British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2010.00796.x 48:4 December 2010 0007–1080 pp. 808–819
BOOK REVIEWS
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The Craftsman by Richard Sennett. Penguin Books, London, 2009, 326 pp., ISBN 978 0 141 02209 3, £9.99, paperback. The most dignified person we can become, as Richard Sennett points out at the very end of his inspiring book, is Hephaestus. Those who have not yet read the book may wonder: Why should the ugly duckling of all (generally good-looking) Greek gods be our model for gaining dignity? The reason, according to Sennett, is that for human beings, craftsmanship — ‘the skill of doing things well’ (p. 8) — is the main source of dignity. And the clubfooted god of craftsmen is himself a craftsman, ‘proud of his work if not of himself’ (p. 296). The topic of the book is not craft as an empirical phenomenon, but rather as an ideal type. (Readers who expect an empirical analysis of the real working conditions of craftsmen today probably will be disappointed.) The three parts of the book provide a comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of craftsmen, craft and craftsmanship. Throughout the chapters, the author step by step works out the central elements of the ideal type of the craftsman and of craftsmanship by scrutinizing plenty of (mostly historical) examples of craftsmen ‘in action’ — be it ancient weavers, potters and brickmakers, violin makers, architects, musicians, Linux programmers, or others. What they have in common, according to Sennett, and what defines the notion of craftsmanship, are a practical, sensuous engagement with objects and a continual interplay between the practical transformation of objects and the intellectual reflection on one’s practice. In order to become a good craftsman, continuing practical involvement with objects is necessary, and one has to acquire knowledge and skill from experienced practitioners of a craft while at the same time experiencing in practice how things work. This implies a long period of apprenticeship. Last but not least, craftsmanship does not only imply the skill of doing things well, but also an intrinsic motivation to deliver work of good quality: ‘Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake’ (p. 9). The author puts craftsmanship in an anthropological perspective: He claims that a basic desire to do things well rests in all of us, and — as he points out in the last chapter of his book — that almost anyone can become a good craftsman. As Sennett states in the Prologue, his aim is to stress (and to rehabilitate) in theoretical terms practice and material culture over intellect — in opposition to his teacher, Hannah Arendt — and to argue against the relative depreciation of manual work. With his appraisal of craft, and craftsmanship, Sennett implicitly provides as it were a counter-definition of the conditio humana. As the basis for its existence, the human animal carries an inherent potential to deliver ‘good work’ as judged by criteria based on its active, practical engagement with the material (and social) world (and acquired from other, more experienced craftsmen). © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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Sennett’s analysis is, as he points out, deeply rooted in the philosophical tradition of Pragmatism. This perspective promotes his detailed analysis of the practical engagement of craftsmen with material objects. It is a particular achievement of the book that the author takes his ‘materialist’ perspective seriously by systematically including the physiological foundations of practice in his analysis (most prominently, in the chapter ‘The Hand’). The style of the book is rather essayistic. Sennett’s investigation on the nature of craft and craftsmanship is based on a vast array of literature from different fields. Although short summaries are given at the end of each chapter, and at the end of each part, it is necessary to read the examples in order to fully understand the author’s point in each chapter. A methodological criticism of Richard Sennett’s approach might be that his reconstruction of an ideal type of craft and craftsmanship is to a large degree based on case studies of artists and artisans rather than ‘ordinary’ craftsmen of all kinds. Therefore, the analysis applies to extreme cases only but is not valid for craftsmen in general — the ideal-typical approach leads to an idealized perspective on craft. However, that kind of criticism misses the point. As stated above, it is not the author’s intention to analyse empirical cases of craftsmen. The book rather provides, in an anthropological perspective, normative criteria to determine the potential of workers to deliver good work — if workers only had the chance to apply their own criteria. Social researchers concerned with work-related issues should read this book not only because it is inspiring in theoretical terms and entertaining to read, but also because the ideal type of the craftsman defines a normative standard for good work and good working conditions, and thus offers a critical perspective on real contemporary work. Frank Kleemann Chemnitz University of Technology
