The Ashio Riot of 1907: A Social History of Mining in Japan Book

An academic book that is written in an accessible format without excessive jargon and written in a very factful manner. The author compares the attitudes of white and black working class workers in America towards issues such as morality in general and their attitudes towards each other and the middle class. The author then compares the attitudes of white French working class workers towards migrant workers from North Africa as well as the attitudes of both groups towards each other and the middle class and morality in general.

A key take away from the book is how all groups define morality using frameworks that put them on top of the food chain. Generally all workers with few exceptions described the middle class as immoral as those within it are superficial and that career orientation comes at the cost of genuine bonds. Black workers in America described white workers as largely racist and immoral as they judge people based on their skin colour rather than on their abilities. On this front, black workers assert ability and humanism as a metric for morality. However, because of white workers view black workers as lazy, their metric for morality is a work ethic and ambition which they perceive that black workers lack and hence this places them on top of the morality hierarchy according to their definition of morality. This perhaps points to the difficulties of having discussions on race, class and gender within society given how each group uses a different standard or morality that puts itself on top of other groups.

A comparison between American workers and French workers showed the impact of history and national identity on worker identity. With the gospel of the American dream, many American workers tie achievement to value while French workers have roots in socialism and communist traditions and thus root do not tie achievement to value but instead that value comes from how deep one is in solidarity with others.

Bringing it into the Zimbabwean context, the question becomes how do progressives understand the unemployed and peasant farmers that have emerged from the post-2000 economic structure in Zimbabwe. Understanding the roots of which these emergent "classes" are anchored and their perceived version of morality and value based on these rooots would certainly be a huge step.