Condensed Capitalism

[marmar]

Truthout Original

Condensed Capitalism
Tuesday 14 July 2009

by: Seth Sandronsky, t r u t h o u t | Book Review


Reviewing: "Condensed Capitalism: Campbell Soup and the Pursuit of Cheap Production in the Twentieth Century"

by Daniel Sidorick
Cornell University Press (April 2009)


Before the housing market blew up, radical writers knew how the system appears to be stable when times are good. In 1990, author Mike Davis, in "City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles," chronicles Kaiser Steel's rise and fall in nearby Fontana. For a time, steelmaking by union workers improved their lives. Daniel Sidorick picks up where Davis leaves off. In "Condensed Capitalism: Campbell Soup and the Pursuit of Cheap Production in the Twentieth Century," he explores the political economy of the famous "comfort" food company, chiefly at its lead plants in Camden, New Jersey. The author shows how the people who made the soup and other processed foods formed unions and won occupational and social improvements, including better wages and fringe benefits.

Sidorick's approach is chronological. This helps us to see the advances and retreats of Campbell Soup workers from many backgrounds who fought to have some say over their working days. The company, relentlessly, opposed such efforts with four main strategies, he writes: "continuous production redesign; the use of contingent labor and workforce segmentation; antiunionism and anticommunism; and movement of production." Each of his eight chapters pivots around these strategies and workers" responses.

With care and clarity, Sidorick analyzes the industrial development of food production from the vantage points of the owning and working classes at Campbell. He includes the stories of those who planted and harvested the food, from New Jersey to California. Throughout the book, the state mediates labor-management relations. Campbell sought and got help from the federal government to recruit seasonal workers from the Caribbean and Puerto Rico during World War II. Similarly, shortages in raw materials such as tin propelled company managers to ask for a hand from Uncle Sam. In the meantime, a Campbell union sought and received government help to bring African-American farm workers from Florida to labor under collective bargaining agreements in Camden's plants. Labor shortages strengthen workers' bargaining power with employers. Surpluses of labor have the opposite effect. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthout.org/071409I

[lamp_shade]

1. I just rec'd this, but notice that it had been "Unrec'd". Hmmm.

[marmar]

2. It never fails with posts that question capitalism.

The Unrec is almost immediate.

[Sentath]

3. At least I can give it a kick

and go read the whole thing.

eta
Its not that long.

[el_bryanto]

4. Odd how perceptions differ.

My perception is quite the opposite - but thanks for flagging up this book, looks interesting.

Bryant