The positive contribution of Braverman on the labour process: the problem of class structure

1
The positive contribution of Braverman on the
labour process the problem of class structure

• Bruno Tinel (CES, University of Paris 1)
• INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR PROMOTING POLITICAL
  ECONOMY
• 3rd International Research Workshop in Political
  Economy
• Ankara, September 14th and 15th, 2009

2
Introduction

• Braverman, Harry (1974) Labor and monopoly
  capital, Monthly Review Press (new ed. 1998).
• Labour process debate see Spencer (Work,
  Employment and Society, 2000).
• Empirical sociologists Foucaldian approaches
  progressively critically distanced themselves
  from Braverman and Marxists concepts.
• abandonment of objective relations of production
  for subjectivism acceptance of capitalism
• Necessary to read Braverman again both for
  political and intellectual reasons.
• Useful to tackle first the class structure issue
  Braverman is often discredited for advocating
  class polarisation and it is easy to mock him
  (and with him all Marxism) for supposedly not
  having understood the evidence of the 20th
  century.

3
Braverman carries on and deepens the Babbage-Marx
analysis of the labour process.

• Babbage division of labour doesnt really
  increase productivity but cheapens labour and
  prepares the replacement of simple labour by
  machines.
• Marx double side of the capitalist labour
  process production of use-values and of surplus
  value gt division of labour is a coercive device.

4
Braverman on the labour process

• Taylor principles and their applications
• Relations between Taylor principles and
  scientific-technical revolution gt
  understanding of the transformations of the
  labour process during the 20th century
• Class structure is based on the specialisations
  arising from the manufacturing division of
  labour.
• Tendency to class polarisation resulting from
  deskilling
• Counter tendencies are also identified
  theoretical basis, inside Marxism, for analysing
  the existence and the dynamics of a third middle
  class.

5
F.W. Taylor by Braverman

• FWT refines to the utmost limit and formalises
  earlier capitalist practices.
• Taylor principles, so called scientific
  management nothing to do with science, but
  merely management instructions and precepts for
  surplus extraction.
• purpose of Taylor ensure management control
  cheapen the worker
• device to intensify labour and hence to reduce
  the quantity of labour time per unit of product
• Economic dependency is not enough, necessity to
  deepen real subordination of labour to withdraw
  the control of the labour process from the hands
  of the labour power as much as possible.

6
Taylors principles

• dissociation of the labour process from the
  skills of the workers knowledge has to be
  collected in the hands of management.
• separation of conception from execution workers
  have to be specialised in execution.
• each step of execution of the labour process is
  controled by systematic pre-planning and
  pre-calculation of all elements of the labour
  process.
• Those principles can be more or less applied to
  every kind of labour shop floor, clerical work,
  services, retail trade, scientific, management
  activities, conception and even unproductive
  labour.

7
Tendency to polarisation (1)

• Polarisation of skills and occupations results of
  conception/execution separation, class structure
  tends to be binary
• Simple labour of execution
• Complex labour of conception and direction
• Deskilling argument the development of
  capitalism has certainly created a lot of new
  skilled jobs but even more very bad deskilled
  jobs which on average reduces skills (structure
  effect is globally negative).
• Conception and supervision work can be themselves
  subjected to the separation between conception
  and execution they can be formalised, routinised
  and subdivided into different simplified tasks
  and then deskilled.
• The division between conception and execution
  applied on the shop floor is used by capitalists
  for every kind of labour. Even the so-called new
  occupations tend to be deskilled. Hence, the
  third middle class would be nothing but a part
  of the working class exploited by the class of
  capitalists.

8
Tendency to polarisation (2)

• The link between skills and mechanisation
  Brights curve.

9
and counter-tendencies

• Separation of conception from execution
  production workers are controlled and supervised
  by a remote management centre which reproduces
  all its activities on the paper and hence
  creates new occupations.
• Braverman clearly sees that the implement of the
  deskilling process and of the incredible
  centralisation of conception and control in the
  big corporation requires relatively skilled and
  autonomous wage labourers, which can go against
  polarisation.
• Deskilled labour is progressively replaced by
  machinery not only in the workshop but also in
  offices.
• As machines replace systematically simplified
  labour, it reduces the need for simplified labour
  (proletarianisation but not polarisation)
• new fields of industry that result of the
  extension of the use of new technologies are
  using more skilled labour not yet subjected
  (only formal subjection).

10
Why should there be class polarisation?

• For Braverman the counter-tendencies are
  counteracted by the tendency!
• But he recognises also sometimes (like p.167)
  that the counter-tendency is only faintly
  counteracted
• HB identifies that the new middle class takes its
  characteristics from both sides a range of
  intermediate categories, sharing the
  characteristics of worker on the one side and
  manager on the other in varying degrees (p. 280)
• To rescue the polarisation thesis, HB tries to
  transfer most of this middle class downward
  their true place in the relations of production,
  their fundamental condition of subordination as
  so much hired labour, increasingly makes itself
  felt, especially in the mass occupations that are
  part of this stratum. (p. 282)
• This is hardly convincing.

11
The material necessity of a third class

• If capitalism is carrying on using
• Taylor principles (or rationalisation) through
  management
• science as capital (new fields are likely to
  emerge)
• mechanisation
• as long as accumulation goes on then
• new occupations (less subjected and more
  skilled jobs) are likely to be created.
• A tendency to polarisation is likely to occur
  only if accumulation remains too slow during a
  long time.

12
Necessity of a third class logical aspect of the
argument.

• HB demonstrates that deskilling jobs require to
  create other new jobs which are less deskilled.
• HB notes that deskilled jobs are replaced (and
  destroyed) by machines (which require among
  others new jobs to be invented and produced).
• HB considers that new jobs are then deskilled
  (but only faintly).
• HB claims that polarisation is stronger.
• But why should the story stop here? Following HB
  himself
• some of the deskilled jobs are destroyed by
  mechanisation
• new new jobs are required to deskill the former
  new jobs.
• besides, if accumulation goes on, new fields are
  exploited in those new fields the jobs are
  primarily not subjected (i.e. not deskilled).

13
Conclusion indetermination of class structure?

• A third class, even if less numerous than the
  lower one, made of skilled jobs is likely to
  maintain through time.
• Even if all that could be more accurately put
  into equations and quantified, the conditions for
  polarisation are probably relatively narrower
  than those where a third class is persisting
  through time.
• Contrary to what is often said, neither Marxism
  nor even Braverman are stuck into a simplistic
  binary view of the population employed in an
  advanced capitalist economy.

14

• Thank you