What is the historical role of punishment in the management of labour? This is the central question of this Special Issue of the International Review of Social History (IRSH), “Punishing Workers, Managing Labour”. Through a close reading of the diverse range of articles included in this Special Issue and by addressing the relatively extensive but highly fragmented scholarship on the subject, this introduction argues that the key to labour management lay in the interplay of differentiated forms of punishment with distinct labour relations, rather than in the imposition of one punitive regime onto an undifferentiated workforce. In other words, the effective management of labour required the systematic differentiation of the workforce; to that end, the imposition of diversified forms of punishment did not merely reflect existing labour distinctions, but also contributed to creating them. This point leads us to address broader methodological and theoretical issues about how we can analyse such complex interactions: how we can compare the role of punishment in the management of labour across space and time, and how our findings can be used to explain short- and long-term historical changes.

惩罚在劳动管理中的历史作用是什么？这是《国际社会历史评论》 ( IRSH)本期特刊的核心问题)，“惩罚工人，管理劳工”。通过仔细阅读本期特刊中包含的各种文章，并解决关于该主题的相对广泛但高度分散的学术研究，本导言认为，劳动管理的关键在于不同形式的惩罚与不同劳动的相互作用关系，而不是将一种惩罚性制度强加给无差别的劳动力。换句话说，有效的劳动力管理需要劳动力的系统分化；为此，实施多种形式的惩罚不仅反映了现有的劳动差别，而且还助长了这些差别的形成。这一点引导我们解决更广泛的方法论和理论问题，即我们如何分析这种复杂的相互作用：