Sam Wallman

Living in America, it feels as if we're constantly told that all of our labor freedoms are kind gifts deigned upon us workers by the rich and powerful. So it's always refreshing to see the long history of labor movements presented without the constant validation of capitalism's righteousness.

I like a lot about this book! It's brilliantly drawn, with very evocative layouts, but occasionally the text can be hard to read in print. It probably works much better via a digital medium, but I had a few instances of needing to squint to read. It's also informative, including anecdotes about labor movements dating back to the 1700s. However that information can be kind of dense. Combined that with some of the layout difficulties I had, doesn't always make for an easy read, but I enjoyed the content well enough to recommend to anyone interested in unionizing, which should be everyone.… (meer)

This was a screed that I found difficult to read -- yet I'm glad I did. I tend to think that if society is going to allow collectivist capital (i.e., corporations), any pretense to fairness requires collectivist labor (i.e., unions). The book did a good job of painting why that's the case, and what in many ways, a union would ideally be. That said, there are definitely things the author would want a union to do, that I'm not sure they should -- and he implicitly draws a sharp substantive (and moral) distinction between collective capital and collective labor that I just don't see.

(2022 Book 9)… (meer)