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.