The Social Cost of Cheap Food: Labour and the Political Economy of Food Distribution in Britain, 1830–1914 by Sébastien Rioux (review)

In his new monograph on the political economy of food, Sébastien Rioux traces the emergence of a modern and dynamic system of food distribution in a critical period of social and economic change in modern Britain. Where other scholars have traditionally looked to production patterns and cheap imports to explain rising living standards, Rioux focuses on the infrastructures and labour practices that made possible the mass distribution of food commodities to Britain's expanding population. The Social Cost of Cheap Food: Labour and the Political Economy of Food Distribution in Britain, 1830–1914 is a concise yet compelling book that accounts for large structural change in the distribution sector without neglecting the diverse experiences of the working-class actors whose labours were essential to its functioning.

This study presents two related claims. First, Rioux argues that economic development in the period produced "a food-related underclass in the distributive sector capable of delivering the means of subsistence cheaply." (8) Second, he claims that the expansion of distribution was vital to the establishment of a cheap, reliable food supply, which in turn enabled a rise in real wages and working-class living standards across urban Britain. By examining the importance of distribution to the political economy of food, the author uncovers an important link between cheap food and cheap labour that captures the dynamics of capitalist reproduction.

The first chapter of The Social Cost of Cheap Food provides some useful historical context and situates the emerging food distribution system within broader shifts in production, transportation, and consumption. Chapter two then explores the evolution of the traditional marketplace, emphasizing the significance of railways and shifting geographies of food production and distribution. Rioux is particularly effective here in demonstrating the resilience of the public market in the nineteenth century. He argues that its transformation into a capitalist space made it an enduring institution, one that adapted successfully to the needs of the market-dependent working classes in London and in provincial centres like Manchester and Glasgow.

Though the author's primary objective is to demonstrate the importance of food distribution in Britain's economic development –a worthwhile intervention in its own right –his work also makes a bolder contribution to the wider social and cultural historiography of Victorian and Edwardian Britain. In his efforts to uncover the social cost of modern food distribution, Rioux gives voice to the itinerant peddlers, warehouse porters, and shopkeepers' relatives whose contributions to capitalist reproduction have, to date, remained largely absent from the historical record. Once characterized by a contemporary social reformer as "the industrial residuum," Rioux argues that "these castaways of industrial capitalism" were actually key actors in the food supply chain. (67)

The next two chapters uncover a range of experiences of members of the distributive sector. Chapter three focuses on the expanding underclass of street sellers –the underfed and underemployed costermongers, hawkers, hucksters, and ped-lars who lived in overcrowded housing across urban Britain. Rioux highlights both their harsh living conditions and the significance of their role as redistributors of unsold produce from markets like Billingsgate to the urban poor. In doing so, he shows that access to cheap food, and rising living standards for a large segment of working-class families, was secured by the continued marginalization of itinerant traders. Small shopkeepers and their employees also struggled to make a living in this period. In chapter four, Rioux traces their decline in status and describes their efforts to mitigate the effects of intensifying retail competition. He examines official committee reports, contemporary treatises, and state legislation on adulteration to shed light on the pervasiveness of fraudulent practices, including the use of false weights and measures. Big shopkeepers also began to rely on strategies of labour exploitation, including the use of child labour. Meanwhile, family-run domestic shops became increasingly dependent on unpaid family labour and...