> Right. It's called market discipline.
However, harsh discipline is not a unique feature of Capitalism nor is it essential to it.
Harsh discipline is also a component of the State Socialism of the USSR, for instance, and even the religious Communism of protestant Christian communities, like Shakers, Mennonites or Amish.
Further, it is unclear that maximizing harsh discipline is even a good way to maximize surplus value. As creating a productive environment for the worker will often lead to greater surplus value than sweating the worker.
It is not harsh discipline that causes the barbarism of Capitalism, it is the fact that Capital can not capture more that it's reproduction cost.
It is not the need to extract more value from workers, but the need to prevent labour from having independent access to the means of production that requires terror.
-- Dmytri Kleiner, robotnik Telekommunisten, Berlin.
dk at telekommunisten.net http://www.telekommunisten.net freenode/#telnik