Croucher, R.

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Œconomia5-2  (2015)Varia................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Richard CroucherAlessandro Stanziani, Bondage.Labor and Rights in Eurasia fromthe Sixteenth to the Early TwentiethCenturies................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................AvertissementLe contenu de ce site relève de la législation française sur la propriété intellectuelle et est la propriété exclusive del'éditeur.Les œuvres figurant sur ce site peuvent être consultées et reproduites sur un support papier ou numérique sousréserve qu'elles soient strictement réservées à un usage soit personnel, soit scientifique ou pédagogique excluanttoute exploitation commerciale. La reproduction devra obligatoirement mentionner l'éditeur, le nom de la revue,l'auteur et la référence du document.Toute autre reproduction est interdite sauf accord préalable de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législationen vigueur en France.Revues.org est un portail de revues en sciences humaines et sociales développé par le Cléo, Centre pour l'éditionélectronique ouverte (CNRS, EHESS, UP, UAPV).................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................Référence électroniqueRichard Croucher, « Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the EarlyTwentieth Centuries », Œconomia [En ligne], 5-2 | 2015, mis en ligne le 01 juin 2015, consulté le 03 juin 2015. URL :http://oeconomia.revues.org/1486Éditeur : Association Œconomiahttp://oeconomia.revues.orghttp://www.revues.orgDocument accessible en ligne sur :http://oeconomia.revues.org/1486Document généré automatiquement le 03 juin 2015. La pagination ne correspond pas à la pagination de l'éditionpapier.© Association ŒconomiaAlessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Earl (...) 2Œconomia, 5-2 | 2015Richard CroucherAlessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor andRights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to theEarly Twentieth CenturiesPagination de l’édition papier : p. 0-01 This book is volume 24 in the International Studies in Social History series edited by MarcelVan Der Linden of the International Institute of Social History Amsterdam (IISH) and makesa significant contribution to the trans-national history of labour. Its publication is timely,coming as it does in a period where interest in slavery, bonded labour and their legacies hassteadily developed in both the developed and developing worlds. I begin by summarising thework’s aims, research base, scope and arguments, and then offer views on how well the authorsucceeds in establishing the latter.2 The work sets out to analyse the evolving forms of labour in Eurasia, and the interactionsbetween them, in the emerging tradition of trans-national labour history championed by theIISH in general and this book series in particular. By ‘Eurasia’ the author means Europe(France and Britain), Russia and Central Asia and also the Western Indian Ocean (Mauritiusand Réunion). He draws on a comprehensive and sure-footed if occasionally idiosyncraticreview of literature in English, French and Russian and on selective archival research inthe relevant archives across the world. The links between the conditions of labour in thedifferent parts of this constructed ‘Eurasia’ are explored to show their interdependence andinter-relations and much of the volume’s contribution lies in its detailed examination of theselinkages. At this level of analysis, as the author points out, comparisons on the national andimperial levels are ‘a rough approximation’ (15) but they are also extremely useful as the basisfor numerous stimulating and provocative arguments.3 Stanziani begins by arguing that the Enlightenment experienced a central dilemma about therelationship between labour and the law on the one hand and actual economic developmentson the other. The English law concept of ‘master and servant’ framed labour law whilemoral arguments brought about the abolition of slavery; in Russia, élites shared their Westerncounterparts’ ambiguous attitude to issues of labour freedom. In short, Stanziani argues thatWestern approaches to labour rights were more repressive than often thought, while in Russiathey were less so. Moreover, there were links between them and in an extensive discussionhe reminds us that Samuel Bentham’s famous Panopticon was developed for western use viaRussian experience. He is therefore criticising the use of Weberian ideal types in analysesof the ‘liberal’ West in comparison to the ‘despotic’ East. He illustrates his argument byempirical investigation in this case. In Russia, he stresses the importance of kholopstvo orlimited-term slavery, a lack of compulsory labour corvées and the mobility that peasantsexercised in practice. Localised forms of bondage existed in heterogenous forms, but nonational-level institutionalization of serfdom occurred. These bonded labourers exercisedvoice through legal channels. Thus, prior to ‘liberation’ after 1861, peasant labour was lessrepressed than previously thought. Meanwhile, in the West, capitalism could not be identifiedas in Weberian or Marxist definitions with ‘free’ labour: Britain’s ‘master and servant’legislation accompanied the first Industrial Revolution while American slavery flourishedunder capitalism. Indeed, unlike American slaves, Russian serfs did not suffer from ethnicdistance from their masters while peasant communes acted as negotiating intermediariesbetween them and estate owners. In short, the two institutions of Russian and American labourrepression were quite different. Russian bondage was simply a polar expression of a wider,shared conception of labour as a form of service.4 In relation to the Western Indian Ocean, the variation in labour forms is again a prominentfeature. Stanziani enumerates and points up the significance of the multifarious forms ofAlessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Earl (...) 