Towards a Unified Theory Analysing Workplace Ideologies: Marxism And

Marxism and Racial Oppression: Towards a Unified Theory Charles Post (City University of New York) Half a century ago, the revival of the womens movementsecond wave feminismforced the revolutionary left and Marxist theory to revisit the Womens Question. As historical materialists in the 1960s and 1970s grappled with the relationship between capitalism, class and gender, two fundamental positions emerged. The dominant response was dual systems theory. Beginning with the historically correct observation that male domination predates the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, these theorists argued that contemporary gender oppression could only be comprehended as the result of the interaction of two separate systemsa patriarchal system of gender domination and the capitalist mode of production. The alternative approach emerged from the debates on domestic labor and the predominantly privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power under capitalism. In 1979, Lise Vogel synthesized an alternative unitary approach that rooted gender oppression in the tensions between the increasingly socialized character of (most) commodity production and the essentially privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power. Today, dual-systems theory has morphed into intersectionality where distinct systems of class, gender, sexuality and race interact to shape oppression, exploitation and identity. This paper attempts to begin the construction of an outline of a unified theory of race and capitalism. The paper begins by critically examining two Marxian approaches. On one side are those like Ellen Meiksins Wood who argued that capitalism is essentially color-blind and can reproduce itself without racial or gender oppression. On the other are those like David Roediger and Elizabeth Esch who argue that only an intersectional analysis can allow historical materialists to grasp the relationship of capitalism and racial oppression. Both of these perspectives are based on the simplistic and unrealistic notion that capitalist competition and accumulation produce homogeneous labor-processes, profit rates and wage rates within and between branches of production. The paper presents an alternative and realistic approach, based on the work of Anwar Shaikh and Howard Botwinick, that understands that capitalist accumulation and competition necessarily produce heterogeneous labor-processes, profit rates and wage rates. Put another way, real capitalist accumulation and competition create the matrix in which racial oppression is constantly produced and reproduced by both capital and labor. The paper then assesses how ideologies that naturalize inequality (gender as biological sex, race) are indispensable to capitalism and how race emerges historically and is reproduced under capitalism. Analysing Workplace Ideologies: Marxism and the Psychology of Work Daria Saburova (Universit Paris Nanterre) The research into the multiple ways in which work is central to our existences (anthropologically, socially, politically, etc.) is partly informed by problems raised by the critique of ideology. The connection between these different modalities cannot be reduced to a simplistic distinction between a supposedly objective economic base and a subjective ideological superstructure. The concept of productive forces, which strongly emphasises the technological aspect of work, does not take into account the full reality of the labour process, including its intrinsic social, political and ideological aspects. The labour process cannot be identified with the notion of a purely instrumental relationship between man and nature. Thus, when confronted with an apparent acceptance of exploitation or various forms of self-exploitation on the part of workers typical of the neoliberal labour regime we should seek not only to understand how the ideological content produced in other fields of human interaction is capable of influencing the experience of work, but also try to account for the ideologies specifically related to and embedded in the labour process. For instance, we should not only inquire as to the effects upon working subjects of political or managerial discourses of autonomy and responsibility (usually seen as classical elements of neoliberal ideology), but also investigate work-place organisation and practices that fragment worker collectivity, generate competition and isolation, and produce representations and beliefs that could be called ideological. In his most famous work, Manufacturing Consent (1979), the American sociologist Michael Burawoy examines the way in which specific rules that govern the labour process can function as rules of the game of making out where consent rests upon is constructed through playing the game. Drawing on Althussers definition of ideology as structures and systematizations of lived experience rather than narratives consciously constructed in order to manipulate dominated classes Burawoy seeks to understand the ideological dimensions of work organisation. More recently, the French psychoanalyst Christophe Dejours has studied so-called ideologies of defence that are developed by workers confronted with excessive pressure, risks and suffering, in order to preserve both the cohesiveness of work collectives and the mental health of its individual members. At the same time, these ideologies operate as mechanisms of voluntary servitude that suppress critical awareness. Ultimately, then, my paper seeks to broaden the conception of work beyond a narrowly technical, apolitical set of purely objective processes, whilst highlighting the ways in which ideology is firmly embedded in the labour process. Flying Through the City: The Precarious Labour of Food Delivery Service in Cairo Maha Abdelrahman (POLIS/CAMBRIDGE) Spatially-determined marginality has received wide attention from scholars who have examined the creation of marginalised communities and social categories on the basis of uneven integration into capitalist systems of accumulation and redistribution. This body of scholarship includes critical examination of rural/urban divides, regional investment biases, unequal forms of urban development and the larger questions of core-periphery relations. Similar attention has also been devoted to the temporal dimension of capitalist production. Scholarly agreement on time-space compression as a characteristic of global capitalism and the near consensus that the logic of capital is essentially temporal have been reflected in literature which emphasises the effect of changing temporal patterns on labour regimes and the organisation of work. The last few decades have seen increasing research on just-in-time production, use of new technology in creating the anytime, anywhere availability of workers and of services. Less studied, however, are the mechanisms through which the creation and reproduction of marginalised groups and social categories are determined by these temporal practices. The constant restructuring of temporal dimensions of labour is creating conditions which on one hand guarantee the inclusion of groups of labour into the circle of capitalist production while on the other increase their precariousness and, in ways, their exclusion from other social relations and opportunities. This paper takes the case of fast food delivery workers or tayareen (which literally means pilots) in Cairo to show how their shift work serves profit making and consumption patterns 24 hours a day. The paper also examines how spatial and temporal rhythms of the tayareens work intersect with and diverges from those of the city and its residents. Seemingly connecting and connected to the city on their flying motorcycles, those pilots experience increasing forms of isolation from formal institutions, social relations and economic opportunities thus furthering their vulnerability and marginalisation. They Say It Is Love, We Say It Is Unpaid Work: Emotional Labour And Gendered Subjectivity Alva Gotby (University of West London) This paper explores the gendered dimension of emotional labour. While the term emotional labour is often used to denote a particular aspect of service work, or been used without any conceptual specification, I want to centre womens unwaged emotional labour, as well as the continuities between unwaged labour and the service sector. Drawing on the writings of the Wages for Housework movement and more recent developments in Marxist feminism, I will argue that emotional labour is increasingly important for understanding gendered subjectivity and heterosexuality. Using the terms labour and exploitation to theorise gendered and sexual systems of domination is part of a Marxist feminist strategy to denaturalise gender. Furthermore, the concept of emotional labour suggests that gendered forms of exploitation are integral to our sense of self. I will explore how the subjectivity created by emotional labour constitutes a structural complement to possessive individualism, which is the hegemonic form of subjectivity in capitalist economies. Emotional labour is thus invisible but necessary to maintain the social relations of capital. It forms part of a continuity with other forms of reproductive labour, yet it is more closely linked to white, heterosexual and middle class articulations of femininity than for example cleaning. A politics of emotional labour thus cannot simply affirm this work, nor dismiss it completely. Rather, we must seek to understand its position within the reproduction of capitalism as well as its emancipatory

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