VALORISATION AND `DESKILLING' :A CRITIQUE OF BRAVERMAN

Tony Elger

Braverman's work has been central to the return of attention to the studyof the capitalist labour process. This paper focusses on his major theme,and rejects as inadequate both his analysis of capital's generic impulsionto deskill and his location of the consummation of that impulsion inmonopoly capitalism . Instead it argues for an historically located theoris-ation of the transformation of the labour process, which would explicitlylocate that transformation in relation to phases of valorisation and accu-mulation and their contradictions . Some features of such an account arediscussed, with particular reference to debate about the 'labour aristo-cracy', analyses of the role of Taylorism and contemporary discussions ofautomation .

INTRODUCTION[l]

The Marxist analysis of the capitalist labour process is a relatively recentbut increasingly significant aspect of the general renewal and developmentof Marxist analysis of contemporary capitalism . Braverman's Labour andMonopoly Capital has been one of the most influential contributions tothis development and remains the fullest restatement to date of some ofthe fundamental themes of such an analysis. His work has served as bothpoint of reference and inspiration for many current analyses of the trans-formation undergone by the labour process, the changing structure of em-ployment and class composition, and the sources of wage labour in the eraof 'monopoly capitalism' . Indeed Braverman's eloquent contribution isreminiscent of that of his mentors, Baran and Sweezy, in the manner inwhich it has confronted some of the major orthodoxies of bourgois socialscience and provided a focus for debate of issues which should be centralto Marxist theory .

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The scope and significance of Braverman's analysis can be character-ised in terms of the following features . First it reinstates the imperative ofcapital accumulation as the fundamental dynamic determining the 'in-cessant transformation' and 'tendential degradation' of labour in capital-ist societies. Second it attempts to locate specific aspects of such trans-formation and degradation within the totality of developments in capital-ist production set in motion by capital accumulation . In relation to thisconcern with the totality of capitalist production Braverman is centrallyconcerned to grasp the interrelations of the whole complex of featureswhich appear to characterise 'monopoly capital' : the rise of oligopolisticcompetition among giant corporations ; the process of rationalisation ofproduction ; the elaboration of the administrative apparatus of corporatecapital ; the encroachment of capitalist commodity production into en-claves of non-capitalist production ; changes in the character and com-position of the industrial reserve army ; and the consequent relationshipsbetween the modes of organisation of the labour process in differentsectors .

Two particularly notable features of Braverman's work are integral tothis attempt to grasp the totality of production relations of monopolycapitalism . One is the novel attention he gives to analysing changes in thelabour process in the 'new' service industries and occupations . The other ishis recognition-unusual among Marxists and bourgeois social scientistsalike-of the importance of the sexual division of labour in the changingstructure of employment of different sectors of production .

These achievements have been recognised by the wide and appre-ciative audience gained for Braverman's work and must be sustained in anycritical assessment. At the same time the scope and power of his accountsuggests the value of such critical evaluation, as a basis for further develo-ping the Marxist analysis of the capitalist labour process . In this paper I donot attempt to provide a comprehensive critique but instead limit myselfto a consideration of the manner in which Braverman conceptualises therelationship between capital accumulation and the degradation of work,and the manner in which he characterises and periodises transformations inthe organisation of production .

Together these lines of criticism constitute an initial attempt to locateprocesses of deskilling within a Marxist analysis of the labour process, in amore adequate manner, by engaging in debate with Braverman's bold andimpressive synthesis. Though Braverman's account serves as the focus ofdiscussion this necessarily involves consideration of other recent Marxistanalyses of the transformation of the capitalist labour process . Beforeturning to these specific arguments however I shall comment on therelationship between some general criticisms of Braverman's discussion ofthe degradation of work and the critique of his analysis of the relationshipbetween capital accumulation and deskilling .

GENERAL CRITICISM OF LMC

Two dominant themes emerge from many of the Marxist critiques ofBraverman.[2] The first concerns the inadequacy of his objectivist

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conceptualisation of the working class, which fails to address the mannerin which class struggle is integral to the course of development of thecapitalist labour process .[3] The second focusses on the implication, inthe structure and discourse of LMC, that analyses of both the obstaclesconfronting the accumulation process and their resolution in the reorgani-sation of the labour process can be divorced from analysis of broaderforms of political domination and struggle .[4]

The first criticism focusses on the much quoted self-denying ordi-nance announced by Braverman in his introduction : "no attempt will bemade to deal wtih the modern working class on the level of its conscious-ness, organisation or activities . This is a book about the working class as aclass in itself, not as a class for itself." (LMC p. 27) However valuable thisdisclaimer may be in relation to much conventional subjectivist sociologyor other vague discussions of class consciousness it is evident that this con-ceptualisation remains seriously disabling .

It warrants a treatment of the working class as an object of capital,which, while underlining the capacity of capital to reorganise the labourprocess, degrade the labourer, and propel her/him from sector to sector,forgets that the working class remains an active agency in the capitalrelation . As Schwarz remarks Braverman's approach fails to recognise "theworking class as an active and problematical presence within themechanism of accumulation." [5]

The second criticism is closely bound in with the first because it isprimarily (though not exclusively) in relation to the problematicalcharacter of class relations in production that the critical significance ofpolitical relations and state institutions in reconstructing class relations hasbecome a major focus of contemporary Marxist discussion of capitalisthegemony. In relation to such debate Braverman notices the central sig-nificance of economistic trade unionism for the character of working classaccommodation with advanced capitalism . He implies however that thismode of accommodation 'arises directly out of the forms taken by capitalaccumulation and the capitalist labour process in the era of 'monopolycapitalism', rather than being a complex and contradictory product of theinterrelations between such developments and the organisation of politicsand state activity in capitalist society . [6]

It is important to recognise that these criticisms do not merely suggestthat Braverman's discussion is the necessarily incomplete account of oneauthor, to be supplemented by that of others . The boundaries marked outby these criticisms delineate a more coherent project than that wouldimply: for the underlying theme of LMC is that a fundamental feature ofmonopoly capitalism is that capitalist control and domination is secured ina thoroughgoing fashion within production. For Braverman the process ofdegradation of work and the disciplining effect of the reserve army oflabour together appear to produce a virtually inert working class, unable topose any substantial problems for capital either within production orbeyond it . This interpretation is, in my view, supported by the terms ofBraverman's rejoinder to some of his critics-his response to the critiqueof objectivism focusses on the ultimate emergence of a revolutionaryconsciousness under the spur of "an enormous intensification of thepressures which have only just begun to bear upon the working class",

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with minimal recognition of the need to explore the complex relationsbetween current problems of accumulation and forms of class struggle andsuch a possible future .[71

Of course, this in no way denies the significance of an analysis of thedevelopment of the capitalist labour process, but it does argue that such ananalysis must (a) locate the forms of class struggle, characteristic ofspecific phases in the transformation of the capitalist labour process, asintegral features of that transformation, and (b) remain sensitive to thecomplex relationships between class relations in production and broaderforms of political domination and struggle . If the structure of Braverman'sanalysis enables him to forclose such crucial questions it is important togo beyond a reassertion of their importance to examine the features of hisaccount of the capitalist labour process which facilitate this closure, andto consider alternative conceptualisations which do not have similar con-sequences . In accordance with this objective I will now turn to an exami-nation of Braverman's analysis of the transformation of the capitalistlabour process, and to a consideration of alternative accounts .

THE DEGRADATION OF CRAFT WORK

The most sustained theme of LMC concerns the degradation of craft workinto common detailed labour as the capitalist labour process is "renderedindependent of craft, tradition and the workers' knowledge" (p . 113) .Braverman's most vivid passages depict the process-or more often thecapitalist theorisation of the process-of the arrogation of established'rounded' craft expertise by capital and its transformation into a body ofprinciples and practises from which the worker is excluded, and throughwhich she/he is thoroughly subordinated to the imperatives of capitalaccumulation . This theme provides the focus of the discussion of'scientific management' but is also central to the discussion of machineryand to the analysis of the degradation of clerical labour . Thus in the lattercase Braverman notes that while "clerical work in its earliest stages hasbeen likened to a craft" (p . 298) the increasingly predominant form ofoffice labour is routinised, mechanically paced paper processing, in manyways analogous to other forms of routinised manual labour within manu-facturing industry .

