You may have heard that Waterford Wedgwood (the Irish crystal maker bought the British ceramics company in 1986) is in receivership, aka bankrupt. The New York Times's Jan. 5th news report on the company's problems cited several possible reasons for the company's troubles: "Some analysts attribute Waterford's losses to management's reluctance to move manufacturing jobs to countries with lower labor costs, like Indonesia. The combination of high manufacturing costs, declining demand for luxury goods and a weak dollar last year overstretched the company's finances."
But today's Times includes an op-ed by Judith Flanders (author of Inside the Victorian Home) chiding the company for departing from Josiah Wedgwood's tradition of innovation in marketing:
I'm not so sure we should be grateful for direct mail catalogs, but luckily the company has a much more worthwhile legacy. What Flanders fails to mention is the role of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons in bringing about protective labor legislation, e.g. reducing the working hours for children. Marx mentions it in a footnote in Capital, in section 5 of Chapter 10 (the chapter on the working day). In the passage that is footnoted, Marx is explaining why social regulation is required to improve working conditions, since individual capitalists in the midst of intense competition are not going to unilaterally improve their workers' conditions. But protective legislation may nevertheless be in their collective interest:
Après moi le déluge!
Here's the footnote that mentions Josiah Wedgwood:
We, therefore, find, e.g., that in the beginning of 1863, 26 firms owning extensive potteries in Staffordshire, amongst others, Josiah Wedgwood, & Sons, petition in a memorial for "some legislative enactment." Competition with other capitalists permits them no voluntary limitation of working-time for children, &c. "Much as we deplore the evils before mentioned, it would not be possible to prevent them by any scheme of agreement between the manufacturers. ... Taking all these points into consideration, we have come to the conviction that some legislative enactment is wanted." ("Children's Employment Comm." Rep. I, 1863, p. 322.)
So, pace Flanders, Waterford Wedgwood may have been following the company's best traditions after all—in its reluctance to move manufacturing to lower-wage countries like Indonesia, i.e. its reluctance to take part in the "race to the bottom." If the analysts the Times mentions are right that this contributed to the company's downfall, it's more a measure of how rapacious contemporary globalized neoliberalism than a failing of Waterford Wedgwood.