Minimum Wages by David Neumark and William L. Wascher. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008, 377 pp., ISBN 978 0 262 14102 4, £25.95. For all opponents to minimum wages, the work of David Neumark (University of California, Irvine) and William L. Wascher (Federal Reserve) is the point of reference. Over the past 20 years, they have published dozens of articles arguing against statutory minimum wages. Their recent book does not contain anything new, but is more a synthesis and résumé of their work. The rather plain title Minimum Wages suggests definitive arguments telling us what we should think about this issue. Right from the beginning, Neumark and Wascher make it clear that for them minimum wages are harmful for at least four reasons (p. 6f.). First, they claim that minimum wages destroy employment for less skilled workers. Second, as a result, minimum wages reduce rather than increase the earnings of the lowest skilled individuals. Third, minimum wages are therefore a counterproductive instrument in the fight against poverty. And finally, minimum wages have adverse longer-run effects on wages and earnings because they hinder the acquisition of human capital. Although Neumark and Wascher take a rather broad view of the social and economic effects of minimum wages, it is the employment issue that is at the core of their argument. The chapter on the effects of minimum wages on employment is a © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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summary of a larger article in which they review more than 100 articles (David Neumark and William Wascher, Minimum Wages and Employment, Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics Vol. 3 (2007), pp. 1–154). In the book, Neumark and Wascher discuss the 45 studies which for them represent the ‘most reliable’ research. On this basis, they come to the result that ‘the predominance of evidence supports the view that minimum wages reduce the employment of low-wage workers’ (p. 104). There are only a few prominent outliers, such as the well-known studies of Alan B. Krueger and David Card, and their importance is seen by Neumark and Wascher as ‘overstated’ (p. 75). Aside from the fact that a significant number of the ‘most reliable’ studies are by Neumark and Wascher themselves, the selection of studies presented in the book, like in the larger article, is strongly biased in several ways. The first, recognized by Neumark and Wascher themselves, is the fact that a large majority of the studies considered are from the USA. Although they discuss some studies from other countries, the overall conclusion drawn from them is rather inadequate. This is true, for example, in the case of France, where Neumark and Wascher evaluate just one ‘most compelling’ study, while they totally ignore the broader controversy on the issue among French economists (p. 96f.). Another peculiar case is the UK, where against the view of the overwhelming majority of British researchers, they come to the conclusion that, ‘based on broader and more recent evidence, it seems incorrect to point to the evidence from the United Kingdom as making a strong case that the minimum wage does not reduce labour demand for unskilled workers; indeed, the weight of evidence points more towards disemployment effects’ (p. 95). Another even more important bias in the selection of studies is that a great number of minimum wage studies identifying negative employment effects are exclusively about teenage or youth employment. If there are any negative effects at all — and there are good reasons to doubt it — they are limited to this specific group of employees. Regarding the overall effects on employment, even Neumark and Wascher admit that ‘the influence of modest changes in the minimum wage on the national economy is undoubtedly small relative to business cycle fluctuations and other macroeconomic shocks’ (p. 251). Neumark and Wascher also seem to agree that ‘minimum wage research has tended to overemphasize the effects of minimum wages on employment’ (p. 288). Therefore, they want to focus the debate more on distributional effects. Here their fundamental thesis is ‘that higher minimum wages tend, on average, to reduce the economic well being of affected workers’ (p. 139). Although there is no controversy about the fact that minimum wages define a wage floor that compress the wage distribution, Neumark and Wascher argue that only part of the low-wage workforce profit from this, while others become unemployed and therefore worse off. Minimum wages are not an effective instrument to fight poverty, because many low wage workers are living in non-poor households while members of poor households are unemployed. There is no controversy that the impact of minimum wages on poverty is limited, and that it can be only one instrument among others to fight it. However, Neumark’s and Wascher’s statement that minimum wages lead to an increase of poverty (p. 189) is grounded on a questionable empirical basis and again depends mainly on the impact on employment. Given that their view of the effects of minimum wages is in every respect negative, the book’s chapter on ‘the Political Economy of Minimum Wages’, in which Neumark and Wascher ask the question, ‘why are minimum wages so popular?’ (p. 249) is very interesting. One the one hand, they accuse the supporters of minimum © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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wages of having a ‘lack of clear understanding about their effects’ (p. 250); on the other, they identify some ‘organized constituent groups that support or oppose the minimum wage in their own self interest’ (p. 253). For example, trade unions are said to support minimum wages because they ‘have an incentive to shift labour demand towards higher-skilled unionized workers’. There are also larger firms that support minimum wages in order to eliminate low-cost competition from smaller and medium-sized companies. Unfortunately, Neumark and Wascher say nothing about the self-interests of those organized constituent groups that oppose minimum wages. They could have referred, for example, to the fact that much of the research on minimum wages in the USA (including some studies by Neumark and Wascher) has been funded by the Employment Policies Institute, an influential think tank closely related to the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries. At the end of the book, Neumark and Wascher ask the question, ‘should we eliminate the minimum wage?’ (p. 290). Surprisingly, they do not answer it with a simple ‘yes’; instead, they speculate rather vaguely about the possible positive effects of doing so. In the end, they conclude that they ‘find it difficult to see a good economic rationale for continuing to seek a higher minimum wage’ (p. 289). The latter brings to mind the phrase of John Maynard Keynes, who in his General Theory remarked that ‘it is fortunate that workers . . . are instinctively more reasonable economists than the classical school’. Thorsten Schulten Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI)
Vocational Training: International Perspectives edited by Gerhard Bosch and Jean Charest. Routledge, Abingdon, 2010, 324 pp., ISBN 978 0 4154 6721 6, £95.00, hardback. This comprehensive volume edited by Gerhard Bosch and Jean Charest provides an excellent overview of the state of affairs in selected vocational training systems around the globe. The volume contains detailed and well-researched case studies on developments in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, the United Kingdom and the USA. Its broad coverage of cases, moving beyond the ‘usual suspects’ by including developing and newly industrialized countries, is certainly one of the strong points of the book. Furthermore, the editors adopt a broader perspective on training by encouraging the contributors to take into account the links between vocational training and general education, further training and the labour market (pp. 11–21). This broader perspective on vocational training often also includes discussions on the role of the social partners and industrial relations as institutional factors supporting collective forms of skill formation such as apprenticeship training. Some individual chapters also look at the role of the state and consequences of changes in the partisan orientation of government (e.g. the chapter by Wiborg and Cort on Denmark and the chapter by Rainbird on the UK). Most country chapters are concerned with recent developments, i.e. during the last one or two decades. Some go back to the 1970s and 1980s, but generally not further back than that. The broad message of the book is developed more implicitly than explicitly stated (however, see p. 22 in the introduction). Clearly, vocational training systems face different challenges and develop in different directions. In the developing and newly industrialized countries, policy makers are mostly concerned with expanding © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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vocational training and higher education opportunities in order to promote social and economic development. For the developed world, Bosch and Charest identify different patterns of change, depending on the particular ‘variety of capitalism’. In liberal market economies (LMEs), educational aspirations of youths and parents continue to be directed towards academic higher education, and vocational training is still seen as a dead end for weaker pupils. However, the chapter on Australia (by Cooney and Long) adds an interesting perspective to this well-known general statement by showing how policy makers have succeeded in expanding vocational training through apprenticeships with greater success than their British cousins (see Rainbird’s chapter) because of stronger industrial relations. In Canada (Charest/Critoph), France (Méhaut) and partly the USA (Bailey/Berg), efforts at enhancing the ‘vocationalism’ of secondary and tertiary education institutions are observed. In co-ordinated market economies (CMEs), in contrast, the challenge is to adapt workplace-based vocational training to the needs of a service and knowledge economy, which puts greater value on general and theoretical knowledge. Bosch argues that Germany’s training system has been quite successful in adapting itself to this new challenge because of encompassing reforms of the training ordinances. In Denmark, recent reforms have enhanced the flexibility of the system without fundamentally changing its co-operative culture (Wiborg and Cort). The upshot of this tour d’horizon is that, to a certain extent, a convergence process seems to take place, in which LMEs and CMEs discover each other’s strengths, but maintain their particular flavour nevertheless. In LMEs, the value of workplace-based training is increasingly recognized as a tool to facilitate labour market integration, although in the USA, the trend seems to be reversing back to higher