Some replies to this interesting piece interspersed below:
(....)
that process of judgment -- judging and finding morally wanting our co-workers who aren't doing the full load -- is a form of power.
the people shirking are exercising power -- they are ensuring the flow of power throughthe tangle of capillaries of power that snake through the system.
which is why if we only focused on management -- the owners of the company -- we'd never see how power is really operating or, rather, see another way through which power is operating.
Tahir: This captures the problem nicely that I have with the notion of power that is under discussion. The trouble with it is it's such a dead end. So this is all power. So right, so what? What have we gained by subsuming all of this under one 'signifier'? Talking about 'forms of power' moreover reinforces the notion that all of these phenomena are just 'forms' of (essentially!) the same thing. But why should they be? In what sense is the exploitation by the big boss the same as the passive resistance of the alienated employee the same as the action of the whistleblower etc. etc.? Let's add a few. Let's also talk about the 'power' of the disabled person to make others feel sympathy, the 'power' of the homeless beggar to make me feel guilty, my 'power' to tie my own shoelaces, the 'power' of women when they deny sex to men friends. And so on. Yes this could all be power in some very general sense. But 'power' here is just as good, or as useless, as calling all of these things by some other universal -- 'life', 'force', 'vitality', 'control', 'manipulation' -- anything you like.
but all is not lost! what do we see in the judgmental company tools who
work hard and judge their fellow shirkers harshly? we see solidarity in
action. we see people for whom the alienated labor process isn't so alienated. they do understand that they create things for others to use and enjoy and that they have a responsibility to do a good job -- to realize their humanity through their labor. and that solidarity, while it has that other edge -- the edge through which we are tools for "the man" -- it also has another edge, the power of solidarity. we are or at least could be,
engaged in practices that, when cultivated, will be an important foundation to a socialist society.
Tahir: Yes, every cloud has a silver lining.
carrol likes to talk about how those practices will be forged in struggle. we don't know what human being is like be/c human being changes with shifts in material factors -- division of labor (man: i'm rusty on the marxist lingo)
that's true, but where I depart from carrol is that i think that, in the here and now, we are forging practices that will contribute toward that
socialist future.
Tahir: Yes, we just have to somehow cleanse them of their laziness, their bossiness, their snitching, their exploitativeness, etc. like sorting the wheat from the chaff or the diamonds from out of the rocks.
Here's how i put it at the blog in comments, once. i didn't bother to correct for typos. i'm just blowing time b/c we're leaving for hospital in a few. from all the crawling around on my knees cleaning and such, i managed to get a severely infected knee and ignored it -- like an ass.
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But there is a problem with that. One of the things I remember noticing
when I read research and did resarch on the workplace is that you can look at the way that, for instance, workers end up doing what Michael Burawoy calls "Manufacturing Consent" to their own exploitation and oppression. For various reasons, workers end up seeming to resist management and, at the same time, that resistance turns out not to be resistance at all, but a way of binding them every more tightly to the system of exploitation.
Waitresses do this. Mgmt asks them to be stingy on portions, pats of butter, rolls, soda, etc. Waitresses rebel or resist this corporate demand and sneak extra food to their patrons. They see it as a way of fucking the boss ? who is usually someone who was a waitress only 4-5 months earlier and even resturant GMs aren't long from the days when they slung hash,
flipped burgers on the line or were dishwashers.
Tahir: More power to the waitron, I say.
But this act of resistance just makes them attach themselves to their customers. It doesn't really get them to see how they're exploited.
Tahir: So how does it help to say that everyone here has power? The customer has the power of the dollar in his/her pocket; the waiter has the power to defy the boss; the boss has the power to fire the waiter; the owner has the power to exploit them all. Everybody has some power. Well what's wrong with that? Oh wait I get it. We must abolish ALL power, right?
Instead, they work even harder for customers, go out of their way and so forth. This will even happen when tips aren't involved. (Ehrenreich uncovers this, as sociologists studying restaurants did as well, in Nickle and Dimed)
Oh, take the way that cafeteria workers will refuse to call in sick. Even if they get paid sick days. They do this so they won't fuck over their
co-workers, who will have to work shorthanded if someone calls in sick.
This working class cultural ethos binds them ever tighter to the forces of production: they're good tools for the man, even as they are expressing a kind of solidarity with their brethren on the shop floor.
blah blah. my point. When you look at these issues, you can lamaent them and see nothing but bad things going on in terms of workers binding themselves so tightly to the capitalist mode of production. There's no
escape, it seems.
But you can also look at it another way: when workers care about each other, they are cultivating and nourishing an ethos that would be important under a socialist mode of production. If under socialism, people don't work simply to live or people don't work because they are forced to, then what motivates? Well, part of what would motivate was feeling part of a group effort, solidarity with fellow workers. Even solidarity with the consumers of your product ? the people who need whatever it is you make, the people who get joy, pleasure, sustenance, shelter, etc.
but what is going on in middle class workplaces? resistance doesn't take the form of solidarity. resitance to exploitation takes the form of competitive individualism. what is that nourishing and cultivating for the possiblity of a future outside of a capitalist mode of production? is this helping us develop a mindset for a socialist workplace? probably not.
well. just babbling. this has been bugging me for a couple of months and I haven't worked out all my thoughts on it. but there it is. maybe babbling it 'out loud' with help me articulate it better on another round of editing and rethinking.
Tahir: Well, good, but I was hoping to see some connection with the power thread where we started. Maybe it is this: There is nothing wrong with our social relations, except one thing, power. We are already 'forging the practices' that will make up 'socialism'. We just have to find a way of cleansing them of that dirty, dingy film of power and then the true brightness and whiteness will shine through!
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