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AbstractThis article identifies the origins of the rise of the logistics industry to highlight the powerful structural position that this endows on the industry and its workers. I begin by analyzing an often‐neglected aspect of globalization by describing the logistics, or goods movement industry, and identifying the role that the "logistics revolution" plays within the contemporary capitalist system. Then, synthesizing insights from global, economic, and labor sociology, I argue that the structural "brokerage" position of logistics workers in the global economy offers them key advantages on which labor and political movements might capitalize in struggles for economic justice and worker rights. I examine empirical research regarding labor organizing within logistics to determine if workers leverage this powerful position into concrete gains. Finally, I argue that more attention needs to be paid to how logistics workers recognize, articulate, and utilize their potentially powerful position in globalization flows. Future research should endeavor to understand how this can be achieved among wide groups of logistics workers to achieve the most success in labor and political movements.

AbstractThis article reviews sociological research about economic globalization's impact on work and labor in developed and developing countries since the 1980s. We find that this period of neoliberal globalization influences work because of intensified activities of multinational corporations (MNCs), financialization of the global economy, and amplified prominence of international organizations, some of which diffuse neoliberal policy scripts while others mobilize a transnational civil society. Research we review generally points to liabilities of neoliberal globalization for workers. To understand these findings, we apply Karl Polanyi's concepts of fictitious commodities, the self‐regulating market, and the double movement. We propose that, on the one hand, the activities of MNCs, international financial organizations, and many states exemplify pushes for institutional separation of economy and society in effort to institutionalize the idea of a self‐regulating market at a global scale, which increases labor commodification and global inequalities. On the other hand, the activities of social movements, including unions and transnational actors that target globalization's impact on work, constitute the counter movement at national and global levels resisting marketization and pushing for labor decommodification. The aftermath of the ongoing economic crisis will tell to what extent this countermovement will be successful in generating an alternative to neoliberal globalization, and more protections for workers.

The literatures on global commodity chains and global value chains rest on an unquestioned assumption: the continual expansion of globalization. The Trump Administration's trade wars challenged this foundational assumption and even today the new Biden regime also hints at the shift away from global supply chains. We find that the prior administration's efforts caused continued disruption of long-established commodity chains in steel, aluminum, automobiles, and other manufactured products. Flows of raw materials, intermediate products and components, and finished goods now confront higher costs. Firms continue efforts to restructure commodity chains in ways that will require the disarticulation of some nodes and the creation of new nodes. We claim that these trade wars and breakdown of global commodity chains (GCCs) may in fact mark the start of the breakdown of the U.S.-led world order. This shift harkens the onset of a new era of economic and geopolitical conflict. A key question: has this disruption of old patterns and rise of new ones continued in the post-Trump era? Does the familiar pattern of globalization continue – or is competition, contestation and disarticulation leading to sectoral economic changes that drive larger patterns of economic ascent, dominance, and decline in the world economy?

AbstractEconomic sociologists have devoted most of their attention to the activities of individuals and firms in markets. However, recent attempts have pushed for a better understanding of the relationship between intimacy and economy. Such efforts have been inspired, in large part, by Viviana Zelizer (2000, 2005). In her inquiry on the purchase of intimacy, Zelizer proposed seminal differentiations between the "hostile worlds," "nothing but," and "connected lives" perspectives, and advanced a cultural relational analysis of the economy. In this essay, we review research that applies Zelizer's framework, and suggest substantive and analytical avenues for future research on economy/intimacy nexus.

There have been a number of critical historical opportunities for labor to exert power by interrupting long distance flows of commodities at the extraction, processing, and transport stages. This vulnerability has been used by workers in these industries to gain higher wages and better working conditions and to achieve political goals in national and international arenas. In this paper, we compare two commodity chains that are critical components of the global economy. The first, which we describe as transport, is a broad category involving a range of manufactured goods, whose delivery to customers around the world was fundamentally changed in the past fifty years via "containerization" and "the logistics revolution." The second is oil and gas, which also has experienced recently dramatic changes in both extraction (via "tar sands" and "[racking") and transportation. In each case, we discuss possibilities and challenges for labor and political organizing to disrupt capital in these key commodity chains. We identify the "stakes" in each commodity chain by demonstrating the vulnerabilities on which labor and political organizations/movements could capitalize, which usually stem from the capital intensity and global integration of each critical commodity chain. These vulnerabilities are the factors which form the most basic opportunities for organizing in these sectors. Our analysis further suggests that while transport and raw materials remain vulnerable nodes in capitalist commodity chains, there are also constraints and challenges to be faced by labor and social movement organizations (SMOs) that might attempt to leverage power over these circuits of the world-economy.

The American Sociological Association has produced a wide range of reports and materials addressing curricular best practices. Collectively, those materials are an invaluable resource for guiding revisions of the sociology major, but they do not address processes for implementing such revisions. In this conversation piece, we describe the steps by which our department implemented a thorough curricular redesign—a process nearing completion after five years of formal discussions, and with roots reaching back even farther. We organize our discussion around three areas of effort that comprised our process: charting a course, bringing colleagues along, and institutionalizing outcomes. We highlight important milestones, challenges, and successes that we encountered along the way and provide recommendations based on our experiences for colleagues in other departments interested in undertaking their own redesign.