Solidarity in Strategy: Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Associations. By Lyn Spillman. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Pp. xiv+517. $90.00 (cloth); $30.00 (paper).

Abstract

There are two ways to read this book about American trade associations (TAs). The first way—as an overview of a neglected but important part of the U.S. economy—may be summarized as follows. In chapters 2 and 3 of Solidarity in Strategy, Lyn Spillman provides a useful synthesis of existing historical and sociological research on American TAs as well as a “census” (i.e., a compilation of self-descriptions, organizational features, and key activities of all contemporary U.S. trade associations) conducted by Spillman and colleagues. These chapters make several good points: (a) that TAs have long been very important in the United States. even if they have no formal role in governing the economy, as they do in Western Europe; (b) that TAs are not merely about lobbying the government or (in Adam Smith’s famous words) “conspiracies against the public” by “members of the same trade”; (c) that TAs are “multifunctional,” offering educational services and peer-to-peer learning, networking opportunities, and coordination on club goods such as industry standards, certification programs, and marketing campaigns; and (d) that contra Berk and Schneiberg, the development of this broad array of functions likely was not an accommodation to antitrust enforcement but emerged as TAs did, with the industrial revolution.