Labour History as the History of Multitudes

Abstract

Marcel van der Linden Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden His­tory of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press 2000) LABOUR HISTORIANS STUDY the class to examine its development, compo­sition, conditions, lifestyle, culture, and many other aspects. But what ex­actly do we mean when we use the term working class? Over the past half-century, the answer to this seemingly simple question changed continu­ously. In the 1950s and 1960s it usually denoted male breadwinners who earned a living in agriculture, industry, mining, or transport. In the 1970s and 1980s objec­tions from feminists instigated a fundamental revision that broadened the focus be­yond the male head of die household to include the wife and children. Occupational groups that tended to be overlooked in the past, such domestic servants and pros­titutes, started to receive serious consideration. The chronological and geographic scope of the research expanded well. historians became interested in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, and took a closer look at pre-industrial wage earn­ers. Our overall perspective on the class undergone a paradigmatic revolution. The signs indicate that this first transitio n is merely a harbinger of a sec­ond one. However broadly labour historians have interpreted their discipline thus far, their main interest always been free workers and their families. They perceived such a wage earner in the Marxian sense the worker who as a free individual can dispose of his labour-power his own and has no other commodity Marcel van der Linden, Labour History the History of Multitudes, Labour/Le Travail, 52 (Fall 2003), 235-43.