Enterprise & Society

This book undertakes a radical reexamination of the classical historiography: the historical forms of labor are usually structured around the opposition between free labor and forced labor. An English version containing new chapters on Japan and China, published by E. J. Brill, will appear in either 2012 or 2013. The aim of the book is to set the boundary line between free labor and forced labor in specific historical and institutional contexts and explain why, in a given context, this line was conceived and put into practice in one way rather than another.

The first underlying hypothesis of this book is that the so-called free forms of labor and bondage were defined and practiced with reference to each other. In the Anglo-Saxon world (chapter by Simon Deakin), until almost the end of the nineteenth century, there were fewer "wage earners" than servants, that is, workers whose status resembled that of domestics. These workers did enjoy limited rights in relation to their employers: the absence or unjustified breach of a work contract was punishable by criminal penalties. Yet it was precisely the definition of free labor, based on the unequal legal statuses of employers (actually masters) and wage earners (servants), that enabled several forms of bondage to be considered a contractual "free choice" at the time. The same conclusion comes from the [End Page 416] analysis of French cases in the chapters by Pierre Vernus and Alain Dewerpe. Conversely, what has been called the "second serfdom" in Eastern Europe needs to be redefined. Serfs were never legally defined as such in Russia (chapter by Alessandro Stanziani); the documents that are usually cited as proof of the introduction of serfdom actually refer to forms of constraint on mobility and designated those who had the right to own and transfer inhabited estates, that is, various categories of nobles.

The second hypothesis concerns the links between circulation of knowledge and labor dynamics. Two main variables are worthy of mention: the circulation of economic and legal knowledge and economic and institutional dynamics between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Economic knowledge and legal models circulated along with people and goods. This circulation led not only to increasing homogeneity among systems but also to differentiation and even hierarchies of areas and countries. For example, the identification of serfdom with an archaic world in the "East" and even the notion of "Eastern Europe" itself were pure inventions of the Enlightenment.

The third hypothesis deals with the period under study (the late seventeenth century to the early twentieth century). This period was chosen on the basis of the following considerations: first, the seventeenth century is often considered an important moment in the rise of forms of bondage, linked to Russian territorial expansion and European expansion in the colonies. Second, the forms of bondage and work constraints did not originate in the seventeenth century, far from it. Third, the economic institutions and dynamics of the period grew out of those in previous centuries. At the same time, new elements appeared: economic, fiscal, and legal institutions linked to state expansion and colonization, as well as to the transformations of urban institutions and relationships in the countryside. By emphasizing the seventeenth century as the starting point of our history, the authors are not denying the continuities with earlier periods. The aim of the book is different. The history of slavery from the standpoint of mentalities, culture, and practices has often distinguished the world "before the seventeenth century" from the one that came afterwards, which alone was thought to have called slavery and forced labor in general radically into question. The abolitionist movement and the end of the Old Regime are usually invoked to justify this chronology. The argument was reinforced by historians of (free) labor who demonstrated that the rise of "modern" contractual forms of labor coincided with industrialization, proletarianization and, of course, legal reforms, notably in France and England in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. [End Page 417]

This approach emphasizes the continuities rather than the breaks between the late seventeenth century and the early twentieth century in the area of labor and its institutions. Despite institutional and political shifts, important continuities in labor regulations and practices are revealed and confirmed by the cases of Britain (Deakin), Japan (Yasushi Nizhizaka), and Russia (Stanziani). The continuity was even greater in the colonial empires where a significant link is established between the conditions of European wage earners.

The first part reveals how the circulation of economic knowledge and legal models was related to economic behavior and dynamics through case studies of England, India, and Indonesia. The second group of articles examines in greater detail the way local forms of dependence interacted with global dynamics. Marie-Louise Nagata explains how families and production units in Japan under the Tokugawa regime coped with protoindustrial growth. Taking the example of silk production in Tokyo, she brings out the interaction between family ties, the market, and working time. This serves as a basis for comparing its similarities with and differences from Lyon, another silk production region. Vernus studies the solutions developed in this industrial district in the face of the rapidly growing international markets in the nineteenth century and the undermining of local practices concerning labor and product quality. Claude Markovits looks at these same constraints in Indian trading companies. This case opens up at least three interesting perspectives. First, it fills a gap in the study of labor in India, which is too often focused on manufacturing. Next, it shows that Indian emigration was not necessarily limited to coolies and bonded laborers but also involved trading networks. Third, the presence of Indian trade organizations at the international level reflected international economic dynamics in which Asia, far from being a mere spectator of European development, played an active role. In his study of silk marketing by Indian firms, Markovits provides an important supplement to the chapter by Vernus by bringing out the connection between the dynamics of silk production in the nineteenth century Asia and the rise of local trade networks that were solidly integrated in the international markets.

In the third part, the book emphasizes the interaction among forms of bondage, constraints, and market dynamics over a very long term. The authors come full circle: they find in the organization of labor and in the movable boundary line between the private order (contractual) and the public order (regulatory and legal) of labor the tension between freedom and constraint discussed in the first section.

In conclusion, this book raises several questions: first, if the authors emphasize on continuities of the capitalism rather than discontinuities, what is their hypothesis about the global dynamic of [End Page 418] capitalism? Second, the comparison between local and global cases raises a problem of representativeness of the cases studied.