Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster - Dana Thomas (Penguin Books, 2008)

A history and criticism of the transformation of luxury goods from its traditional role of social demarcation based on quality and design to another mass market niche driven by advertising, cost control, and mass market appeal. [338.47]

Luxury goods are, in general, no longer the province of ateliers and small, family-run factories.  The old houses of Chanel, Dior, and particularly Vuitton, represented the tradition of well-made goods in the Parisian market.  Globalization, however, has created a market beyond the capacity of the old production system and with a potential for great profit from sales to rising elites worldwide.  Only corporations can procure the financing and capacity needed to meet this demand, but corporations have a different focus than the traditional family atelier.  The great fashion houses and designers have been democratized through the development of corporate marketing that stresses brand awareness and packaging.

As conglomerates have taken over old houses, cost control has become critical.  This has moved many workshops to China and other emerging markets and placed their goods on assembly lines next to pedestrian goods.  It has led to the development of the outlet mall where goods are sold that were made specifically for the outlet shop.  It has led to the creation of cheap goods, such as tee shirts and key rings, bearing only the trademark or logo of some fashion house.  The intent was to widen the market to households who could not justify the expense of traditional designer goods; now, they too can buy into the dream.  And, of course, the growth of a mass market for luxury brands has encouraged counterfeiting. 

Now one may ask oneself if the appeal of the product lies in its exclusiveness, its quality, or its solely its brand marketing.  The clearest sign of decline must be that for many goods, the distinctiveness of the product is not necessarily to be found in the quality of materials and workmanship or execution of design, but in the label which has moved from inside the item to the outside for all to see.

I found this book irresistible and as I read on, it radically affected my views on luxury goods. 

It is strongly recommended.

And the Wolf Finally Came - John P Hoerr (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988)

A history of the steel industry in the United States and the policies and decisions by management, by labor, by government, and by markets that led to its collapse in the early 1980s.  [338.4766914209]

In the 1980s, the domestic steel industry collapsed rapidly and devastatingly in the Monongahela valley near Pittsburgh.  Steel was not the first major domestic manufacturing industry to wither so severely, but it stands as the forerunner of the collapse of manaufacturing in the United States more broadly.  Then and now, the question of why and who was responsible for the failure has been a difficult and contentious political issue.  The author argues that there is sufficient blame to share by all parties. 

The government, particularly the Reagan Administration, was hostile to unions and worked hard to reduce their influence in the workplace.  The Administration adopted a laissez faire view that could accept the end of the domestic steel industry if that was what the market ruled.

The steel industry had adopted in its early years a disregard for the skills of labor.  They were taken as an undifferentiated mass with nothing to contribute except muscle to the process.  This is best exemplified by the statement of one of US Steel's presidents, "I have always had one rule.  If a workman sticks his head up, hit it."  From 1901 forward, the company strove to keep out any unions that did not already exist in plants.  Wages were kept low.  Local governments and police forces assisted the companies in maintaining labor "peace."  The USWOC labor organizing movement of the 1930s led to brutal struggles and that set the mindset for the years to follow.  Management adopted the attitude that its prerogative was to state how work was to be performed.  When combined with a Taylorite breakdown of tasks into simplest steps, this reduced the role of labor to organic machines and little more.

Labor responded by ceding the decision-making to management.  It concentrated on adherence to the contract.  Labors' job became one of grievance.  It showed little interest in improving work processes and the prevailing culture of the workmen enforced this indifference.

When steel finally came to its crisis, the industry had no tools to cope with a changing environment.  Management could not accept labor's input into decisions, but was willing to call for wage concessions.  Labor, after forty years of success at the negotiating table could not accept wage cuts.  In a period of deep recession, a strike ensued that meant the death of the mills.

The culture of one-sidedness even crippled the communities being impacted by this loss of industry; each community had always acted alone and there was no tradition of cooperation among them.  The depth and breadth of high school sports rivalries throughout the valley reflected the "apartness" of each town. 

The conditions that lead to the closing of manufacturing in each industry may be unique.  Still there is much to learn from every case about the real workings of economics.

This book is recommended.  Anyone familiar with the region should find it very readable.