Lawrence B. Glickman, A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. ix + 220 pp. $39.95 cloth; $15.95 paper.
@article{Sawislak1999LawrenceBG, title={Lawrence B. Glickman, A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. ix + 220 pp. \$39.95 cloth; \$15.95 paper.}, author={Karen Sawislak}, journal={International Labor and Working-Class History}, year={1999}, volume={56}, pages={167 - 169} }
Does class consciousness require the rejection of the possibility of a just wage system? In this history of changing modes of thought in the labor movement, Lawrence Glickman argues strongly for a vision of wage labor that can also be class conscious, through the medium of a politically engaged consumerism. In recounting the genesis and evolution of working-class demands for the “living wage,” he seeks to rescue labor activists who largely accepted the normalcy of capitalist wage relations in…