Braverman's treatment of the degradation of craft work focusses upontwo central imperatives of the capitalist organisation of the labour process .The first is the concern to cheapen labour : in Marxian terms, to reduce thevalue of labour power by substituting simple for complex labour . Thesecond, and more fundamental imperative for Braverman, is to guaranteeeffective capitalist control of the labour process-by dissolving those eso-teric skills which underpinned effective craft opposition to the reorgani-sation of production in the hands of capital and its agents . "In destroyingthe craft as a process under the control of the worker, he reconstitutes itas a process under his own control" .

For Braverman, these developments are seen to gain their most sig-nificant momentum and their most coherent theoretical expression forcapital in the last decades of the 19th century, in the 'scientific manage-

c. & c . I

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ment' movement, and to achieve unrivalled dominance during the first halfof this century, thus constituting the most crucial form of 'the degra-dation of work in the 20th century' . The central thrust of this majortheme of LMC is succinctly outlined in Braverman's summary of the logicof Taylorism :

"Workers who are controlled only by general orders and discipline arenot adequately controlled, because they retain their grip on the actualprocesses of labour . . . (and) they will thwart efforts to realise to thefull the potential in their labour power. To change this situationcontrol over the labour process must pass into the hands of manage-ment, not only in a formal sense but by the control and dictation ofeach step of the process, including its mode of performance ." (p . 100)

Thus Braverman's discussion of the theory, practises and conse-quences for workers of the process of deskilling constitutes an impressivelyconcrete restatement of Marx's analysis of the tendency for capital totransform the labour process in the direction of simple, specialised and de-termined labour . I now turn to the mode of conceptualisation whichunderlies this account .

Braverman's point of departure for an analysis of the unity of thelabour process and capital accumulation is a restatement of the classicalMarxist account of the exchange between capital and wage labour :

"The worker enters into the employment agreement because socialconditions leave him or her no other way to gain a livelihood . Theemployer, on the other hand, is the possessor of a unit of capitalwhich he is endeavouring to enlarge . . . in everything that followstherefore we shall be considering the manner in which the labour pro-cess is dominated by and shaped by the accumulation of capital ."(p. 53)

This formulation does not, significantly, lead to any extensive discussionof the forms of extraction of surplus value and exigencies of accumulationwhich have dominated successive phases of the capitalist labour process .Rather it is simply accompanied by general references to the character ofaccumulation as a structural imperative of capitalism .[8] Braverman thenproceeds to a general diagnosis of what he sees as the fundamental obstacleconfronting capital accumulation . This diagnosis hinges on the manner inwhich, in the context of antagonistic class relations, the "infinite poten-tiality" of labour power may remain inadequately realised because of en-trenched working-class routines :

"If the capitalist builds upon this distinctive quality and potentialof human labour power, it is also this quality by its very indeter-minacy, which places before him his greatest challenge and problem. . . what he buys is infinite in potential but in its realisation it islimited by the subjective state of the workers, by their previoushistory, by the general social conditions under which they work, aswell as the particular conditions of the enterprise and by the tech-nical setting of their labour" . (p . 57)

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The dynamics of the transformation of the labour process are locatedin a general contradiction between capitalist control of the product ofwage labour on one hand, and customary and worker regulated modes oflabour (equated with craft skills) on the other. Thus Braverman establishesthe basis for a general and abstract impulsion of capital towards the `real'subordination of labour and directly identifies this abstract impulsion witha uniform process of degradation of craft skills . I now want to draw outsome of the deficiencies of this formulation and relate these to Marx's owndiscussion .

CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND THE REAL SUBORDINATION OFTHE LABOUR PROCESS

The major deficiencies of Braverman's discussion relate on one hand to theinadequately located character of the impulsion to control imputed tocapital, and on the other to the singular role attributed to craft skill asobstacle to capital .1 . A central feature of an adequate analysis of the transformation of thecapitalist labour process, and one inadequately acknowledged byBraverman, must be an attempt to locate the forms, and phases of develop-ment, of capitalist control over the labour process more precisely than heattempts to do. This is not merely. a matter of specifying the discrete con-junctural conditions which affect the general tendencies which hedelineates. It involves a commitment to the specification of the relation-ship between forms of the extraction of surplus value in the process ofcapital accumulation and phases in the organisation of the capitalist labourprocess. While Braverman acknowledges the distinct forms of appropria-tion analysed in Capital under the headings of absolute and relative surplusvalue, the relationship between these forms and the development from the`formal' to the 'real' subordination of the labour process to capital accu-mulation remains virtually unexplored . In Marx's discussion of thedevelopment of 'real' subordination, however, the forms of capitalist re-organisation of the labour process are situated in alternative strategies ofsurplus value production, each with inherent limits and contradictions andcharacteristic forms of class struggle .[9]2 . There is a strong tendency in Braverman's account to conceptualisethe transformation in terms of a switch from thoroughgoing craft controlsto pervasive capitalist direction of the labour process . Even when he recog-nises that capital faces a recurrent task of reestablishing its control overthe labour process he conceptualises worker opposition in the inadequateterms of a polarity : either renascent craft expertise or generalised sub-terranean hostility (for examples see LMC p . 120n, p. 172 and p. 180n) .As the Brighton Group have emphasised such an approach fails to recog-nise the complex form of the 'real' subordination of the labour process tocapital, and in particular fails to appreciate the manner in which forms ofspecialised expertise and craft competence may be embedded within acomplex structure of collective labour effectively subordinated to capitalaccumulation . In addition it loses sight of those forms and bases oforganised working class resistance which cannot be understood in terms of

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rounded craft skills .3 . As the previous point implies Braverman's conception of the craftworker as obstacle to capital equates complex competences,' a high valueof labour power and effective collective opposition to capitalist initiatives .There is little discussion of the problematic character of this equationwhere :

i . complex competences may be thoroughly subordinated to capitaland be subjected to both an extended working day and intensifi-cation (as in Marx's conception of modern manufacture anddomestic industry), or

ii. collective organisation may gain increased wages and the status ofskilled worker with little evidence of craft expertise .[ 10]

4 . Finally, Braverman's discussion of the organisation of the labourprocess remains for the most part at the level of its theorisation by'management scientists'. His reliance on such programmatic material givesa spurious concreteness to his account of a general impulsion to controldirectly realised in deskilling . However, a critical consequence is that in-sufficient consideration is given to the conditions in which such strategiesare implemented, and in particular to the effectiveness of workers'resistance to changes in the labour process .

Having outlined some of the major weaknesses of Braverman's dis-cussion I now turn to a brief examination of Marx's conceptualisation toprovide a more coherent indication of the implications of, in particular,the first two of these criticisms .

Marx's discussion of the relationship between the logic of capitalaccumulation and the reorganisation of the capitalist labour process is acomplex one and his treatment of absolute and relative surplus value isdeveloped in the course of separate discussions of the historical develop-ment of struggles over the length of the working day on one hand, and ofthe sequential development of co-operation, the manufacturing division oflabour and modern mechanised industry on the other . Thus I shall onlyprovide a sketch of the form of Marx's argument in order to suggest theimportance of an analysis couched in these terms, especially in relation tothe issues which arise out of Braverman's account of the degradation ofwork .

Marx's analysis of the extraction of absolute surplus value takes asits point of departure opportunities for valorisation open to the capitalistin the context of the given conditions of organisation of the labour processwhich capital inherits from previous modes of production . In this contextsurplus value is extracted under conditions where the capitalist deployshis market power to extend the length of the working day while thelabourer retains some control over the actual process of production . Inaddition capital may impose a greater intensity and continuity of labour-what Marx sometimes calls a reduction in the 'porosity' of the workingday-without transforming the customary organisation of labour .

However, this situation of the 'merely' formal subordination of thelabour process to capital sets definite limits to extraction of surplus value-limits which are crucially defined by the market power and political or-ganisation of capital and labour . In the context of competition among

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capitals and working class resistance to the lengthening of the working dayand to reduce 'porosity' capital tends to turn increasingly to the extractionof relative surplus value .

