Subjectivity, Power and the Labour Process

Abstract

The primary aim of this chapter is to develop a critical analysis of the labour process which resists the dualistic tendencies to perceive social reality in terms of a binary opposition between voluntary subjects, on the one hand, and objective structures, on the other. It is therefore concerned to challenge theoretical constructions that reduce the complexity of social life into a polarisation where the ‘free’, expressive and creative actions of voluntary subjects are seen to be struggling against, or determined by, the oppressive forces of objective structures and reality. No doubt part of the attraction of labour-process theory, as espoused both by Braverman and his critics, has been this comparatively simple view of society and the human subjects that constitute it. Still, in the almost frenzied critical outpourings that have acquired the ironic label ‘Bravermania’ (Littler and Salaman, 1984), it is not surprising to find some that condemn Braverman’s neglect of the subject (Aronowitz, 1978; Elger, 1979; Cressey and MacInnes, 1980; Littler and Salaman, 1982). Most of these criticisms, however, have either failed to offer any alternative or, in subscribing to a conception of the subject as active individual or class agent struggling against power, tend to reproduce the agency-structure dualism that this chapter seeks to transcend.

I would like to thank Stewart Clegg, Peter Miller, Andrew Sturdy, Tony Tinker and Hugh Willmott for helpful criticisms of an earlier draft of this chapter.