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Asia and Africa

more effor t . . . . Over time, where bargaining is repeated the fair wage coordinates the actions of individuals, and as long as both parties expect commitments to be upheld it may evolve into a rule or norm. In this way firms and workers adapt to the method of pay without changing it" (pp. 63-64). In the next three chapters Huberman examines the actual working of Lancashire labor markets between 1825 and 1860. Chapter 6 addresses piece rates from 1825 to 1850, the meat of Huberman's previous work. Using the M'Connel and Kennedy data and controlling for skill level changes, he finds that the wage was inflexible and not the key market-clearing instrument in the nineteenth century, as many observers (like Keynes and Polanyi) had incorrectly argued (p. 106). Chapter 7 explores short hours and the role of seniority during the 1840s. Huberman finds that during the 1841 depression, larger, more vertically integrated firms had a slightly higher use of short time than coarse spinning firms. Further, "layoff schedules and short hours were enforced by both parties and, as a result, wage and employment arrangements moved further away from their market ideal" (p. 131). In Chapter 8 Huberman examines the post-1850 wage lists that were the formal codification of the bargaining results and evolutionary process of the previous four decades. These lists in cotton towns such as Bolton, Oldham, and Rochdale reveal regional differences in splitting rents between workers and employers and resulted in increased market power for workers. Chapter 9 presents Huberman's conclusions. Wages were generally inflexible in the preWorld War I period. In addition, "neither workers nor firms are identified as monolithic. The assertion that workers lost skills has been replaced by the view that workers exercised control of the labor process. It is no longer held that workers learned the rules of the game; indeed, it appears they actively played a role in making them as well" (p. 152). Huberman then puts this work structure in the context of the standard of living question and questions of institutional persistence. He has used previous scholarship to its best advantage, and he has added nuance and sophistication to the sometimes caricatured previous analyses of work relations in the nineteenth century. My only real quibble with this work is seemingly pedantic but actually substantive. Throughout this book Huberman characterizes the work agreements as a response to market failure and a movement away from the effects of the market. This characterization of the agreements overlooks that fact that markets do not fail, they fail to exist. Contracts, custom, and social norms all serve as complementary institutions to markets, enabling individuals to earn gains from trade in situations where market formation is more costly than reliance on these other institutions. The institutional juxtaposition of markets and social norms is where we live our lives, and where cotton workers in Lancashire lived theirs; this rich complexity binds people across time. Huberman's work brings that observation to the forefront, and enriches our understanding of history and the interplay of market and nonmarket processes in individual decision-making.