education (Bailey/Berg), and efforts of policy makers to expand the involvement of firms in training are not always successful (Rainbird). In CMEs, in contrast, the expansion of educational opportunities in higher education and the provision of transferable skills within training are becoming more important. In Germany, for example, the dual principle is extended from initial vocational training to higher education by establishing dual study programmes (Bosch, p. 158), demonstrating how transformations of the system interact with the forces of path dependency as the ‘occupational principle’ is transferred from secondary to higher education. In my view, the edited volume has its greatest benefits for scholars, who are not (yet) experts on training, but in need of a reference point to delve deeper into individual cases. The case studies value dense descriptions of developments over the application of analytical arguments. Furthermore, there is no clear theoretical framework driving the selection of cases included in the book, except a relatively superficial reference to the Varieties of Capitalism debate. More cross-references between the individual case studies and maybe additional comparative chapters would have strengthened the comparative perspective. The analytical and theoretical contribution of the volume could have been greater if more efforts had been invested in explaining the observed developments rather than describing them. Differences in the power resources of social partners, the set-up of industrial relations, as well as the role of policy makers and the state in general would be obvious candidates for further exploration. From a theory-driven perspective, the broad coverage of cases, which inexorably contributes to heterogeneity, can become a liability. In particular, the consequences of the enormous differences in the socioeconomic and political contexts between countries such as Morocco and the USA need to be reflected in order to attenuate the concern that one is comparing apples with pears. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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In sum, this edited volume makes an important contribution by providing an up-to-date and comprehensive collection of case studies that will benefit those scholars in need of a starting point for their own research. The strong points of the volume are its broad coverage of cases, including developing and newly industrialized countries, as well as its sensitivity to the links between vocational training, the general education system, further training and the labour market. Marius R. Busemeyer Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
The Crisis of Social Democratic Trade Unionism in Western Europe — The Search for Alternatives by Martin Upchurch, Graham Taylor and Andrew Mathers. Ashgate, Farnham, 2009, 226 pp., ISBN 978 0 7546 7053 7, £65.00, hardback. The current financial crisis and economic recession should offer Social Democrats plenty of opportunities for fresh ideas and projects that promise to tame capitalist excess and offer a better-regulated and socially sustainable model of capitalism. Instead, social democracy is in a deep crisis. In the most recent elections for the European Parliament, Social Democratic and Labour parties received a beating, confirming earlier electoral defeats in Sweden, Finland, Italy and France. In the few countries where they are in government, in the UK and Germany for instance, they look set for severe losses. Trade unions, apart from losing a partner in government, have plenty of difficulties of their own: declining membership density, eroding bargaining power, and the increasing gulf between protected and marginal segments in the working population. Among European unions, there is a strong demand for new ideas, not only on how to organize new memberships, but also on the aims and purposes of unionism in the twenty-first century, its forms of organization and international co-operation. A study that aims ‘to explore the current crisis of social democracy in Western Europe and its resultant impact on the strategic orientation of trade unions’ (p. 1) and announces in its title to ‘search for alternatives’, is therefore timely. The study of Upchurch, Taylor and Mathers analyses the developments in unionparty relationships in four countries: Sweden, Germany, the UK and France. In addition, the book offers a chapter on European trade unionism with a critique of the European social model, an introductory theoretical chapter and a concluding chapter titled ‘alternative futures’. The authors offer no clear rationale for why these four countries are chosen, and not for instance Spain, Italy or Austria. Why in 2009 the focus should be on Western Europe only, with no word spent on the difficulty of reconstituting social democratic unionism in Eastern Europe — clearly part of its present crisis — is also questionable. Upchurch et al. tell the story of social democratic unionism and its present crisis in the four selected countries with an emphasis on how the union–party nexus is formed in institutional and ideological terms. The early days of unionism, but also the conflicts in the 1930s, receive much space. The four chapters bring out significant differences between the four countries in how the union–party nexus (and through it, the relation between industrial and political action) is shaped. However, the authors