Historical materialism and contradictions at work

Matt Vidal

Chapter 4 in Theories and Concepts in Work and Employment Relations, 2025, pp 40-49 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: A material contradiction exists where a social relation or process consists of two interdependent relations or processes that are potentially in conflict. Historical materialism is Karl Marx's theory of history. He proposed that modes of production are defined by the dominant relations of production, or class structure, obtaining in a society, resulting in four historical modes of production: slave-based; feudal; tributary; and capitalist. The production relations exist in contradictory relation with the forces of production: labour-power; technology; and raw materials. Within capitalism, the class relation between capitalists and workers is also contradictory. Within work and employment relations, the concept of contradictions primarily has been used by those working with the labour process theory approach, which emphasises exploitation, control, resistance and autonomy within the employment relation. Different scholars have emphasised different contradictory relations and processes. Some have argued that deskilling and upskilling are contradictory tendencies, while others have argued that workers face contradictory experiences between their alienation and their socialisation, where the latter entails a process of upgrading the capabilities of humans based on the progressive accumulation of scientific and technical knowledge. Others have emphasised a general labour process contradiction between simultaneously ensuring discipline and discretionary effort from workers or between ensuring discipline and ensuring coordination across the labour process. This chapter takes stock of the various ways in which contradictions at work have been conceptualised within the labour process literature, responds to criticism of the use of contradiction as an analytical concept, and suggests three ways in which the concept may be fruitfully employed in future research on work and employment.

Keywords: Alienation; Contradiction; Exploitation; Labour process; Marx; Marxism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035316199
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035316205.00013 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22522_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jack Sweeney ().