Work

Bruce Pietrykowski

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781509530861
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Économie
• Subtopic: Politique économique

Much of our life involves working, preparing for work, searching for work, or thinking and worrying about work. Whether paid or unpaid, free or coerced, full-time, part-time, or zero-hours, work defines us and helps shape our behavior both on and off the job.

In this accessible book, leading labor economist Bruce Pietrykowski offers a highly engaging exploration of the history and contemporary organization of work under capitalism. His clear presentation of the theoretical debates is illustrated by real-world examples from across the globe and a skillful account of alternatives that point toward a post-capitalist future. Employing a progressive, worker-centered vision that goes beyond mainstream economics, he examines themes ranging from inequality, care work, and the gig economy to technological change and a universal basic income. His analysis emphasizes power, conflict, solidarity, and cooperation, interpreted through the lenses of class, race, gender, and place.

This comprehensive and highly readable book will be of interest to students of economics, sociology, labor studies, and politics seeking to learn more about work and workers in the global economy, as well as interested general readers.

1
Introduction: The Unique Character of Work

Work: A Political Economy Perspective

What is work and who (or what) works? Work is a special topic in political economy because it is integral to the production of valuable goods and services that we all use. The products of work may result in socially useful goods and services such as satisfying, nutritious meals and better health care. On the other hand, work may produce socially destructive products like weapons of mass destruction. While we would like to live in a world with more of the former and far fewer, preferably none, of the latter, they both entail the expenditure of effort. The way in which work is organized, the characteristics of workers and the compensation received from going to work is what this book is all about. As you can imagine, economists do not agree on what is most important about work, what to focus on, what to minimize and what is the best way to explain some of the most pressing issues associated with working. So this book will help to identify important debates over the nature of work, ranging from the problems of growing income inequality and the threat of technological unemployment to the future of work in a post-capitalist world.

Another goal of this book is to explore the nature of work from the perspective of political economy. The political economy approach – also referred to as heterodox economics – is broadly identified by its commitment to a progressive, worker-centered vision of economic development. It draws on the traditions of Marx, Keynes, feminism and institutionalism as interpreted by contemporary economic theorists. The standpoint of heterodox political economy lies in opposition to the mainstream neoclassical, neoliberal economics found in most undergraduate textbooks and in appeals to free-market economic policies. Mainstream, neoclassical economics rests on a vision of an ideal economy characterized by individual self-interest, profit maximization and ruthless competition. By contrast, the political economy approach understands the lived experience of workers in a capitalist regime characterized by conflict, power and inequality. In addition, it is important to recognize that these forces are embedded in social norms – about gender roles, for example – and institutions – the state, for instance – that influence the distribution of workers to jobs and wages to workers.

Political economy differs from mainstream economics in a number of other important ways. First, it is political in a dual sense. It understands that access to and distribution of economic resources are the outcomes of power struggles involving groups defined by class, race, gender and location. In addition, political economy is associated with explicit values and norms such as the democratic control of economic institutions, the equitable distribution of economic resources, and the organization of an economy that meets human needs and develops the capacity for people to lead a meaningful life. It also recognizes that all economic paradigms – ways of making sense of the world – represent particular interests and values. There is no such thing as an objective, value-free economics (Stilwell 2016). Another feature of political economy that sets it apart from the mainstream is its focus on the historical development of contemporary economic life. That means that we cannot figure out where we are without analyzing where we have been and what forces were at play to get us to this point. History matters because it helps us to critically evaluate the present and future of work. In addition, the political economy approach is diverse, representing an array of different lenses through which to understand the economy. As a result, in contrast to the model of perfect competition in which power is an anomaly or a sign of market imperfection, the political economy approach incorporates power, conflict, control, resistance, cooperation and solidarity into the analysis of work.

But before we jump into an exploration of the political economy of work, we need to establish some boundaries on whose work we will be analyzing. This may at first seem like a simple matter. We will be discussing my work, your work, the work of humans in particular historical circumstances, right? Well, if work is the expenditure of productive effort, should we include non-human workers in the discussion? Animals have been used as workers for centuries, not only in agriculture – oxen or mules plowing fields – but also in manufacturing – horses used in textile manufacturing to power spinning machines – and in services – buggy rides and the nineteenth-century horse-drawn mass transit vehicle, the omnibus (see Text box 1.1). At the other end of the spectrum, we have non-human workers currently zipping along the aisles of Amazon warehouses moving bins of merchandise. Additionally “co-bots” (collaborative robots) are employed in manufacturing, working next to their human counterparts. So, work, broadly conceived, includes more than human agents. Nevertheless, we will restrict our discussion to human workers, leaving open the possibility that, in the future, examination of these debates may well need to include non-human workers.

From Peasant Class to Working Class

While work pre-dates capitalism, the way work is organized within a capitalist economy bears close scrutiny. It should come as no surprise that for capitalism to exist and sustain itself there must be a group of individuals who are able to labor. There also needs to be another set of individuals who employ workers in their business. While we take it for granted that there is a market for labor, with workers supplying their labor and employers demanding to hire workers, originally this relationship needed to be created. In other words, the labor market emerged out of the changing nature of economic and social relations that marked the transition from a feudal economy to a capitalist industrial economy. This transformation did not happen overnight. It took centuries, culminating in the fifteenth century when a multiplicity of factors undermined the feudal social and economic structure.¹

Debates about what actually motivated the transition from feudalism to capitalism point variously to: (1) the rise of trade and the need for markets to facilitate the exchange of goods, and with it the need to clearly establish the rights to property; (2) differential agricultural productivity between farmers (serfs and free laborers) that allowed for specialization and the use of wage labor; (3) the shifting balance of power between lords and serfs and the changing nature of control over forced labor and free labor.²

The key relationship we want to explore involves the power of landlords (lords) and peasant farmers (serfs). The feudal economy was a system of agricultural production in exchange for physical and political protection. In brief, serfs were provided plots of land to raise crops to meet their families’ needs after paying the lord his rent in the form of agricultural products. If a serf was especially productive and harvested more food than they required, they could sell their surplus crops in the market. However, in return for the use of the land and the physical protection afforded by the lord and his knights, a serf was required to toil in the lord's fields in order to provide food for the lord and the rest of the residents of the manor. This arrangement was held in place by the political institutions of monarchy and Church which granted property rights to the lords. Not only could peasants produce a surplus but the labor time that they devoted to tilling and harvesting the lord's land can be understood as surplus labor – labor over and above what is required to meet the physical needs of the serf. So there was an incentive for serfs to increase their own productivity when working for themselves but not when working for the lord (Brenner 1977, 42; Resnick and Wolff 1979, 14).

Serfs were essentially coerced to work for the lord. If they resisted, they could be denied access to the land, raising the threat of starvation. Some serfs did escape to the city. Others were able to buy their freedom with earnings retained from the sale of their surplus produce. So, over time, a variety of rent payments could be made: labor-rents, in-kind rent (agricultural produce) and money-rent. This is an important point to remember. The feudal system co-existed with markets, trade and proto-industrial production. In other words, there were a variety of economic activities beyond the lord–serf relationship that supported the feudal economy. Later on, we will find that a plurality of economic relationships and work practices also characterize the capitalist economy.

Notice that participants in the feudal economy using rent paid in the form of labor time and agricultural products started to interact with markets and money. Marx notes that, by the fifteenth century, most English serfs had become peasants working for a wage and free laborers leasing small land parcels. Market exchange did not bring about the development of a capitalist labor market. Rather, shifts in the balance of power between lords, serfs and the emerging classes of art...