tend to emphasize the commonality in the social democratic experience, with its tendency to accommodate the forces of capitalism, encourage productivity coalitions and stifle union democracy in the process of wrestling concessions from capital. The © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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crisis of social democratic unionism becomes manifest in the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, the failure to defend full employment, and the neoliberal attack on the state and public services. The main ‘hypothesis’ of the book is that ‘the crisis of “social democratic unionism” is a product of the accommodation of Social Democratic and Labour-type parties to neo-liberal imperatives’ (p. 108). The ‘Third Way’, ‘Blairism’, Schroeder’s Agenda 2000, the CFDT’s reformism, ‘competitive corporatism’ in the form of national social pacts and ‘partnership in industry’ — which, according to the authors, represent ‘a denial and/or suppression of class conflict, and a direct appeal by the state to workers’ “self interest” at the enterprise level’ (p. 15) — are examples of accommodations that draw the ire of the authors. In contrast to such reformism, the authors argue that the current crisis of social democratic unionism can only be overcome through a ‘political logic of rejection’. They define this as ‘reorientation strategies towards social movements, which reject neo-liberalism and which if need be go beyond the traditional party-union nexus.’ (p. 108). They find examples of such reorientations in Germany (e.g. Ver.di and IG Metall leaders who endorse the policies of Lafontaine’s Linkspartei) and France (the breakaway unions G10 and Sud, which align with new social movements and networks against globalization, racism and the privatization of public services). They find ‘little evidence that Swedish unions seek alliances with other social movements’ (p. 51); and ‘in Britain we observe much less significant breaks with social democracy, but nevertheless a gathering critique and mutual distancing between New Labour in power and the trade union leadership’ (p. 178). Yet the Swedish exception notwithstanding, the authors boldly predict a general crisis of social democratic unionism and ‘a qualitative change from previous crises in which challenges to social democratic unionism were always contained within the party-union nexus or neutralized within the institutions of industrial relations’ (p. 179). What about the alternatives? In the concluding chapter, Upchurch et al. offer a fourfold table in which national responses are contrasted with international responses, and integrative approaches set against oppositional ones. Traditional social democratic unionism is called national and oppositional, whereas the Third Way is located in the national and integrationist segment. The positions of the European Trade Union Conferederation and of unions allying themselves with the Decent Work program of the ILO are called ‘cosmopolitan social democracy’, for reasons that are unclear to me, and located in the integrationist-international camp. Although not shunning politics and state action, radicalized political unionism is called international and oppositional, and ‘represents a break to the left from social democracy and its traditional party union nexus’ (p. 168). It is associated with ‘high risk activism’, ‘nurtured by networking and de-bureaucratization of the unions’, which according to the authors ‘is thus likely to be positively correlated with membership mobilisation’ (p. 171). Unfortunately, they do not provide any evidence of why this is ‘thus likely’: why, for example, it would halt the decline of union density and bargaining power, or overcome the divisions within the union movement. This book is not about the electoral position of Social Democratic parties or about labour market and union membership changes. It has nothing to say about the actual or historical choices and dilemmas of union and party leaders, who are confronted with questions of bridging the different labour market interests of skilled and unskilled workers, and those working in the private and public sector. Nor does it analyse the challenges posed to unions and Social Democratic parties by labour migration and ethnic diversity. How these intra-class differences have shaped and are being shaped by the unions in the four different countries is not the subject of this © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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book, which is entirely focused on the institutional and ideological history of unionparty relationships. The dichotomies between opposition and integration, and national and international orientation, are probably too simple for the real-world dilemmas that confront today’s trade unions and their leaders. Unions have always attracted intellectual speculation and romantic enthusiasm. Upchurch et al. place high expectations on their version of radical political unionism, as did so many intellectuals before them in earlier crises. Meanwhile, the issue for many union movements is whether they can bridge the interests of insiders and outsiders in Europe’s labour markets, and prevent fragmentation or even irrelevance in the face of deepseated changes in the labour market and working of international capitalism. Maybe there is reason to take a closer look at the Swedish, or Nordic, model of social democratic unionism and not dismiss it, as the authors do, as ‘the best possible shell of liberal capitalism’ (p. 51). If that shell includes the universal welfare state, near full employment, the still relatively high degree of union organisation and participation in workplaces, and the limited degree of inequality found in Scandinavia, most unions would probably settle for it — if only they knew how to get there. Jelle Visser University of Amsterdam