The development of co-operation and the manufacturing division oflabour constitute the initial phases in this tendency towards the extractionof relative surplus value . The development of a complex organisation ofspecialised labourers, and the intensification and co-ordination of work inthat context, constitute the initial transformation of the labour processfrom its inherited basis into a specifically capitalist mode of production -even though one in which capital exercises its domination subjectivelyrather than in the objective form of machinery . [11 j

In the context of manufacture and even more so in the context ofmodern industry capital turns to the extraction of relative surplus value onthe basis of (i) the intensification of labour, and (ii) increasing productive-ness of labour, which (a) provides the basis for relatively transitory incre-ments in surplus value while specific capitals enjoy productivity above thesocial average, and (b) insofar as it cheapens the roduction of consump-tion goods, reduces the value of labour power .[ 12J

Marx's account clearly does not represent a simple transition fromabsolute to relative surplus value . The era of machine production andmodern industry becomes characterised by the pursuit of both, in relation-ships conditioned by the pressure on the rate of profit unleashed by invest-ment directed at increasing the productivity of labour (summarised in thetendency towards a rising organic composition of capital), and by thespecific conditions of class struggle which mediate such pressureinfluenced by the development of the reserve army of labour) .

In relation to these tendencies the transition from 'formal' to 'real'subordination is seen as a complex process beset with contradictions . Thusthe phase of the elaboration of the manufacturing division of labourrepresents, Marx argues, a distinctively capitalist mode of production inwhich the power of capital subsists not merely in the relation of capitalistand propertyless wage labourer but further in the necessary dependenceof the specialised worker (whether relatively skilled or unskilled) upon thecollective organisation of the capitalist workshop . At the same time thisreal subordination of the labour process to capital contains and is qualifiedby the forms of competence which remain embodied in the specialisedskills of craft workers, which represent an important obstacle tovalorisation .

The significance of modern mechanised industry in this context isdiscussed in terms of the interrelationship between the strategy of relativesurplus value production and the deepening of the real subordination ofthe labour process and the labourer to capital . First it represents the mostsubstantial advance in the extraction of relative surplus value on the basisof increasing both the productiveness and intensity of labour; an advancewhich is guaranteed for individual capitals only through the continualrevolutionising of production, but which confronts its own contradictionssummarised in the tendency and counter-tendencies to the falling rate ofprofit. Secondly, this pursuit of relative surplus value through mechanis-ation forms the bases for the 'completion' of the development of the real

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subordination of the labour process and the labourer to capital, as capital-ist control is objectified in machinery, as technical calculation andorganisation by capital displaces craft expertise, and as the development ofthe reserve army of labour exerts its discipline on workers in both modernmechanised industry and modern manufacture . However this 'completion'of real subordination is not uniform or entirely coherent-for example theobjectification of capitalist control in machinery, and the augmentation ofthe reserve army of labour press variously on different sectors, and indifferent phases of the cycle of accumulation-and confronts its owncontradictions both in the increasingly general organisation of workers andin the tensions between the specialisation and flexibility demanded ofworkers in modern industry .[13]

Having outlined Marx's discussion of accumulation and the develop-ment of real subordination I do not simply wish to contrast it with Braver-man's exposition of the deskilling thesis . Marx's own treatment isambiguous enough to be susceptible to varied interpretations and it isquite possible to read him as an exponent of a straightforward deskillingthesis particularly in his discussions of the relationship between machineand worker. However I do want to argue that an alternative interpretationis warranted by Marx's discussion and offers a more adequate basis for theanalysis of the development of the capitalist labour process, and as oneaspect of that development the tendency towards deskilling . This alter-native approach would emphasise :

(i) the complex character of the development of the real subor-dination of the labour process to capital, as the development of alarge scale collective organisation of production which dominatesany specific form of labour .

(ii)the importance of analysing the development of the complex or-ganisation of collective labour in relation to specific strategies ofvalorisation and accumulation and their characteristic contra-dictions and forms of class struggle .

These emphases have not of course gone unnoticed among Marxistsand at this point I would like to comment briefly on some discussionswhich in various ways represent different and more adequate analyses ofthese issues than that of Braverman .

(a) The Brighton Labour Process Group [ 14]The Brighton paper offers an account of the transformation of the

labour process which is strongly influenced by the `additional' chapter ofCapital vol . 1, and which is explicitly organised in terms of the distinction(which Marx develops most fully in that chapter) between formal and realsubordination . The crucial implication of this approach is that capitaltransforms the general social and technical organisation of the labourprocess, in the manner already discussed, to achieve a more adequate basisfor valorisation . The key aspect of this argument is that real subordinationis the achievement of the reorganisation of the whole complex of thecapitalist labour process. It cannot be understood at the level of the indi-

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vidual worker's relation to the mechanisms of production as it is inBraverman's discussion of deskilling .[15]

On the basis of this argument the Brighton Group emphasise that : (i)certain modes of skilled work may find a place within the framework ofreal subordination, not only in manufacture but also in modern industry ;(ii) major aspects of the transformation of the labour process may not bestbe understood in terms of deskilling-for example, the transition tomachine production constitutes an objectification of the power of capitalwhich cannot be reduced to a process of deskilling ; and (iii) analyses of theinitiatives of capital which may slightly increase workers' decision-makingor team work must be located within the overall structure of capitalistdomination summarised in the conception of real subordination .[16]

These important insights are, however, developed at a level of abs-traction which in itself has critical limitations in relation to the analysis ofclass struggle and the labour process . The Brighton paper seeks to"establish the specificity of the labour process as a particular and irre-ducible functional form in the circuit of industrial capital" through ananalysis of the generic dynamic of the valorisation process, abstractedfrom (a) specific phases in the development of capital accumulation, asthese articulate with (b) changes in the relations of capital and labourbeyond production .[17] This limitation of the scope of the analysis hasimportant consequences for the discussion of the forms of development ofthe capitalist labour process within 'modern industry' and in particular forthe conceptualisation of class struggle given 'real subordination' . Workers'resistance and struggle against capital in the phase of 'formal subor-dination' is located in the non-correspondence of the form of the labourprocess to the exigencies of valorisation .[18] However, in the context ofreal subordination and valorisation on the basis of relative surplus value,class struggle cannot be located in such fundamental non-correspon-dence, but must be related to the specific exigencies and contradictions ofvalorisation and accumulation which beset capitalist production andundermine the specific adequacy of real subordination . The level of ab-straction of the Brighton analysis is made to exclude consideration ofthese features, with the result that the emphasis on the capacity of capitalto pursue its objectives within the transformed labour process clashes withand overshadows the emphasis on the continuing centrality of classstruggle . [ 191

It should be noted that it is this limitation which gives superficialplausibility to Cutler's diagnosis within the Brighton paper of an historicalanthropology of labour-resistance paralleled by a capitalist impulsion tocontrol equivalent to that discernible in Braverman.[20] However, thiscritique fails to register the self-declared limitations of the analysismounted by the Brighton group, and the manner in which the elaborationof an analysis of the specific exigencies of valorisation and accumulationwould locate more concretely the terrain of class struggle within pro-duction, and allow some specification of the forms of fragmentation, de-skilling and hierarchy characteristic of specific capitalist labour processes .

(b) Palloix[21 ]Palloix's analysis of Fordism and neo-Fordism represents one attempt

to move in the direction just mentioned . He attempts to relate develop-

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ments in the labour process to phase in the processes of valorisation andaccumulation in a manner which comprehends contradictions and trans-formation within the development of modern industry as well as in theearlier capitalist forms of co-operation and the manufacturing division oflabour. He also suggests how these changes may interplay with changes inthe organisation of the labour market and with ideological divisionsbetween mental and manual labour to produce "the complex forms of theorganisation of labour processes in contemporary capitalism". [22]

Palloix's account of changes in the labour process focusses on thecontradictory interrelation of intensification and productiveness in thedevelopment of modern industry .[23] He views mechanisation as havingbeen initially adopted in pursuit of intensification beyond that gainedthrough manufacture, while intensification also constitutes the majormode of extracting absolute surplus value accompanying the emergenceand development of relative surplus value (through increasing productive-ness) associated with continuing developments in the mechanisation ofcapitalist production .[24] Mechanisation advances both intensificationand productiveness but in each case confronts limits and contradictions .On one hand intensification directly confronts working class resistancewhile on the other productiveness implies a rising organic composition ofcapital and, as it directly implicates the whole circuit of accumulation,problems of disproportionality .

