>>> Kelley <oudies at flash.net> 02/10/00 10:48AM >>>
Charles objects
>CB: Again on this relations/forces of production thing, I think Marx
considers working classes to be both force and in a relation of production.
But more to the point here, even the instruments and means of production ( which are the other forces besides the working classes) do not develop independently of the class struggle.
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No, but it's not necessarily the result of workers trying to make their jobs easier. I think it much more complicated than that.
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CB: Yes it is more complicated than that. The class struggle is more than workers trying to make their jobs easier. However, a much overlooked aspect of the development of the instruments and means of production is the role that working classes ( not just the proletariat, but the bourgeoisie and the peasants in feudalism) probably played in inventions, i.e. development of the forces of production. Just as history is not a history of the ideas and actions of Big Men in politics, the history of inventions of new instruments, means and organization of production is not the history of Great Inventors, but probably a hidden history of millions of anonymous inventors too.
&&&&&&&&& Kelley:
Just take a look at David Noble's _America by Design_. Innovations in the forces of production are also things like the technologies the manufacturing line or even the routinization of service work, which Robin Leidner investigates in _Fast Food, Fast Talk_
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CB: Yes, the organization of production is a force of production. Marx notes that "Cooperation" , a form of organization of production, was one of the two main elements of the change in the forces of production in the Industrial Revolution. The other main element was "Mechanization", use of machines. "Cooperation" is the augmentation of extraction of surplus value by putting workers together in one big shop such that workers were combined in giant factories, the sort of graphic representation of the capitalist Industrial Revolution, the site of the Leninist organizer handing out leaflets to factory workers. I'd say it is the negation of "Cooperation" in the form of the big factory ( like Ford Rouge with over 100, 000 workers) that makes the current changes in science and technology a revolution in Marxist terms. The capitalists can scatter the industrial points of production all around the metropolis, the nation and the globe, dissolving the workers palpable sense of thei! r mass strength. This change is dialectical because one original element, mechanization in the form of all the new stuff, allows the capitalists to negate cooperation, the other original element, without loss of rate of exploitation of surplus value.
Kelley's analysis below seems valid to me. Ironically, though, note that a lot of what you say, Kelley, seems to be exactly workers making their jobs easier for themselves ( what you said it is more complicated than above). You actually give some good modern examples of workers making their jobs easier for themselves, complicated examples to be sure, but examples of what I said above. I bet more probing studies would find that a lot of the hardware in McDonalds, and even the software , in the sense of the standard rap with the 30 to 60 second customers and the way the shop is organized, comes from the proverbial workers' suggestion box.
And when you say:
&&&&&&&&&& Kelley ps., charles, this is what I mean when I say that it's sometimes a mistake to view people as being manipulated. Taking a different approach, as Leidner does here [following others, notably Burawoy] reveals that people actively manufacture their own consent to something that would appear as a form of coercive ideology imposed on them against their will. Rather, what is done above is to use and expand on Gramsci's concept of hegemony in which power operates in far more complex ways.
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CB: You say: " ...people actively manufacture their own consent to something that would appear as a form of coercive ideology imposed on them against their will "
So, is this Butler/ Althusser Subjection ?
The main thing you questioned above was my statement that workers have been the source of workplace inventions through history. That would be my saying the workers manufacturing their own workplace and perhaps consent, which you then support me on with argument and facts below.
But in general, the "consent" you describe below is under duress, as my brother counsel Justin might say. It is a lot of McDonald workers making the best out of a bad situation. That is not consent freely given.
There are both complexities and simplicities in the way power operates. "Complexities" existed in the days of Marx and Lenin, so they shouldn't be an excuse for avoiding many of the classical principles of working class struggle, though , of course, we need a synthesis of the new and the old Left . Marx and Engels noted in 1848 that the bourgeois are constantly revolutionizing the instruments ( and organization) of production, which implies that Marxists must constantly consider changes in the situations and consciousnesses of workers. All I am saying here is that the bourgeoisie get a lot of ideas for revolutionizing the instruments and organization from the workers themselves.
CB
&&&&&&&&&&& which highlights my point and I think will flesh out a long standing disagreement between Carrol and I which we discussed offlist briefly: contemporary service work reconfigures the relationship between labor and capital in an historically specific way. And, moreover, I'd say that it's something we need to account for in our meanderings about organizing AND something that illustrates the relationship between forces of production and social relations of production, terms that get bandied about but not much is said in terms of how they are related. It is an example at the heart of the mission of the list which tries to bridge the gap between those who "do" culture and those who "do" economy.
[I hope Hanley and Remick and Woj, cupcake, read coz I've felt impelled to do a C. Wright Mills to show that it's quite possible to engage high falutin' theoretical discourse in plain language. Grade Shett to fill out at the end!]
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