Labour process and the division of labour, a reading

Bruno Tinel ()
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Bruno Tinel: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: This article proposes an analysis of the labour process and the division of labour in capitalist production through a reading of Marx and a few others like Babbage and Braverman. The distinction between labour and labour power is used to expose the specificity of the labour process. Cooperation constitues the fundamental from of capitalist production, which entails a double-sided command (coordination to produce use-values and despotism to extract surplus-value). Formal subordination, i.e; the threat of lay-off, is historically and logically the primitive moment of labour's subordination to capital. The effect of the division of labour on productivity is only temporary. It principally deprives workers of their professional skills, increases real control by management, reduces labour power's value and prepares its replacement by machinery. There is an incessant struggle between labour and management over the control of the labour process and over skills.

Keywords: cooperation; Labour process; Babbage principle; division of labour; formal/real subordination; cooperation.; Procès de travail; principe de Babbage; division du travail; subordination formelle/réelle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-11
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Published in 2009

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