The various phases of mechanisation and social reorganisation of pro-duction (Taylorism, Fordism, automation and `job enrich ment'/neo-Fordism) can then be seen as strategies for increasing intensity and pro-ductiveness while minimising the problems posed for capital . Thus, forexample Palloix analyses automation as such a strategy, involving deskil-ling and machine-pacing of labour-power and reduction of the turnovertime of capital, in the following terms :

"In mechanised production, the worker at the machine is surroundedby many other necessary operations, such as setting up the job,feeding the machine, regulating its operation and checking theproduct . . . this gives rise to a certain `porosity' in the utilisation ofmachines and in the degree of co-ordination between differentmachines within the whole mechanised system, which affects the rateof profit . . . By integrating machinery into a machine system whicheliminates the `porosity', automation ensures the maximum turnoverof capital for the production of an intensive (relative) surplus whilecarryin the `dequalification' of productive labour to its most extremepoint."[25]

However, while such arguments are suggestive his account, and hencehis discussion of tendencies for 'dequalification' and 'hyperqualification'remains in general highly schematic and tends to imply the simultaneousprogressive resolution of the strategic problems of valorisation andaccumulation confronting capital, rather than their contradictory andproblematical pursuit.

The implication of the uniformly advancing hegemony of capitalwithin production does become qualified in his discussion of the 'complexforms of organisation of the labour process' . Thus he argues that trans-

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formations in the labour process articulate with (a) the elaboration andinternationalisation of dual labour markets, which may sustain concen-trations of hyperqualified workers in capital-intensive sectors in themetropoles, and (b) the reproduction of capitalist domination of thelabour process through the division of mental labour, in conception andrealisation, from manual labour (even less specialised, 'semi-autonomous'manual labour) in production .

However, these remarks on the dual-labour market and mental andmanual labour are themselves highly schematic and assimilate togethersome quite diverse relations and processes, while contradictions arisingin the organisation of the labour process, which might articulate with andbe partially resolved through these processes, remain unexplored .

(c) Mandel [ 26 JMandel's recent work in Late Capitalism constitutes a major attempt

to develop an historically located analysis of specific phases of valorisationand accumulation and the characteristic forms of appearance of contra-dictions within those phases . In the course of this analysis, Mandelprovides a brief discussion of the development of the capitalist labourprocess similar to that outlined by the Brighton Group, emphasising thedevelopment of a large-scale collective labour process within which specificforms of skill and competences may be lodged . However-and withoutattempting a general exposition and critique-the value of Mandel'saccount lies in his attempt to locate such an analysis of the labour processwithin his discussion of the historical development of capital accumu-lation .[27]

It is this broader discussion which provides a suggestive basis for ananalysis of the forms of development, contradiction and conflict whichmight characterise the organisation of the capitalist labour process. Ofparticular significance here are Mandel's arguments concerning :

i . the contradictions which may develop, in specific phases of accu-mulation, between increasing the productiveness of labour throughtechnical transformation and increasing or controlling the intensifi-cation of labour, when the former imperative creates forms of exper-tise and independence which militate against the latter,ii . the complex relationships between the pace of capital accumu-lation and the dimensions of the reserve army of labour, and betweenthose dimensions and forms of working class organisation ; withinwhich can be located the capacity of workers to effectively resistinitiatives aimed at the intensification of labour and their capacity toincorporate an increasing value of wage goods in their consumption,thus depressing the rate of surplus value,iii . finally Mandel discusses the underlying incipient contradiction,mitigated by specifically located opportunities for the devalorisationof constant capital, that increasing the productiveness of labour mayincrease the organic composition of capital with consequent pressureon the rate of profit.

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Thus the Brighton Group, Palloix and Mandel in different ways offerapproaches to the conceptualisation of the relationship between capitalaccumulation and the development of the capitalist labour process whichsuggest more adequate bases than that provided by Braverman for aMarxian analysis of the process of deskilling . The implications of theirarguments can be summarised as follows :

1 . the development of the real subordination of labour to capital mustbe interpreted in terms of forms of subordination appropriate to theimperatives of valorisation and accumulation . In this sense it is necessaryto recognise that the continually revolutionised character of modernmechanised production persistently renders 'incomplete' the subordinationof labour to capital (in the sense of total direction and control by capital) .On one hand it creates new skills, competencies and other opportunitiesfor bargaining leverage arising from the complex co-ordination and inter-dependence of the collective labourer ; on the other hand, in phases ofrapid accumulation unaccompanied by massive displacement of living bydead labour, it depletes the reserve army of labour and provides the basisfor powerful worker organisation .[2812 . Such developments can in no sense be interpreted in terms of a simplecontradiction or non-correspondence between capitalist property relationsand the social forces of production-in terms, that is, of the 'merely'formal subordination of labour to capital-since they are embedded withina complex capitalist apparatus of production subordinated to the impera-tives of valorisation and accumulation. Rather these features define anarena within which subordination of labour adequate to those imperativesis sought by capital and meets various forms of working class opposition .3 . This form of argument makes it quite clear that the analysis of thedevelopment of the capitalist labour process must be set within an analysisof the organisation of capitalist production as a whole . This would even-tually involve articulation of the discussion of changes in the labourprocess with analyses of the relationship of capital and labour as it ismediated by the capitalist state and at the level of class organisation andconflict beyond production .

The implication of these analyses is, then, that Braverman's accountmoves too directly from an abstract impulsion to control labour power tothe concrete strategy of deskilling, in a way which provides a partial andtelescoped view of the development of the capitalist labour process. Theysuggest the importance of locating an account of that development withina more complex and sustained analysis of the historical development ofcapital accumulation, the contradictions to which accumulation gives rise,and the manner in which such contradictions develop and are resolved inclass struggle within and beyond production .

BRAVERMAN AND 'MONOPOLY CAPITAL'

Of course, as the very title of his book emphasises, Braverman'saccount is not simply of a uniform trajectory towards the realisation of

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real subordination throughh deskilling. What he does is to locate the crucialphase of development of such real subordination in relation to the emer-gence of 'monopoly capitalism', but the above analyses suggest that thisassociation itself radically simplifies a more complex pattern of develop-ment. It is at this point that the work of Baran and Sweezy so powerfully,but largely implicitly, structures Braverman's whole analysis .

Their work enables him (a) to ignore any exploration of the contra-dictions and struggles which beset mechanisation in the form of the ten-dency and countertendencies to the falling rate of profit, and (b) to takefor granted the capacity of capitals to finance the apparatus of 'con-ception' and control, which constitutes the counterpoint to deskilling, outof a rising surplus . These features follow directly from Baran and Sweezy'sanalysis of the fundamental determining features of capitalist accumu-lation in the era of monopoly capitalism : namely (i)their claim concerningthe insignificance of tendencies for the organic composition of capital torise once transformations are taking place within an already mechanisedform of production, and (ii) their argument that monopoly capital has thecapacity to generate an increasing surplus-since price competition is sus-pended while investment multiplies productivity and, given solutions toproblems of realisation, production .[29]

The critics of Baran and Sweezy challenge precisely these assumptionsand thus suggest that 'monopoly capitalism' cannot be analysed in termsof such fundamental discontinuities in the logic of capital accumulation .Rather, Mandel and others argue that, while oligopolisation may tend tocreate distinct levels of profit in oligopolised and non-oligopolised sectors,this pattern is subject to fundamental processes of both long-term com-petition among capitals, and tendencies and countertendencies to a fallingrate of profit associated with movements in the organic composition ofcapital .[30] Such criticisms underline the inadequacy of Braverman'streatment of the significance of monopoly capitalism merely in terms ofthe precipitation or facilitation of a generalised impulsion of capital to-wards deskilling, and they cohere with the earlier argument for a morecomplex and historically located analysis of the relations between valor-isation and accumulation and the development of the capitalist labourprocess, before, during and after the phase of monopolisation identifiedas crucial by Baran and Sweezy, and Braverman .