3Œconomia, 5-2 | 2015slavery which carried different statuses and may not be compared to the more uni-dimensionalform of its American counterpart. The different forms often involved interdependenciesbetween subordinates and intermediaries who were themselves under obligation to others(in Mauritius he implicitly refers here to the Sirdars and labour contractors). His argumentis then that the Mauritian and other indenture contracts—which replaced slavery after thelatter’s abolition in the British Empire—would have been impossible if the British had nothad the Master and Servant conception; a similar logic is applied to France and Réunion.These contracts helped extend the effective continuation of slavery’s conditions if not its statuslong after its formal abolition. As he points out, the evident status difference and the non-hereditary nature of indentured labour in relation to slavery later made a huge difference tothe development of freer forms of labour in the Twentieth Century. He proceeds to nuance hisargument by contending that colonies were not simply dependent on the metropolitan countriessince Indian Ocean labour forms were very varied and more complex than ‘dependency’might suggest. Emancipation did not come about ‘solely under pressure exerted by theadvanced West’ (14). Nevertheless, the essential contribution relates to his identification ofthe complexity of different labour forms.5 Overall, Stanziani argues that there were reciprocal influences. The circulation of ideasbetween different national practices led to a degree of homogeneity in practices which co-existed with the evident differentiation between them. Importantly for his overall argument,the Industrial Revolution enhanced rather than broke this system of regional circulation as theforms of labour evolved as part of a long-term process. The ‘presumed Western domination’is challenged. By the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, this world started to disappear asa result of ‘new’ labour contracts in many of these countries, the 1861 abolition of serfdom inRussia and the 1865 end of slavery in the United States. By 1904 slavery in Francophone Africawas ending and the Indian indenture contract ended in 1916. Trade unions were becominglegalised (or rather – your reviewer would specify-- at least beginning to acquire specific‘immunities’ from prosecution in Britain) and social democratic parties were on the march.The welfare state’s limited initial foundations were also laid in this era. In broad terms, heseeks to push the time when one can justifiably discuss ‘free labour’ toward a much later datethan is conventionally conceded.6 Stanziani’s adventurous and detailed work succeeds in challenging many of the easierassumptions of labour history and notably those concerning the gap between Russia andWestern Europe in terms of the forms of labour practised in both regions. In this connection, itis the Russian rather than the West European side of the comparison which is most convincing.Our first point here is that in Britain (rather than the ‘England’ he often uses as a synonym), theMaster and Servant legislation can hardly be taken as encapsulating the reality of employmentrelationships. To take just one well-documented example, the Lanarkshire (Scottish) miners—themselves subject to a form of serfdom for much of the Eighteenth Century—developedtheir early Brotherhoods into strong trade unions well capable of challenging many employerpractices in the 1820s and 1830s (see Campbell, 2013). Thus, the gap between Westernand Eastern labour realities may have been smaller than previously thought, but it remainedconsiderable. It was the greater degrees of systemic openness to politicised self-activity whichmade the difference. Our second point relates to the Western Indian Ocean. In the Mauritiancase, he successfully criticises general conceptions of the ‘plantation economy’ by deployinginsights largely available already from excellent works by previous authors, notably VijayaTeelock (1998) and Richard B. Allen (1999). Specialists had already discerned much of thisargument; generalists had not and the value of his work here therefore lies mainly in theway these insights are integrated into his wider analytic framework. This broader complex ofideas is indeed dazzling and stimulating. Your reviewer found it hard to put down; althoughsometimes hard to penetrate and thinly indexed, it is very engaging. However, it also outrunsitself on occasion and this is our third main point: theoretic symmetry and desire to make‘transnational’ points are sometimes advanced on very little evidence. Thus, the argument thatinfluences flowed from the colonial world to the metropolitan is not convincingly underpinnedby empirics. It was indeed the case that the Mauritian élite maintained very great influenceAlessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Earl (...) 4Œconomia, 5-2 | 2015over what went on locally (Croucher and McIlroy, 2013a), but it is implausible to hint that theydid—or wanted to do—much more than that. One imagines that it is not seriously being arguedthat it significantly influenced labour policy towards British workers. Such an argument wouldrequire substantial empirical support.7 Despite these three reservations, Stanziani has produced a very useful Feuilleton that questionsa good deal of labour history and that is an extremely useful service at a time when thesubject’s study can only benefit from such a fillip. It may on the other hand be going too far toassert that it (as Marcel Van Der Linden suggests on the book cover) ‘effectively underminesseveral certainties that have characterised our thinking about the history of labour relationsworldwide’.BibliographieMcIlroy, John and Richard Croucher. 2013. The turn to transnational labour history and the study ofglobal trade unionism. Labor History, 54(5): 491-511.Croucher, Richard and John McIlroy. 2013a. Mauritius 1938: the origins of a Milestone in ColonialLabour Legislation. Labor History, 54(3): 223-239.Croucher, Richard and John McIlroy. 2013b. Introduction: Beyond National History. Labor History,54(5): 485-491.Van Der Linden, Marcel (ed.). 2011. Humanitarian Intervention and Changing Labor Relations. Long-Term Consequences of the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden and Boston.Alan B. Campbell, Alan B. 2003. Lanarkshire Miners. A Social History of their Trade Unions. JohnDonald Short Run Press.Teelock, Vijaya. 1998. Bitter Sugar. Sugar and Slavery in Nineteenth Century Mauritius. MahatmaGandhi Institute, Mauritius.Allen, Richard B. 1999. Slaves, Freedmen, and Indentured Laborers in Colonial Mauritius. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Référence(s) :Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the EarlyTwentieth Centuries. Berghahn Books, New York and London 2014, vii + 258 pages, ISBN:978-1-78238-250-8.Pour citer cet articleRéférence électroniqueRichard Croucher, « Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenthto the Early Twentieth Centuries », Œconomia [En ligne], 5-2 | 2015, mis en ligne le 01 juin 2015,consulté le 03 juin 2015. URL : http://oeconomia.revues.org/1486Référence papierRichard Croucher, « Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from theSixteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries », Œconomia, 5-2 | 2015, 0-0.À propos de l’auteurRichard CroucherMiddlesex University London, R.Croucher@mdx.ac.ukDroits d’auteurAlessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Earl (...) 5Œconomia, 5-2 | 2015© Association Œconomia

Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and rights in Eurasia from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries

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Alessandro Stanziani, Bondage. Labor and rights in Eurasia from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries

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