Jones, Geoffrey, and Judith, Wales. “Diversification Strategies of British Trading Companies: Harrisons & Crosfield, c. 1900–1980.” Business History 41 (April 1999): 367–406.Google Scholar
Parmer, J. Norman. “Chinese Estate Workers’ Strikes in Malaya in March 1937.” In The Economic Development of Southeast Asia, ed. Cowan, C.D.. London, 1964, pp. 154–69.Google Scholar
Parmer, J. Norman. “Labour Organisation by Chinese in Singapore in the 1930s.” In Papers on Malayan History, ed. Tregonning, K.G.. Singapore, 1962, pp. 239–55.Google Scholar
Tunku, Shamsul Baharin. “Indonesian Labour in Malaya.” Kajian Ekonomi Malaysia [Malaysian Economic Research] 2 (June 1965): 63–65.Google Scholar

Magazines and Newspapers

Bulletin of RGA. 1926. Rubber Research Institute, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar
Dunlop Estates Berhad News. 1976. Rubber Research Institute, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar
Fortune. 1934. Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Google Scholar
India Rubber World. 1919–1928. Rubber Research Institute, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar
Rubber Age. 1926–1930. Rubber Research Institute, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar
The Outlook. 1927. Library of Congress, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
The Planter. 1921–1927. The Incorporated Society of Planters, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar
The Straits Times. 1911–1934. National Archives, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar

Government Documents

Ashplant, Herbert. “Recent Developments in the Rubber Planting Industry with special reference to budding, brown bast treatment, manuring of rubber etc.” Government Mycologist, South India, Sept. 1924. National Archives, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar
Figart, David M. The Plantation RubberIndustryin the Middle East. Trade Promotion Series, No.2, U.S. Department of Commerce. Washington D.C., 1925. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar
“Labour Conditions in British Malaya.” Geneva, 1927. National Archives, Kuala Lumpur.Google Scholar

Archival Sources

Colonial Office Papers, 273. U.K. National Archives (Public Record Office), Kew, U.K. and National Archives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Google Scholar
Kedah Secretariat Files, National Archives, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Google Scholar
Records of the Department of State Relating to the Internal Affairs of British Asia, 1910–1929. U.S. National Archives, College Park, Md., U.S.A.Google Scholar
United States Rubber Company Annual Reports, 1905–1942. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. and Baker Library, Harvard Business School, Boston, Mass.Google Scholar

Unpublished Sources

Chalk, Frank Robert, “The U.S. and the International Struggle for Rubber, 1914–1941.” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1970.Google Scholar