In the remainder of this paper I attempt to contribute to the develop-ment of such an analysis by undertaking a more limited task . That ofanalysing the transformation of skills and competences characteristic ofspecific phases in the development of the capitalist labour process, andconsidering their relationship to both phases of valorisation and accumu-lation, and developments in ideological and political relations beyond pro-duction . Before moving to such a discussion however some brief commentson Braverman's treatment of the reserve army of labour are appropriate .

BRAVERMAN ON THE RESERVE ARMY OF LABOUR

Braverman's analysis of the reserve army of labour follows Marx in empha-sising the analytical importance of mechanisation in displacing workers

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from established sectors of modern industry and thus furnishing a readilyavailable pool of workers for employment by capital in other sectors . Healso seeks to demonstrate the contemporary descriptive appropriateness ofthe categories of floating, latent and stagnant forms of the reserve army .Through the powerful development of these themes the reserve army oflabour is given an equivalent place in Braverman's analysis to that of de-skilling, as a process which disciplines and constrains the working class inits objective existence as a moment of capital .[31 ] However, there are anumber of problems with this account which parallel those discussed inrelation to deskilling, since this generic invocation of the reserve army oflabour gives insufficient attention to the specific impacts of the reservearmy during different phases of the cycle of accumulation .

The first problem concerns the interplay between reserve army andreorganisation of the labour process in periods of stagnation or depression .In such contexts the reserve army of labour may allow adequateconditions for valorisation through both intensification and wage-cuttingwithout major reorganisations of the labour process involving deskilling .While Braverman acknowledges the mutually conditioning effects ofmechanisation and the reserve army (L .M.C . pp. 236-7) these implicationsare not adequately drawn out in relation to his broader treatment ofdeskilling .

Other major problems arise in relation to periods of relative pros-perity and accelerated accumulation . Once more Braverman acknowledgesthe manner in which in this case the reserve army of labour is depleted :"in periods of rapid capital accumulation such as that which has takenplace throughout the capitalist world since World War II, the relativesurplus population which is the 'natural' product of the capital accumu-lation process is supplemented with other sources of labour" (L.M.C . p .384) . One difficulty which arises from this statement concerns the pre-sentation of such 'supplementation' as unproblematic. Braverman's des-criptive demonstration of the central significance of female labour for thereconstruction of the reserve army is, as Beechey argues, unaccompaniedby any theoretical analysis of the problems of this reconstruction or of thespecific conditions under which women have become a preferred source ofthe reserve army .[32] The other major difficulty concerns Braverman'sfailure to confront the mediated and varied impact of the reserve armyupon working class organisation and struggle, a theme which is central toMandel's historical analysis of valorisation and class struggle .[331 Theelaboration of analyses of these features of the reserve army of labourmust be central to any understanding of the effectiveness of the economicand non-economic combativity of some sectors of the working class along-side the relatively helpless condition of other sections in, for example,the post-war period .[34] Having noted these weaknesses of Braverman'streatment of the reserve army of labour, I will now return to discussion ofthe historical development of the capitalist labour process .

CRAFT AND CAPITAL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

As has already been noted Braverman's major concern is to analyse the de-

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gradation of work in the era of 'monopoly capitalism', but his under-standing of that process is necessarily underpinned by a view of the earlierphases of capitalist development. Indeed a major premise of his accountappears to be a periodisation of the degradation of craft work which em-phasises the initiatives of nascent 'monopoly capital' in the final years ofthe 19th century rather than features of reorganisation of the labourprocess which characterised the development of machinery and modernindustry throughout that century . This emphasis underwrites the accountof the general deskilling of craft work in the monopoly era and thecentrality attributed to Taylorism in that transformation . However, itrequires rather serious qualification-both from the point of view of ananalysis of the capitalist labour process in the 19th century, and in termsof the foreshortened perspective it offers on developments in the 20th .

Two related problems can be posed in relation to the emphasis ofBraverman's account:

1 . It fails to grant adequate recognition to the rapid development of thereal subordination of the labour process to capital on the basis of mechani-sation in some of the leading sectors of the capitalist economy of theperiod-a development which variously by-passed established craft skills,attacked and destroyed them directly to replace them with other forms oforganisation of labour and expertise, or quite often incorporated them inmodified form in a radically transformed organisation of the labourprocess.2 . It tends to portray the craftsmen of the second half of the nineteenthcentury in terms of the 'artisan ideal' when clearly their positions must beseen as in various ways transitional, marked to a substantial degree by realsubordination to capital .[35]

This latter point, in particular, has been underlined by recent contri-butions to the 'labour aristocracy' debate, which have been concerned tospecify more closely the interplay between changes in the organisation ofthe labour process and the nexus of political initiatives and commitmentswhich have generally been associated with that notion. For exampleFoster, in his analysis of class struggle in Oldham, has argued that workingclass militancy, within and beyond the workplace, together with a crisis ofdeclining profitability, precipitated major efforts to reorganise the labourprocess of both engineering and spinning . He suggests that skilled workerswere placed in a more distinct relation of subordination to capital, whileresponsibilities for pace-making and direction of non-skilled workers weremore explicitly delegated to them . His account also outlines some of thecomplex interrelations between such changes in the organisation of thelabour process and the forms of capitalist political initiative concerned tosecure local and national political hegemony .[36]

Foster's account dwells overmuch on particular forms of this subor-dination, such as piecemastering, and it is evident that a variety of specificforms of hierarchy, subordination and relative 'privilege' constitute basesin production of the political phenomenon of the labour aristocracy .Nevertheless Foster does demonstrate the importance of changes in the

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location and subordination of craft skills within the capitalist organisationof the labour process . Such considerations have led Stedman-Jones toargue that :

"even the skilled sectors of modern industry bore only a superficialresemblance to those of handicraft . Such skills were precarious andtransformable at the will of the capitalist in a way which those ofhandicraft had not been . In the cotton industry, the artificial positionof the cotton spinner has already been noted . In engineering, apartfrom a residuum of semi-handicraft skills, the new forms of skill werebased upon a quantum of literacy and technical instruction, and oftenincluded quasi-supervisory functions . They did not possess the directpurchase over the production process enjoyed by handicrafts, andwere unusable except in the factories for which they had beenacquired . This is part of what is meant by the 'real' subordination ofwage labour to capital . . .What was decisive was the effect of modernindustry upon their technical role in the labour process . It was not somuch their privileged position as the vulnerability of that positionthat changed their industrial outlook ."[37]

This account of the reorganisation of the capitalist labour process interms of the increasing subordination and vulnerability of craft skills,coupled with (i) an emphasis on the distinctive forms of hierarchisationcharacterising different industries (notably the specific significance of thesexual division of labour in cotton), and, (ii) an insistence on the speci-fically social and ideological location of the labour aristocracy in relationto those forms, represents an important advance over Foster's preoccu-pation with pace-makers (and capital exports) . However, Stedman-Joneshimself misplaces its significance when he formulates the transformation as"the breach in craft controls and then a restabilisation of the labourprocess which left formal distinctions of status untouched" .

This implies that skills became purely artificial and illusory, when toan important though variable extent they were transformed and encapsu-lated within modern industry in ways which sustained significant forms ofexpertise. Indeed such skills became the locus of vigorous organisation byelite groups of workers, who, in the context of rapid capital accumulationbased on established levels of mechanisation, were effective in defendingrelative privilege and parochial autonomy within the capitalist organisationof the labour process. Thus the relationship between 'real' expertise andcraft privilege in this phase of development of the labour process wasmediated by the specific relation of accumulation and mechanisation, bythe ideological role of elite groups of workers, and by their establishedforms of collective organisation .

