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Working-Class Consumer Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Marcel van der Linden
Marcel van der Linden
Affiliation:
International Review of Social History
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Extract

Research by labor historians on the acquisition of power by the working class tends to focus on labor relations (acquisition of power in businesses) or on political relations (power through elections, with the government, and so on). This approach overlooks the third source of labor's power, which is based on patterns of consumption resulting from the collective use of purchasing power. This essay examines this source of power. Because the topic is a virtual terra incognita, I will merely discuss a few observations and some very provisional hypotheses that are not always well substantiated.

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Articles
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 46 , Fall 1994 , pp. 109 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1994

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References

NOTES

This essay is part of a broader study of household-centered labor activities. Also see my essays “Connecting Household History and Labour History,” in The End of Labour History?, ed. Marcel van der Linden (Cambridge, 1994), 163–73, and “Mutual Workers' Insurance: A Historical Outline” International Social Security Review 46 (1993): 5–18.

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6. For example, see Frank, Dana, “Gender, Consumer Organizing, and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919–1929,” in Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor, ed. Baron, Ava (Ithaca, 1991), 273–95;Google Scholar and Muraskin, William, “The Harlem Boycott of 1934: Black Nationalism and the Rise of Labor-Union Consciousness,” Labor History 13 (1972): 361–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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12. The first four points reflect the analysis in Sartorius, August von Waltershausen, “Boycotten, ein neues Kampfmittel der amerikanischen Gewerkvereine”, Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, new ser., 11 (1885):1–18, esp. 15–17. David Montgomery and I are preparing an anthology in English of Sartorius von Waltershausen's publications on the American labor movement, which will include a translation of this text.Google Scholar

13. Braun, Adolf, “Der Boykott”, Der Kampf 2 (1908–1909):411.Google Scholar

14. Ibid.

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18. Two exceptions that prove the rule are Scholz, Robert, “Ein unruhiges Jahrzehnt: Lebensmittelunruhen, Massenstreiks und Arbeitslosenkrawalle in Berlin, 1914–1923,”, in Pöbelexzesse und Volkstumulte in Berlin. Zur Sozialgeschichte der Straβe (1830–1980), ed. Gailus, Manfred (Berlin, 1984), 79–123;Google Scholar and Geyer, Martin, “Teuerungsprotest, Konsumentenpolitik und soziale Gerechtigkeit während der Inflation:München 1920–1923,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 30 (1990): 145–80.Google Scholar

19. Melling, Joseph, Rent Strikes. People's Struggle for Housing in West Scotland 1890–1916 (Edinburgh, 1983).Google Scholar Also see Moorhouse, Bert, Wilson, Mary, and Chamberlain, Chris, “Rent Strikes—Direct Action and the Working Class,” The Socialist Register 1972, 133–56.Google Scholar

20. Lawson, Ronald, “The Rent Strike in New York City, 1904–1980. The Evolution of a Social Movement Strategy,” Journal of Urban History 10 (1983–1984): 235–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. For example, see Hinton, James, “Self-help and Socialism. The Squatters' Movement of 1946”. History Workshop Journal 25 (1988): 100–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Duriez, Bruno, “Les squatters: la ‘vraie justice’ contre la loi”, in La bataille des squatters et l'invention du droit au logement 1945–1955, ed. Duriez, Bruno and Chauvière, Michel (Villeneuve d'Ascq, 1992), 80.Google Scholar

23. Collonges and Randal, Les autoréductions, ch. 5; Ramirez, Bruno, “Self-Reduction of Prices in Italy”, in Midnight Oil. Work, Energy, War 1973–1992 (Brooklyn, 1992), 187–88.Google Scholar

24. Adamic, Louis, “The Great ‘Bootleg’ Coal Industry”, The Nation 40 (1935):46.Google Scholar

25. Ibid. describes the situation in Pennsylvania. A description of concurrent developments in Upper Silesia appears in Machtan, Lothar, “Die ‘Elendsschächte’ in Oberschlesien: Bergmännische Selbsthilfe-Initiativen zur Überwindung von Arbeitslosigkeit um 1930”, Jahrbuch Arbeiterbewegung–Geschichte und Theorie 1982 (Frankfurt/Main, 1982), 141–55.Google Scholar