Globalization and Varieties of Capitalism — New Labour, Economic Policy and the Abject State by Dan Coffey and Carole Thornley. Palgrave Macmillan, Houndsmills, Basingstoke, 2009, 188 pp., ISBN 978 0 230 55309 5, £55.00, hardback. This book addresses a fundamental and often-asked question about British capitalism: how necessary was the neoliberal turn after 1979? Contra Thatcher, was there indeed an alternative to deregulation, privatization and the neutering of a once powerful labour movement? And to address the more recent past, could New Labour have been more radical and ambitious during its 13 years in office had it not largely internalized a set of basic assumptions about globalization and the competitive pressures acting on the British economy? A veritable cottage industry of academic analysis has arisen around this set of questions, and this elegant and often witty volume is a strong competitor to some of the best of that analysis. The British case is of especial importance, these authors argue, for two reasons. First, because of the hybrid quality of British capitalism, lodged somewhere between American market liberalism and a continental social market economy with an attachment to expansive public services and an, at least rhetorical, commitment to a conveniently undefinable Third Way. Second, because of the scale of the reversal in policy regimes post-1979. Throughout the book, the authors acknowledge a debt to Andrew Glyn and Naomi Klein for their emphasis upon both the neoliberal break of the 1980s and the shock value of policy reversals upon interest groups. In this telling, the importance of the Thatcher government’s willingness to break the National Union of Mineworkers lies more in its demonstration effect on workers and employers alike than on the profitability of the mining industry. The central argument here is that British capitalism in the 1970s was less decrepit, and more vibrant and competitive, than its depiction at the hands of neoliberal critics. It required active intervention, both at the level of policy and discourse, on the part of the British state to reconstruct that economy. Thus policy makers, whether © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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Conservative or New Labour, were not passively adapting to international economic forces beyond their control so much as creating the very conditions to which they claimed to be responding. The authors are quick (perhaps a little too quick) to dismiss those schools of political economy — they highlight post-Fordist analysis and profits squeeze arguments — that ‘rationalize political authority’, or in other words justify the policies of state actors on the basis of economic factors beyond their control. The state plays a key role for the authors in mystifying the true nature of British capitalism and legitimizing particular policy approaches. This role, in the most interesting and arresting formulation of the volume, is above all one of denial: denial of the real scope for governments to effect significant change to the political economy. Thus the chapter titles: the self-effacing state, the self-deceiving state, the abject state. Governments post-1979 have consistently denied, in both the policies followed and the discursive construction of those policies, the ability of state policy to depart from a broadly neoliberal conception of British capitalism with successful results. The core of this volume is a set of three case studies examining different aspects of state economic policy. In each case, the British state chose to act in ways that simultaneously denied its own capacity to manage the economy and actively legitimized neoliberal tenets. The best of these case studies deals with the public finance initiative, and demonstrates convincingly that embedded in New Labour’s relative cost assumptions for PFI bids was a clear implication of state incompetence. The adoption of far more expensive private sector financing and construction was justified on the grounds — asserted rather than proved — that the private sector is always and everywhere more efficient than the public sector. Again, for the authors, the importance of the PFI is not simply that it involved a partial privatization of traditional state functions, or even that it was bad economics, but more importantly, that state actions served to legitimize and encourage a set of fundamentally neoliberal assumptions. The other two case studies examine industrial policy and public sector employment. The public sector employment case examines the notion of the state as model employer from the perspective of gender discrimination, and demonstrates that, at least under New Labour, the British state could have done more to combat segregation and pay inequality. This task is accomplished effectively and comprehensively. The industrial policy case investigates in ‘forensic’ detail the justification