Book Review: Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South
Lichtenstein, Alex. Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South. New York, NY: Verso, 1996.
America’s dark history and continuing relationship with convict labor is something often swept under the rug to hide the fact that our country is complicit in modern-day slavery. Alex Lichtenstein’s 1996 work Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South confronts this issue with a clarity that is jarring the entire way through, refusing to sugarcoat history in order to make it more palatable to the uninformed. The result? A nuanced discussion on how the oppression of African Americans is intertwined in the American legal and penal systems by design rather than just as the result of poor planning.
Over the course of Twice the Work, Lichtenstein covers the hypocrisy of the thirteenth amendment and the devious ways in which the oppression of African Americans has been ensured by the law, rather than just protected by it. The first sentence of the amendment frees the enslaved people in bold, clear words. Immediately after, the second sentence enslaves them once more by providing the caveat of allowing slavery as punishment for a crime. Therein lies the blueprint for a predatory prison system that punished African Americans in a postbellum South for the crime of simply existing.
With an immediate spike in the Black incarceration rates as compared to White in the infancy of the New South’s prison system, it becomes clear that it was an act of racial aggression. People of color were targeted for newly minted laws such as the Vagrancy Act of 1866 and forced into prisons. Then, they were subsequently made to participate in convict labor. Convict labor, as explained by Lichtenstein, served as a suitable replacement to slavery for much of the rapidly industrializing New South while avoiding some of the problems facing the North. Because the workers were incarcerated, they could be paid less than any free worker, often being made to perform labor for pennies a day.
The topic of convict labor is handled carefully in Twice the Work, but that is not to say that the author uses kid gloves. By approaching such a dark chapter of the country’s reality with the clear intention of being respectful, I feel as though the discussion present feels complete and well researched. Jim Crow, slavery, and the Civil War have all been spoken about ad nauseam in the greater subject of history. Large sections of history classes are rightfully devoted to these topics, but focusing so clearly on the history and preservation of convict labor in America uncovers the dark underbelly that most authors refuse to delve into. The writing style, however, I found to be quite dense. Brilliant topics often seem to be repeated past the point of being a recurring theme, each time only adding slight nuances to the previous mention. As a casual reader, I felt as though the book could have been condensed into a more concise history.
At the same time, Lichtenstein’s use of maps, graphs, tables, and photographs helps the text to be more legible by breaking up large collections of information into a more readable and accessible format. He has a talent for sensing when the reader may need a break for the eyes, and in these moments there will be a visual aid to push them along further into the narrative. Where I believe Lichtenstein fell short in the organization of content, he excelled in formatting. I found Twice the Work to be an intensely interesting read that made me rethink what I knew about the United States prison system in ways that I would not have prior to picking it up.