26. Collonges and Randal, Les autoréductions ch. 3; Ramirez, “Self-Reduction of Prices”, 186.

27. Collonges and Randal, Les autoréductions, ch. 6.

28. Although no thorough comparative long-term study on the history of consumer cooperatives exists at this time, see Il movimento cooperativa nella storia d'Europa, ed. Innocenti, Maurizio Degl' (Milan, 1988);Google Scholar and Class, Labor, and Consumption: Consumer Cooperation in the Western World, 1840–1950, ed. Ellen Furlough and Carl Strikwerda (forthcoming).

29. von Studnitz, Arthur, Nordamerikanische Arbeiterverhältnisse (Leipzig, 1879), 206–7.Google Scholar

30. Pollard, Sidney, “Nineteenth-Century Co-operation: From Community Building to Shopkeeping”, in Essays in Labour History, ed. Briggs, Asa and Saville, John (London, 1960), 88.Google Scholar

31. Nomura, Hidekazu, “Consumer Co-operatives in Japan”, Kyoto University Economic Review 121 (10 1986):9.Google Scholar

32. Renner, Karl, “Skizze einer ökonomischen Theorie des Genossenschaftswesens,” Vierteljahrsschrift für Genossenschaftswesen 8 (1931):89–96.Google Scholar

33. On early capitalist competition, see Furlough, Ellen, Consumer Cooperation in France. The Politics of Consumption, 1834–1930 (Ithaca, 1991)Google Scholar, ch. 3. For problems that arose later, see Desroche, Henri, “Problèmes de développement des coopératives de consommateurs”, Archives de Sciences Sociales de la Coopération 75 (01–March 1986): 81–132;Google Scholar and Brazda, Johann and Schediwy, Robert, “Konsumgenossenschaften im Strukturwandel”, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 15 (1989): 63–84.Google Scholar

34. Based on their research on British retail cooperatives, C. N. Ostergaard and A. H. Halsey have already mentioned “the possible incompatibility of business efficiency and democratic control.” See Ostergaard, and Halsey, , “Democracy in British Retail Cooperatives”, Archives Internationales de Sociologie de la Coopération 1 (01–06 1957):72.Google Scholar

35. Pestoff, Victor A., Between Markets and Politics. Co-operatives in Sweden (Frank-furt/Main and Boulder, Colo., 1991), 103.Google Scholar

36. Sommer, Robert, “More Than Cheap Cheese: The Food Co-op Movement in the United States”, Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change 7 (1984): 71–94.Google Scholar

37. For more information on this topic, see the analysis in Furlough, Consumer Cooperation in France, ch. 7.

38. Best known is the British Co-operative Women's Guild. See Gaffin, Jean and Thoms, David, Caring & Sharing. The Centenary History of the Co-operative Women's Guild (Manchester, 1983).Google Scholar On international developments, see Baulier, Françoise, “Femmes et organisations féminines dans l'Alliance Coopérative Internationale”, Archives de Sciences Sociales de la Coopération 74 (10–December 1985):10–40.Google Scholar

39. Compare Hagemann, Karen, Frauenalltag und Männerpolitik. Alltagsleben und gesellschaftliches Handeln von Arbeiterfrauen in der Weimarer Republik (Bonn, 1990), 140.Google Scholar

40. Totomianz, Vahan, “Le rôle des femmes dans la coopération”, Revue des études coopératives 6 (1926–1927):413.Google Scholar

41. Pestoff, Between Markets and Politics, 35, 47.

42. Spedden, Trade Union Label, 72–73.

43. Schacherl, “Ein viermonatlicher Bierboykott,” 273.

44. Fishman, William J., East End Jewish Radicals, 1875–1914, (London, 1975), 253. I owe this reference to Karin Hofmeester.Google Scholar

45. Bauer, “Boykott”, 146.

46. Tilly, Charles, As Sociology Meets History (New York, 1981), 151.Google Scholar

47. Laidler, Harry W., “Boycott,” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 2 (New York, 1930), 665–66.Google Scholar

48. Ware, Labor Movement, 336–37.