These features clearly characterise the engineering industry during thesecond half of the nineteenth century, for, as both Foster and Stedman-Jones recognise and Burgess emphasises, the transformation of skills inthat sector before mid-century (from millwright to more specialised fittersand turners) was followed by a long period in which, with expandingmarkets and a tendency towards labour-using investment, the newer

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categories of skilled worker were able, on the basis of powerful collectiveorganisation, to sustain wage differentials and job controls which mili-tated against the control of capital . Hinton suggests that these features ofthe 'craft tradition' became increasingly precarious, in the forms in whichthey had become stabilised after the 1850s, as a further wave of capitalintensive mechanisation was unleashed in the last decades of the nine-teenth century.[38]

While engineering represents the outstanding case of the relativestabilisation of specialised skills for a significant interval within modernmechanised industry, the experience of cotton also reveals the scope forsome sections of workers to develop 'skill niches' within the increasinglyeffective subordination of the labour process to capital represented bymodern industry, again especially in the context of a phase of labour-using investment following a phase of increasing capital-intensity . It is inthis context that the historian of the cotton unions can argue that "fewoccupations 'in the cotton' are intrinsically skilled in the sense that theiradequate performance necessarily requires any long preliminary training",but "several textile occupations that are usually regarded as more skilled,are so because other duties-like the supervision of other operatives, orthe maintenance and setting of machinery-have been added to the funda-mental task of machine tending", while "there are cases . . . in which a'skill' has been quite artificially created, by the workers' gradual impo-sition of labour supply controls on a formerly 'unskilled' occupation" .[39]

Engineering and cotton represent sectors in which the changing formsof the real subordination of wage labour and the labour process to capitalencapsulate groups of workers who, albeit on a changing basis, experiencesome continuity of skilled organisation and status . Other sectors exemplify,especially towards the end of the century, more thoroughgoing trans-formations which nevertheless involve important residual or emergentforms of competence and bargaining leverage .

Stone's study of the transformation of production in the UnitedStates' steel industry is of particular interest in this respect, as itexemplifies one influential approach to such developments which is com-patible with Braverman and suffers from similar deficiencies . There aretwo dominant themes in her account. The first concerns the capitalistoffensive against long entrenched craft sub-contract domination of thelabour process in the context of intensified competition among increasing-ly capital-intensive corporations . The second concerns the specific mannerin which capital secured its hegemony over the reorganised labour processby removing planning and co-ordinating activities from the shop-floor andby differentiating a potentially homogeneous mass of semi-skilled workersthrough individual piecework and the elaboration of hierarchical jobladders. Stone's sharp and justified critique of technical determinist apolo-getics for the emergent organisation of production leads her to imply thatthe hierarchical organisation of jobs was a simply ideological differentia-tion of thoroughly homogeneous work tasks . However the detaileddevelopment of her argument suggests something different . It shows thatthe employers' strategy addressed a cluster of limited forms of expertiseradically dependent for their deployment upon the whole edifice of

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capitalist controlled organisation and machinery (the forms of semi-skilled work associated with the mechanisation which followed the defeatof the crafts) . This strategy deepened that dependency by encapsulatingsuch narrowly specified skills within job hierarchies . Thus :

"the new skilled workers had skills of a specific nature that enabledthem to perform specific tasks, but did not have a general knowledgeof the process of production . . . these workers had skills which wereonly good for one job . They did not have the independence of thenineteenth century skilled workmen, whose skills were transferableto other jobs and plants ."[40]

This account of the development of the real subordination of labourto capital in U .S. steel can usefully be compared with developments inthe U.K. steel industry chronicled by Wilkinson . In the latter case a para-llel development of job hierarchies of limited and plant-specific skills wasaccomplished by a somewhat different route which underlines the in-adequacy of an account in terms of a capitalist strategy of divide and rule .In the British case job-specific skills and the absence of cohesive workeropposition to capital did not result from the direct defeat and exclusion ofcraft subcontractors, but rather from changes in the labour process accom-panied by the extension and dilution of forms of collaborative collectivebargaining originating in the capital/sub-contractor relation . The resultantmutations of collective bargaining (involving the transmutation of wageand promotion hierarchies, sliding-scale agreements and arbitrationmachinery) need to be understood in relation to both (a) the increasinglyeffective domination of capital over the labour process signalled by thedevelopment of more specific skills embedded within a complex apparatusof collective labour associated with intensive mechanisation, and (b) thespecific phasing of increases in productiveness, levels of unemploymentand levels of international competition which conditioned the combativityof labour and capital and hence the organisation of the collectivelabourer. [41 ]

It is evident that the specialisation of labour and proliferation of semi-skilled workers characteristic of much mechanisation in the last decades ofthe nineteenth century represent major advances in the real subordinationof labour to capital. However it remains important to recognise theresidual forms of expertise and skill, and the conditions in which they mayconstitute effective obstacles to capitalist initiative . Hobsbawm's study ofthe organisation of gas-workers focusses attention on some of the possibleimplications of these developments for worker organisation . He traces themanner in which stokers (workers with important but easily replicableexpertise and dexterity) constituted a nucleus for the general organisationof gas works labour . This organisation was achieved in a boom periodfollowing a phase in which capital pursued increasing output primarilythrough the intensification of labour. It was followed, in the context ofincreasing competition, by a phase of increasing mechanisation which,however, did not destroy the organisation . For, Hobsbawm argues :

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"labour-saving and labour-simplifying devices do not, however, auto-matically dislodge key groups of workers from their strongholds. Theydo so only when such groups are unable to maintain their relativeindispensibility (i .e . their bargaining strength) during the crucialtransition period, and cannot therefore 'capture' the new devices forrecognised unionism, the standard rate, and standard workingconditions" .[42]

In this example the pace of technical advance was relatively slow while theindustry was comparatively sheltered and partially municipalised : in thesecircumstances the semi-skilled stokers sustained their organisation andleverage .

The theme of all of these studies of skills and the labour process in themid to late nineteenth century can be summarised as follows : the 'real'subordination of labour to capital, understood in terms of the adequateconditions for valorisation, cannot be simply equated with the thorough-going destruction of crafts and skills, but such tendencies for the degra-dation of work must be related to the specific obstacles to valorisationconfronted by capital, and to the forms of political and economic domi-nation of labour by capital . In particular they emphasise (a) the complexinterplay between the ideological and immediately productive aspects ofrelations of hierarchy and privilege in the organisation of the collectivelabourer by capital, and (b) the manner in which forms of worker com-petence and initiative lodged within the real subordination of the labourprocess to capital may continue to constitute significant bases of bothparochial worker resistance and counter-control and divisions within theworking class .

As has already been argued, it is necessary to locate the specificcharacter of such features in relation to the specific strategies of valori-sation dominating particular periods and sectors of nineteenth centurycapital accumulation . In relation to this task, Samuel has recently empha-sised that characterisations of the transformation of the labour process inthis period merely in terms of the advance of mechanisation, and resul-tant increases in productiveness, are highly misleading. He stresses insteadthat (i) mechanisation was adopted very unevenly and was combined withadvances in the capitalist domination of the labour process which owedlittle directly to mechanisation but were founded on the further sub-division of labour and upon the existence of a surplus of cheap labour ; and(ii) the adoption of mechanisation was itself significantly characterised bya 'capita/-saving' bias in the context of relatively cheap labour, so thatlabour intensity, manual dexterity and expertise remained major featuresof the reorganised labour process . The latter feature has already beennoted as characteristic of British engineering and cotton during specificphases of their development in the second half of the nineteenth century,and significantly makes a commonly argued point of contrast between thestrategies of British and American capital in this period .

Samuel's discussion hints at an important specification of the contextwithin which the developing forms of vulnerability and strategies ofcounter-control characteristic of skilled and quasi-skilled workers in this

C. & C.-F

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period, might be analysed. However, as yet his argument remains at themore primitive level of a general emphasis upon the continuing centralityof labour power within the labour process, coupled with a rudimentaryrecognition of these developing forms . The argument that "nineteenthcentury capitalism created many more skills than it destroyed, thoughthey were different in kind from those of the all-round craftsman, andsubject to a wholly new level of exploitation now requires further expli-cation along the lines indicated above, if we are to avoid either the roman-ticisation of craft or the imagery of precipitate deskilling which tends toseduce Braverman, whether that imagery is applied to the earlier develop-ment of modern industry or the later capitalist offensive constituted by'scientific management' . [43 ]

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

Braverman's analysis of `scientific management' is the pivotal feature of hiswhole account of the degradation of work in the 20th century and repre-sents a fine dissection of the manner in which the capitalist control of thelabour process was theorised by some agents of capital . However, thisaccount, while it rests firmly within Braverman's characterisation of thelong-term tendency of capital to wrest the labour process from craftcontrol, remains unsatisfactory in a number of important respects .

