One of the best courses I took back in college (I won’t say how long ago that was, but it was before smartphones and even faxes, so you do the math) was on labor history: unions, strikes, the Industrial Workers of the World or IWW (management at the time said the initials stood for “I Won’t Work”).
One of the most interesting things I learned was that in the 19th and early 20th centuries, some companies built what came to be known as “company towns,” owning not just the houses where their workers lived but the “Company Store” that they shopped at, as well as other essential services. While companies couldn’t force workers to live in these towns, they could make it so onerous not to do so that there wasn’t really any other practical choice.
