Mike Yates wrote:
>John [Bellamy] Foster sharply attacks Burawoy's sociological theory in a
>Monthly Review article published I believe in 1999. I was at the
>conference in which John made the attack. Burovoy was in the
>audience. John criticized Burovoy for the latter's sharp critique of
>Harry Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital."
I think it's worthwhile to mention what Burawoy is saying (as I understand
it). I can't speak structuralist-Marxist (Althusserian) jargon very well,
so I won't try. I'll do so in my own debased jargon.
The problem, for him, is that almost all management theory -- from
Taylorite "scientific management" to human relations theory -- treats
workers as mere objects to be manipulated. Unfortunately, Braverman leans
in the same direction. He sees the immanent tendency for capital to swallow
the entire world, creating a Universal Market while turning workers into
skill-free interchangeable parts, with no distinguishing characteristics.
For Burawoy, this is reductionist, since it gives no independent role to
workers' subjectivity, etc. We need to consider the role of the resistance
to the rise of the Universal Market. One of his points is that workers
often _want to_ work for capital, making a game of who can be most
proficient in doing the job. Of course, this subjectivity could also turn
to socialist or anti-employer consciousness and organization. Thus there
are "politics in production." (This sort of like Rick Edwards' "contested
terrain.")
Nathan Newman writes: >it is worth emphasizing that Burawoy was criticizing
Braverman's interpretation of how workers negotiated the deskilling process
more than its reality. And Burawoy was very clear that his critique in a
book like his MANUFACTURING CONSENT was particular to the modern unionized
monopoly capitalism of the industrial sector where internal labor markets
had created realms of power and therefore consent by workers in the
Gramscian hegemonic sense in how that deskilling was worked out.<
Right. Burawoy's theory seems to work better for the internal labor markets
(primary labor markets) than for secondary labor markets (and it's a
mistake to generalize from the former). Further, the main trend of the last
25 years or so in the rich capitalist countries has been to undermine the
primary labor markets -- the "good jobs" -- and to make jobs more insecure
and workers more commodity-like. (To use the terms of a machinist I know,
workers are being treated less and less like assets to the company and more
and more like assholes.) So, even though Burawoy may have made a valid
point against Braverman, the latter's description of capitalism seems more
apt in recent years.
(It should also be stressed that "de-skilling" doesn't automatically reduce
the level of skill in a rich country, as Braverman seems to assume -- since
that is also affected by the "supply" of skills. The simplification of jobs
can mean that the jobs are exported to countries with lower marketable
skill levels, as in Raymond Vernon's "product cycle.")
On the issue of MONTHLY REVIEW: they do have debates, as when John Bellamy
Foster criticized Bob Brenner and the latter responded. But they don't like
criticism of Braverman at all. That's too bad, because the difference
between the different Marxist views of the capitalist labor process isn't
that big.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
