https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] THE SOCIOLOGY OP INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY Money LaLour and Class in The Capitalist Mode of Production JOHN MACIKNES Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhDo Faculty of Social Sciences University of Glasgow December 1982 ProQuest Number: 10644241 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uesL ProQuest 10644241 Published by ProQuest LLO (2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS All production is social in character, including the production of PhDo theseso Marguerite Nugent not only produced a flàwless typescript but was also a welcome source of authority in the prod­ uction processo M^ friends at the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde suffered my enthusiasm as well as my temper as the work progressed^ I owe special thanks to Tony Eiger for his initial encouragement, John Eldridge for being a patient supervisor and Tony Clarke for intellectual and moral supporto I am, of course, responsible for the errors of ommission and commission which followo Ill CONTENTS page Chapter One: Introduction: Capitalism and The Commodity Status of labouro o o o o o 1 Chapter Two: Mode of Productiono o o ■ o o <,20 Chapter Three: Labour oooo o o <, « 5 5 Chapter Four: Money oooo o o o o 162 Chapter Five: Class oooo o o o o 259 Bibliography o oooo o o o o 284 IV ABSTRACT It is argued that most approaches to industrial democracy tlse a model of capitalism based on the commodity status of labouro This gives rise to *leap and logic* analyses of modes of production and changes between them which fall foul of the *paradox of mode of production*o The labour process and value theory debates are used to illustrate this* An alternative reading of Marx*s theory of value is proposed which gives a less determinist analysis of capitalist mode of production in terms of the development of the money formo The implications of this for conceptions of class and the rationality of production relations in capitalism are investigated and conclusions offered about how industrial democracy strategies might be evaluated,, V "When I hear someone announce that he intends "to apply Marxism" to a problem, I cannot help calling up a mental picture of a Victorian headmaster with a cane„" EoPo Thompsono CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION : CAPITALISM & THE COMMODITY STATUS OP LABOUR "Labour power, therefore, is a commodity neither more nor less than sugaro The former is measured by the clock, the latter by the scalesf (Marx, Wage' Labour and Capital) 2., 1.1 Two Problems with sociology of the workplace ; reversibility and qualification While doing empirical research on industrial democracy in private industry I became increasingly dissatisfied with two features of the theories available to analyse control and power at the workplaceo The first feature was that of ’reversibility*o It seemed that virtu­ ally any proposition advanced could be plausibly reversed. For example some arguments assume that hierarchy and efficiency go together ('it's management's job to manage') others that they are incompatible (indus­ trial democracy boosts productivity.) There are arguments that m o d e m capitalism is characterised by a decline in hierarchy and the rise of qualifications to the powers of capital. An example is the concept of 'management by agreement' in British industrial relations^ It conveys the notion that whereas previously, management could rely on coercion and 'the stick' to secure compliance with its orders, it must now embrace consent and 'the carrot'. At one level the concept is intuit­ ively attractive and grasps the main direction of change: transportation and the gibbet have been replaced by industrial tribunals as the basis of state intervention in industrial relations for example. Personal autocracy and despotism (whether at the level of director or of foreman) have been superceded by protective legislation, negotiations and griev­ ance procedures. But if more precise questions are addressed to the concept it can be seen that it provides only an outline of the developmento Thus we have veny little idea of the empirical dimensions of the contemporary 'fron­ tier of control' in different industries and the changes it undergoes. Unionised workforces with sophisticated plant or company level steward organisations may be able to offer a variety of resistances to managerial authority and wield considerable influence over its behaviour, but just how much influence is difficult to sayo The basis and scope of their 'countervailing power' is difficult to grasp.^ ^ 'Agreement'may be reluctant, or simply represent a grudging recognition of a balance of forces that is in no way accorded legitimacy. Is the stick no longer used because the carrot is just as effective and ultimately achieves the same results? And is the 'stick® such an outmoded strategy anyway? Recent events at British Leyland and Grunwick, and surveys of industrial tribunal performances suggest that management's power to hire and fire labour (from which so much else must surely flow) may now be more (5 ) cumbersome or expensive to put into practice, but remains intacto The recent Monetarist sponsored recession has demonstrated that worker organisation is still very dependent on the state of the labour market, although just how dependent remains to be seeUo Against this theorists of deskilling have argued that such developments are misleading epiphenomena obscuring the reality of the progressive removal of all vestiges of control over the organisation of work by labouro These are the arguments of the labour process debate and Braverman in particulars It might be argued that any empirical failings of a concept like 'management by agreement' would result more from a lack of sufficient evidence and research than theoretical deficienciesv> However, once we ask why there has been a development of management by agreements, the problems multiply. First of all there is the problem of circularity of explanations It is usually impossible to determine cause and effect in the discussion. For example it might be asserted that the more sophis­ ticated and expensive capital equipment used today requires a workforce that is relatively committed to maximising the potential of such tech- nology^^) Thus technological developments have forced an increased reliance on: "That spirit which enables the mapager to count on just the extra bit of speed when the deliveiy date is dangerously near. To count on care in the use of the firm's material; on honest working when the foreman is not about; on one man helping anothero"(5) and in turn led to an increase in workers' powero But it might equally be argued that it was rather the increase in workers' power which forced firms to adapt to such changed circumstances by exploring more fully the greater potential contribution of such a workforce through harnes­ sing the benefits of autonomy. We come up against yet more 'reversibil- ity in such a form that it simply is not possible to decide by an appeal to the 'empirical' evidenoeo Thus to take the same example again, it has been argued that the greater masses of capital set in motion by workers today render the costs of industrial action much greater for capital (since wage costs as a proportion of total costs are proportion­ ately less.) This is held to have increased workers' bargaining power and fostered the recognition of labour by the state^^^ and the develop­ ment in most capitalist economies of 'tri-partheid' direction of eoon- omic policy. A diametrically opposed argument is advanced by Braverman (1974^. Based on Marx's arguments about the tendency of the organic composition of capital to rise (that the mass of constant capital set in motion will tend to rise) it argues that the effects of this on the labour process (deskilling and the progressively real subordination of labour in the process of production) and the labour market (growth of the industrial reserve army, and of the substituteability of labour) will be to destroy what economic basis there was to workers' power to (7) influence capital/' I deal with the issues of circularity and reversibility in much greater depth in chapter 5 BeloWo The above example is meant simply as a pre­ liminary indication of the inadequacies of most current theorisation