used by Ford in ending production at Dagenham in 2000. The conclusion drawn by the authors is that Ford may have chosen an alternative European location based not simply upon relative cost factors but also in the knowledge that doing so would punish its British unions for recent indications of low-level militancy. This is not an especially shocking or incriminating conclusion. Moreover, this case study, and discussion later in the book, betrays a somewhat static understanding of capitalist behaviour on the part of the authors; capitalist firms will make decisions based not simply on current costs, or on an adequate level of profit, but on expectations of future costs and with a goal of profit maximization. It is in any case difficult to draw lessons for British industrial policy from a single incident in one industry. Globalization and Varieties of Capitalism tells us a great deal about British economic policy, and the assumptions underlying economic policy, in the era of New Labour. One emerges from reading it convinced that British governments believe that there is no alternative to managing the economy in a broadly neoliberal manner. As such, self-denial is at the heart of policy making. But despite its claims, this volume is not a study of British capitalism. It is a study of the British state, with the result that the reader cannot evaluate whether such self-denial is warranted. As with other © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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contributions to the large literature on what one might term the political sources of neoliberalism, this volume is fundamentally deconstructive: it effectively undermines the claims of neoliberalism and is thus suggestive that an alternative political economy is possible. Indeed, any analysis that privileges the state is likely to conclude that choices were made and thus alternatives are available. Identifying precisely what those alternatives are requires an analysis of British capitalism itself, and that is for another volume. Chris Howell Oberlin College
The Second Automobile Revolution. Trajectories of the World Carmakers in the 21st Century edited by Michel Freyssenet. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009, 496 pp., ISBN 978 0 230 21971 7, £75.00, hardback. This edited book by Michel Freyssenet is a follow-up to the books One Best Way? Trajectories and Industrial Models of the World’s Automobile Producers (Freyssenet et al. 1998) and Between Imitation and Innovation — The Transfer and Hybridization of Productive Models in the International Automobile Industry (Boyer et al. 1998). A major focus of the first of the two volumes is to trace the development of productive models in major auto companies between the 1970s and 1997, while the new volume sets out to provide an empirical update of developments at these companies between 1998 and 2008. The book convincingly delivers on this task and provides an empirically rich account of the developments in the worldwide auto industry until the 2008 economic crisis. In addition, the book develops the thesis of a Second Automobile Revolution, which will be discussed below. The core of the book are 18 company case studies, which cover most major auto assembly producers. A number of the authors contributed to the 1998 volumes and provide new, up-to-date case studies, including Ulrich Jürgens on Volkswagen, Guiseppe Volpato on FIAT and Michel Freyssenet on Renault. These authors have observed and studied these companies for a long time, and this is reflected in the empirical depth of the case studies. The scope of the book goes beyond the previous volume by including case studies on companies in China and India and on the global auto parts industry, which remains understudied as the authors point out. The book is a product of the international, French-based research group GERPISA (English translation: the Permanent Group for the Study of and Research into the Automobile Industry and its Employees). The book picks up on familiar themes of GERPISA’s research. As in previous contributions, the book takes issue with the thesis of the influential book The Machine that Changed the World that all auto production will converge towards lean production (Womack et al. 1990). In contrast, this book argues that companies develop different productive models, which are necessarily closely aligned to their respective national socioeconomic contexts. A central message is that there are a number of different ways to compete successfully in the auto industry and not one best way. The book applies theoretical insights of previous GERPISA work (in particular, the two abovementioned research volumes). More specifically, the book uses a previously developed analytical framework that identified a range of different productive models (Boyer and Freyssenet 2002). Some of the authors rigorously examine changes in each company’s respective productive model, while other authors attempt to © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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identify new productive models. However, not all authors apply the analytical framework and the strength of the case studies varies. The book makes it possible to distill several key developments in the global auto industry during the last decade. First, large auto producers sought a worldwide presence and profits through mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. All but the Renault-Nissan joint venture failed. The book’s case studies inquire into the reasons for this one success and the many failures. Second, worldwide production continued to grow between 1998 and 2008 despite stagnating markets in the US and Europe. This worldwide growth can largely be attributed to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), in which production rose from about 5–15 million cars in this period. The book suggests that these countries will be the growth engine of auto production in the coming decade. Third, China became the second largest autoproducing country after Japan in 2008, overtaking Germany and the USA. The Chinese growth and production model differs from that in other countries. The Chinese government traded ‘market access for technology’. The only way for Western and Japanese auto producers to enter the Chinese market was through engaging in joint ventures with Chinese auto companies. These joint ventures carved out a sizeable chunk of the Chinese auto market. Beyond this, interestingly, independent Chinese producers emerged and established themselves. These homegrown Chinese companies had a national auto market share of 38.5% in 2005. It remains an open question whether Chinese auto companies such as Geely and Chery can become global players, fuelled by the growth of their national market, considering their low-cost, low-quality productive model. One of the most interesting and thought-provoking chapters is the conclusion by Michel Freyssenet, in which he develops the thesis that we are at the brink of a Second Automobile Revolution. The first automobile revolution was characterized by the adaptation of a global standard — autos run by internal combustion engines fuelled through oil — and the expansion of this type of auto throughout the industrialized world over the last 100 years. The Second Automobile Revolution is characterized by the rise of new types of autos and engines fuelled through alternative energy such as gas, biofuels, fuel cells, electricity and hydrogen. According to Freyssenet, the ‘internal combustion engine/petrol auto model’ is exhausted due to its negative effects, including pollution affecting the environment and human health, physical and material accidents, and the consumption and destruction of spaces. Other identified drivers for the change are the rise of oil prices and the growing markets in the BRIC countries. The limits and price increases of oil and the interests of countries in energy independence will drive the development of autos run by alternative energy. Time will test the accuracy of the Second Automobile Revolution thesis. The recent evidence is mixed. After the publication of the book, oil prices fell by about 50%, and the need for alternative energy-run autos seems less urgent compared with the peak of the oil price in 2008. On the other hand, the US government-sponsored bailout of large US auto producers was linked to conditions supporting the development of green vehicles. Overall, the book is an empirically rich account of the evolution of the global auto industry over the last decade through the lens of company case studies. The book can be highly recommended to researchers, politicians and practitioners — unionists and managers alike — who are interested in an encompassing and sound update on developments in the auto industry until the economic crisis in 2008. Several of the company chapters can be used for teaching as case studies in (international) management and (international) employment relations/HRM classes. Readers who are © Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
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interested in engaging with the theoretical work of GERPISA will also have to consult GERPISA’s above-mentioned 1998 research volumes. Marco Hauptmeier Cardiff University
References Boyer, R., Charron, E., Jürgens, U. and Tolliday, S. (eds) (1998). Between Imitation and Innovation: The Transfer and Hybridization of Productive Models in the International Automotive Industry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Boyer, R. and Freyssenet, M. (2002). The Productive Models: The Conditions of Profitability. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Freyssenet, M., Mair, A., Shimizu, K. and Volpato, G. (1998). One Best Way? Trajectories and Industrial Models of the World’s Automobile Producers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Womack, J. P., Jones, D. T. and Roos, D. (1990). The Machine that Changed the World. New York: Rawson Associates.
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Debashish Bhattacherjee’s book review of Labor, Democratization, and Development in India and Pakistan, by Christopher Candland, which appeared in Volume 48, Number 1, misquoted a passage from the book on pages 217–218. The quote reads: ‘People who have no choice but to accept whatever terms or wages, if any, are offered for their labour, are not in the labour market’ This should read: ‘People who have no choice but to accept whatever terms or wages, if any, are offered for their labour, are not in a labour market’
Reference Bhattacherjee, D. (2010). ‘Labor, Democratization, and Development in India and Pakistan — By Christopher Candland’. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 48 (1): 215–18.
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2010.
