Perspectives on Labor Process Theory

978–0–19–953532–105-Alvesson-Ch-05 OUP072-Alvesson-et-al (Typeset by SPi, Chennai) 99 of 122 December 18, 2008 18:31 chapter 5 .............................................................................................................. PERSPECTIVES ON LABOR PROCESS THEORY .............................................................................................................. paul thompson damian p. o’doherty Editorial Note .......................................................................................................................................... Theoretical perspectives are invariably partial, comprising variants and factions. There is a legacy of debate and disputation in critical theory. In the case of labor process theory (LPT), development has taken the form of a heated debate in recent years between structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives. To reflect this position, we have invited proponents of the two variants—Paul Thompson and Damian O’Doherty—to each present a short half-chapter on their respec- tive approach and understanding of labor process theory so that the chapter as a “whole” conveys a sense of a perspective in ferment. Rather than replay the original debates, the contributors have been sensibly asked to consider the following: r What is LPT and what kind of problems (as a theory) is it intended to address/solve? r How successful has it been in addressing those problems and issues? r What are the actual and potential relationships between LPT and CMS? 978–0–19–953532–105-Alvesson-Ch-05 OUP072-Alvesson-et-al (Typeset by SPi, Chennai) 100 of 122 December 18, 2008 18:31 100 paul thompson & damian p. o’doherty Au: Please check “I Paul IPaul Thompson:Labor Process Theory Thompson” and Critical Management Studies “I” is .......................................................................................................................................... numbered head or not. Labor Process Theory (LPT) is conventionally and rightly listed as one of the analytical resources for Critical Management Studies (CMS). Yet, the relationships between the two have been, in the words of a classic of the former, a contested terrain. This is hardly surprising. Even if we set aside the inevitable multiplicity of perspectives, there is a tension in potential objects of analysis. Before CMS burst on to the scene, LPT was being criticized at its peak of influence in the 1980sforpaying too much attention to management and too little to capital(ism) and labor. This was sometimes attributed to the location of many of the protagonists (in the UK at least) in business schools, but was, more likely a reflection of wider theoretical and ideological divides. Throughout the 1990s a battle took place—“the labor process debate”—between what some would regard as the materialist and poststructuralist participants inside and outside the annual UK-based conference. The emergence of a separate CMS conference and related initiatives was shaped, in part, by the nature and outcomes of those debates. Where do we stand now—to what extent is LPT part of, separate from or hostile to CMS? It is important to make one qualification about the debates discussed below. As social theory so clearly indicates, institutions matter. The existence and location of an annual and successful labor process conference and book series based in the UK has meant that a particular weight is given to theorizing and research within its boundaries. Yet clearly the conference, critical theory and research and LPT are not the same things. For example, there are lively traditions of LP scholarship in North America that have proceeded on overlapping but often very distinctive paths (e.g. Shalla and Clement 2007). Whilst some effort will be made to refer to a wider set of debates, in a short review of this kind, the scope for doing so will inevitably be limited and our focus must be the LPT–CMS interface. The Theory: Territory, Tensions, and Tantrums What is LPT and what does its “field” consist of? It is convention to refer to a number of “waves” of development (see Thompson and Newsome 2004). The first wave is seen as Braverman and supportive arguments, the second as the major studies from Richard Edwards, Friedman, Burawoy, Littler, and others that followed in its wake from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. Perhaps more controversially, we could identify an overlapping third wave over the following decade characterized largely by a series of paradigm wars between, on the one hand, LPT and a number 978–0–19–953532–105-Alvesson-Ch-05 OUP072-Alvesson-et-al (Typeset by SPi, Chennai) 101 of 122 December 18, 2008 18:31 perspectives on labor process theory 101 of “new production and society” perspectives such as flexible specialization and post-Fordism, and on the other within those attending the annual conference about territory and tasks. It is in the second category of the third wave that the UK-based “labor process debate” took place. This debate was initially between consolidators and reconstructionists. The former saw the second wave as consisting of a number of common concepts vital for analyzing the trajectories of capitalist economies and work systems, but in danger of being drowned in a welter of seemingly contra- dictory empiricist case studies about skill, control, and related issues. The main proposed solution was the development of a core theory that synthesized and extended the insights of post-Braverman research with a view to producing more or less coherent statements of what the contemporary labor process looked like and the conceptual tools to understood it. In the influential Labour Process Theory volume published at the end of the decade (Knights and Willmott 1990), this was the clear intent of a number of the contributors—notably myself, Paul Edwards, and Craig Littler (all 1990). In my case, that involved the elaboration of a core theory based on a number of propositions about the structural characteristics of the capitalist labor process that shaped and constrained workplace relations. Part of the purpose was to distin- guish between identification of strong tendencies deriving from those structures and mechanisms and particular outcomes, such as deskilling and Taylorism, with which LPT had become associated because of the influence of Braverman. So for example, the core referred to a control imperative given that market mechanisms alone cannot address the indeterminacy of labor (the conversion of labor power into profitable work), rather than specifying a particular control strategy. The core theory became a reference point for many later studies and we will return to its character and status later. However, in that same volume, the two editors, in separate but mutually supportive chapters, put forward a very different conception ofterritoryandtask:“thesystematicreconstructionoflabourprocesstheory...to develop a more adequate, materialist theory of subjectivity” (Willmott 1990: 337). Thus was born the “the missing subject” debate, There was some common ground between consolidators and reconstructionists. Both agreed that Braverman’s preference for analyzing only the objective characteristics of the capital—labor relationship had left a hole where agency and subjectivity should have been, but differed sharply on how it should be filled, Consolidators tended to believe that (re) inserting resistance, the capacity of creativity in labor power and the importance of consent (Burawoy 1979)aspartoftherangeof worker responses to its commodity status was a substantial, if not wholly sufficient contribution to a revised LPT. For Knights, Willmott, and their collaborators, such developments, particularly Burwaoy’s emphasis on consent, was an advance on objectivism, but nowhere near enough. At first this was framed in terms of “complementing” a structural analysis through a focus on the subjective conditions that facilitate the reproduction of capitalism. 978–0–19–953532–105-Alvesson-Ch-05 OUP072-Alvesson-et-al (Typeset by SPi, Chennai) 102 of 122 December 18, 2008 18:31 102 paul thompson & damian p. o’doherty In itself, this is uncontroversial, but there are three problems. First, are the chosen means. It may have been “materialist,” but the raw material was a discussion of existential problems of identity and power located in the general human condition. Second, there was a substantive displacement effect through the rejection of all of the available resources of LPT and search for new ones, initially in critical theory and then, increasingly in Foucault and post-structuralism. Every critique more or less followed the same path—well-known labor LPT texts would be picked over and critiqued with same ultimate punchline—the absence of an adequate theory of subjectivity. Third, though issues of subjective reproduction of capitalism and work relations are a sub-plot, they are not the plot. It is necessary to address and explain the changing political economy of capitalism, something that poststructuralists have generally shown little interest in. Whilst Marx, Braverman, and others were extensively and knowledgeably discussed in papers by Knights and Willmott, this was reconstruction without building on or from any prior empirical or theoretical foundations. As a result of these problems, the 1990s debate was not actually about the labor process. That it was presented as the “labor process debate” was an accident of history—a convergence of two factors. The first, that the Labor Process Conference was the focal point for most critical scholarship on work,

Load more