Firstly, as has already been suggested, it fails to provide an adequateaccount of the pre-existing organisational and political bases of capitalistdomination and extraction of surplus value, or the crises which confrontedvalorisation on that basis . Secondly, it appears to assume that an adequatelevel of subordination was then secured almost entirely at the level of thereorganisation of the labour process, in accordance with the theoreticallogic of the Taylorist attack on craft skills .

The inadequate analysis of pre-existing forms of the subordination ofthe labour process to capital, discussed in the previous section, makes itdifficult for Braverman to locate the specific context and targets of'scientific management' . Thus his discussion of the emergence of Taylor-ism is couched only in terms of a congeries of enabling features :

"The separation of hand and brain is the most decisive single step inthe division of labour taken by the capitalist mode of production . It isinherent in that mode of production from its beginnings, and itdevelops, under capitalist management throughout the history ofcapitalism, but it is only during the past century that the scale ofproduction, the resources made available to the modern corporationby the rapid accumulation of capital, and the conceptual apparatusand trained personnel have become available to institutionalise thisseparation in a systematic and formal fashion ." (p . 126, see also p . 85)

In this account it seems that the immanent tendency of capital toestablish real control over the labour process reaches its culminationsimply when capital has accumulated sufficient resources . There is littleindication of the manner in which scientific management and related

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initiatives arose out of any crisis in the process of accumulation of capital,of the manner in which capital was compelled to increase its scale and in-tensify its control over the labour process and create a complex corporateapparatus in an effort-itself not contradiction free-to transcend theseconstraints . [441

Hobsbawm provides an analysis, focussed upon the British experience,which constitutes an instructive comparison with Braverman in this res-pect. In his account, the development of major crises in the extraction ofsurplus value is seen as the underlying context of strategies for thereorganisation of production which were concerned with both the intensi-fication of labour and the facilitation of technical reorganisation ofproduction :

"It was safer if less efficient to stick to the old ways, unless pressureof profit margins, increased competition, the demands of labour orother inescapable facts forced a change . But the periods of majoreconomic adjustment after the Napoleonic Wars and the slump of1873 subjected employers to just this kind of pressure, and hence ledto major modifications in the methods of labour utilisation . In thepost-Napoleonic period the effect was delayed, since employers firstattempted to exhaust the possibilities of cutting labour costs by ex-tending hours and cutting money wage-rates . During the Great De-pression (1873-96), new methods tended to be adopted more quickly .Roughly speaking, the mid-century brought the beginning of the sub-stitution of 'intensive' for 'extensive' labour utilisation, the latter partof the Great Depression the beginning of the substitution of rationalfor empirical 'intensive' utilisation, or of 'scientific management' ."[45]

Thus Hobsbawm indicates the basis on which valorisation had beenaccomplished in the preceding phase of capital accumulation : mechanisa-tion, coupled with the subjection of unskilled labourers to drivingdiscipline and the cultivation of craft workers reliance on more-or-lesscustomary wage-effort relationships. However, the development of a crisisof profitability in the last quarter of the nineteenth century-as a con-sequence of both intensified competition (marked in particular by emer-gence of overcapacity) and increasingly effective working class demands-constituted the conditions for the 'efficiency movement' as a majorcapitalist initiative directed preeminently at the increasingly sophisticatedintensification of labour .

Two features of this account deserve particular attention, as bases forthe location and qualification of Braverman's discussion of 'scientificmanagement' and thus the development of a more adequate Marxistanalysis of capitalist strategy . Firstly, Hobsbawm makes a real attempt tolocate the crisis of accumulation which prompted these new forms ofcapitalist initiative. This allows us to address such issues as the uneveninternational adoption of 'scientific management', where it is evident thatthe United States was the pioneer in relation to Britain and the rest ofEurope. Here Hobsbawm's focus on the Great Depression, together withthe earlier discussion of differential wages and capital-intensive mechani-

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sation, can be related to Sohn-Rethel's discussion of this issue. He suggeststhat the impact of crisis led U .S. employers to early attempts to reorganisethe labour process, as they confronted both higher wages and the com-petitive disadvantage of lack of secure imperial markets . In Europe, how-ever, such attempts were retarded, until the First World War, by lowerwages and the cushion of imperialism .[46]

In addition Hobsbawm indicates the cluster of initiatives aimed at theintensification of labour within which the pursuit of deskilling must belocated. Thus he recognises that the most sophisticated schemes were de-vised against, and fought out with, the most organised and highly paidworkers, and involved major moves towards fragmentation and specificationof labour. However, they formed part of a broader array of techniques ofwage payment, aimed at the direct intensification of both skilled and non-skilled labour, and of technical and organisational changes, aimed at in-creasing productiveness .

I now want to turn to one of the few specific Marxian critiques ofLabour and Monopoly Capital, Palmer's discussion of the Americanexperience of the 'efficiency movement' between 1903 and 1922 . Palmertakes up this theme of the heterogeneity of capitalist initiatives butbroadens the analysis in a crucial way by tracing the significance ofworking class resistance to Taylorism and by examining the ideologicalrole of 'scientific management' in the pursuit of capitalist hegemony .

He begins by relocating Taylorism within a broad range of technicalinnovations, and systems of wage payment and work rationalisation,which represented responses to the intensification of capitalist compe-tition in the last decades of the nineteenth century . Thus he queries theadequacy of a discussion of the Taylorist programme which does not relatethat programme to the role of technical innovations in generating relativesurplus value, and underlines the perversity of Braverman's insistence onthe lack of any basic interconnections between technical innovations andstrategies for reorganising the work process . (L.M.C. pp . 85, 110)

Within this complex of initiatives the attack on craft and quasi-craftcontrols is properly seen as a central feature, though one which was rathervariably applied because of both the period of war-time boom and the spe-cific exigencies of production in various sectors, and the forms of effectiveworker resistance developed in these contexts . Thus the pursuit of capital-ist control of the labour process adequate to the requirements of valori-sation led to a major but uneven advance of the practises of intensificationof labour and of deskilling .

It is in this context that Palmer's central criticism of Braverman, thathe "is limited in his understanding of the extent to which working classopposition 'defeated' Taylorism and pushed capital to employ more subtlemeans of control in its quest for authority", must be interpreted . [47 ]Palmer's attention to working-class opposition, and in particular to thepersistence of organised resistance through the second and into the thirddecade of the twentieth century, is not meant to deny the real importanceof the processes of deskilling delineated by Braverman . It does, however,suggest that under certain technical and economic conditions craft workersrather effectively defended their autonomy, while the broader efforts to

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intensify labour which were intrinsic to the Taylor strategy also met moreor less effective organised and unorganised resistance, most obviouslyduring the war boom . It is this pattern of resistance and rebellion whichhas been discussed in greater detail by Montgomery, who draws out morefully the conclusions of a conflict over control of the labour process whichbecame an important feature of these struggles, and the predominantlyparochial control demands and counter-control strategies which issuedfrom them.[48]

Finally Palmer uses his discussion of the piecemeal application ofTaylorist principles and the reality of working-class resistance as the basisfor an appreciation of the significant ideological role of Taylorism and the(efficiency movement' more generally . This he portrays in terms of its sig-nificance in undermining a 'populist' conception of labour as the solecreative agent in production-a conception rooted in earlier modes ofworkers' control over the labour process and supportive of the remainingforms of counter-control characteristic of labour within the developingcomplex of the collective labourer in modern industry-and substituting aconception of labour as a passive factor of production . Palmer's discussionof this feature of Taylorism suggests that, while it informed and gainedcredence from developments in the practical degradation of work, itplayed a more general role, especially in the context of relatively effectiveparochial working class resistance . Thus it is to be seer. a s a key com-ponent among a series of 'personnel' and 'welfare' initiatives which streng-thened and sustained capitalist hegemony beyond and within production .Thus Palmer poses central questions about the relationship betweencapitalist initiatives in the reorganisation of the labour process and thebroader ideological and political conditions of capitalist hegemony andvalorisation which are glossed over in Braverman's treatment .[49]

The decades spanning the turn of the century, then, marked a periodof major capitalist initiatives concerned to secure adequate conditions forvalorisation and accumulation in the context of intensifying internationaloligopolistic competition and increased worker organisation . A substantialdeepening of the real subordination of the labour process to capital,accomplished through a combination of mechanisation and Tayloristspecialisation and simplification of labour, was and remains central to, butnot exhaustive of, the strategy of capital . The reorganisation of the labourprocess by capital interplayed with broader ideological and political strate-gies of incorporation and with specific attempts to intensify the exploi-tation of labour power .

