Our Daily Bread: Wages, Workers, and the Political Economy of the American West

by Geoff Mann

Overview

A wage is more than a simple fee in exchange for labor, argues Geoff Mann. Beyond being a quantitative reflection of productivity or bargaining power, a wage is a political arena in which working people's identity, culture, and politics are negotiated and developed. In Our Daily Bread, Mann examines struggles over wages to reveal ways in which the wage becomes a critical component in the making of social hierarchies of race, gender, and citizenship.

Combining a fresh analysis of radical political economy with a critical assessment of the role of white men in North American labor politics, Mann addresses the issue of class politics and places the problem of "interests" squarely at the center of political economy. Rejecting the idea that interests are self-evident or unproblematic, Mann argues that workers' interests, and thus wage politics, are the product of the ongoing effort by wage workers to focus on quality in a socioeconomic system that relentlessly quantifies. Taking three wage disputes in the natural resources industry as his case studies, Mann demonstrates that wage negotiation is not simply emblematic of economic conflict over the distribution of income but also represents critical contests in the cultural politics of identity under capitalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469606705
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/01/2012
Series:	Cultural Studies of the United States
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Geoff Mann is assistant professor of geography at Simon Fraser University.

Table of Contents

Contents

Preface
1 The Wage, Cultural Politics, and the West
2 Against Equilibrium: The Politics of Measure
3 What's a Penny Worth?: Wages, Prices, and the American Working Man
4 What's in a Day's Wage?: Raced Work and the Social Production of Skill
5 Who Is a Wage Worker?: Worker-Producers and the Wage-Price
6 The Wage and Workers' Interests
Conclusion: The Wage, Our Daily Bread
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Brilliantly argued and beautifully written.—Journal of Historical Geography



Profoundly theoretical and compellingly argued . . . a work of stunning originality.—Labor Studies Journal



Provocative and stimulating.—The Annals of Iowa



Compelling, provocative, and creative. . . . [Mann's] case studies show us the role of wage struggles in the creation of nationalistic, gender, and racial identities as the cultural politics of wages unfold over time and in different contexts.—Award Committee, Michael Harrington Best Book Award, New Political Science Section, American Political Science Association



Our Daily Bread is a book whose brilliance is enhanced by its accessible writing and attention to the everyday. Going beyond 'embeddedness' to show how wage struggles encompass every element of political life and cultural practice, Mann reinvents our idea of class struggle. Particularly good on the race-class relationship, deeply theoretical, but above all committed to telling the stories of labor's creative confrontation with capital, Our Daily Bread should be adopted in courses across the disciplines. Highly recommended!—Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara



This remarkable work combines broad theoretical expertise and rich historical case studies to demonstrate that workers' struggles over pay are anything but defensive and narrow. In Mann's compelling account contests over compensation speak profoundly to the everyday lives and the freedom dreams of those who wage them.—David Roediger, University of Illinois



Brilliant . . . An incisive and convincing argument that places struggles over the wage relationships right at the heart of the 'cultural politics of capitalism.'—New Labor Forum

Editorial Reviews

[An] important book.—Environment and Planning D: Society and Space



Should prove of interest not only to economists, economic geographers, and labor historians, but also to those engaged in, for instance, cultural studies and political theory." —Environment and Planning

From the Publisher