Without doubt capital, in for example the engineering sector, sub-stantially advanced its domination of the labour process and of the increas-ingly specialised worker between the 1880s and the 1920s . Such changes,together with the evident dexterity and competence of significant nine-teenth century 'labouring' occupations, justify Braverman's sharp critiqueof both the method of construction, and the conventional 'upgrading'interpretation, of occupational census data trends concerning the in-creasing prominence of 'semi-skilled' workers (see L .M.C. pp. 426-435) .However Braverman's own discussion of the semi-skilled, coloured as it isby an idealised conception of craft skills to which he assimilates very

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heterogeneous instances of nineteenth century labour power, is itselfseverely inadequate in failing to locate the specificity of 'semi-skilled'work within the process of capital accumulation .

The deepening of subordination of the labour process to capitalassociated with Taylorism and the advance of mechanisation did not, asBraverman tends to imply, create a simply homogeneous mass of deskilledlabour on the shop-floor, but meant the elaboration of a complex,internally differentiated apparatus of collective labour which contained anuneven variety of narrow skills and specific dexterities . Hyman offers avaluable glimpse of these features in his account of the growth of a majortrade-union organisation of semi-skilled workers in Britain in the firstdecades of the century :

"automatic machines could be run by a novice after a minimum ofinstruction ; other, more complex machine tools could be operated byworkers without a full craft training . . .By 1914 they (the semi-skilled) accounted for a fifth of the engineering labour force, coveringa wide range of operations ; indeed, the gap between such semi-skilledworkers as the automatic stamper and the universal driller was fargreater in terms of skill than was that between the driller and thefully-skilled turner . . . the situation of the semi-skilled worker whohad become proficient on a complex machine tool was closer to thatof the craftsman than that of the labourer ; he was difficult to replacequickly, and his employers suffered heavy losses if expensive mechani-cal plant was standing idle ."[50]

Such a form of organisation of the labour process by capital cannotbe understood merely as some transitional phase in the trajectory of ageneral process of deski.ll.ing; it must be analysed in relation to the con-ditions of valorisation and class struggle characterising the relevant sectorand period. Thus it is necessary to consider the contributions whichspecific forms of mechanisation and semi-skilled labour make to the valori-sation and accumulation process, in terms of increased productiveness,reductions in the value of labour power and intensification of labour, andthe manner in which contradictions among these aspects constituteproblems for capital and bases of organisation and resistance for sectionsof the working class. The emergence of new forms of expertise aroundspecific phases of technical innovation may, for example, be significantlytolerated by capital during periods of expansion and valorisation pre-dominantly on the basis of increasing productiveness of labour . Certainlythe displacement of organised and costly. skilled labour by unorganisedand cheaper 'semi-skilled' labour may constitute a major opportunity forincreased profitability, but the discovery of bargaining leverage andincreasing opposition to speed-up by semi-skilled workers will not auto-matically trigger afresh round of mechanisation aimed at further deskilling .The relations between the advantages and disadvantages to capital of thespecific form of the labour process will be related to the relative signi-ficance of the aspects of valorisation mentioned above, and 'to the com-bativity of the labourers, as that is influenced by both the specific manner

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in which `skills' or dexterities are lodged within the collective labourer andthe broader context of forms of political and ideological domination andstruggle .

THE CONTEMPORARY DEGRADATION OF WORK

The above argument is of particular importance in relation to Braverman'saccount of the central role of mechanisation in the contemporary degra-dation of work in factory and office . In that account he effectivelychallenges orthodox myths concerning the general upgrading of labourassociated with, in particular, automation . However, because his analysis isdeveloped at the general level of an abstract compulsion towards thedestruction of craft expertise and its replacement by pervasive capitalistcontrol of the labour process, he is unable to address the complex, unevenand contradictory character of the organisation of collective labour .

Braverman does not entirely ignore the complex and contradictoryrole of mechanisation and reorganisation of the labour process in theprocess of capital accumulation :

"This displacement of labour as the subjective element of the process,and its subordination as an objective element in a production processnow conducted by management, is an ideal realised by capital onlywithin definite limits, and unevenly among industries . The principle isitself restrained in its application by the nature of the various specificand determinate processes of production . Moreover, its very appli-cation brings into being new crafts and skills and technical specialitieswhich are first the province of labour rather than management . Thusin industry all forms of labour ; oexist : the craft, the hand or machinedetail worker, the automatic machine or flow process" . (L.M.C . p .172)

However, this recognition does not become the basis for an analysis ofthe manner in which particular forms of organisation of the collectivelabourer and the labour process arise out of specific exigencies of valori-sation. Instead, in his discussions of mechanisation, Braverman tends toassume a general congruence between strategies of valorisation andaccumulation and deskilling, in which the former is lodged directly withinthe latter :

"In the capitalist mode of production, new methods and newmachinery are incorporated within a management effort to dissolvethe labour process as a process conducted by the worker and recon-stitute it as a process conducted by management ." (L.M .C . p . 170)

In such an analysis (i) the advance of mechanisation ultimately be-comes a matter of the evolution of techniques adequate to the deskillingimperative, rather than an outcome of the relation between forms of po-tential technical transformation and other conditions of the process ofaccumulation, while (ii) working class struggle is accorded the status of

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a merely transient or frictional reaction to capital (see e .g . L.M.C. pp . 129,180, 203), rather than being located as the articulation of contradictionswithin the forms of valorisation dominating a specific period of capitalaccumulation .

My earlier discussion of semi-skilled work has, in contrast with Braver-man's treatment, underlined the importance of analysing the ways inwhich mechanisation, as a strategy of accumulation, might (in conjunctionwith changes in the reserve army of labour) afford opportunities forrelatively effective worker organisation and struggle . On the one hand thiswould involve an attempt to specify the features of collective labour whicharise out of the interrelation of mechanism and labour power required forvalorisation ; both such 'positive' features as the need for labour withnarrow expertise and experience, and such 'negative' features as depen-dence upon a disposition among workers to facilitate (rather than disrupt)the logic of integrated production . On the other hand it would be necess-ary to locate the organisation of these features as the outcome of conflictbetween capital and labour.[51)

The limitations which the deskilling discourse imposes upon theanalysis of mechanisation can be clearly traced in Braverman's critique ofconventional interpretations of process production and automation . Therethey underwrite his reliance on Bright's account of transformations in theworker-machine nexus with the secular advance of mechanisation, andovershadow any consideration of specific exigencies of accumulation andtheir interrelation with the forms of expertise, dexterity, responsibilityand leverage embodied in the organisation of the collective labourer .

The importance of developing a more complex account of the organi-sation of the labour process in process production, in which the latterquestions would become central, can be indicated by examining a recentstudy which, unlike Braverman, focusses upon worker organisation andstruggle . Nichols and Beynon provide an account of the organisation of thelabour process, capitalist strategy and worker organisation in onechemicals complex during the last decade . They, like Braverman, frametheir analysis of the labour process in terms of deskilling : both contrastthe realities of labour in process production with the real skills of nine-teenth century craftsmen and with the spurious sociological idealisationsof the upgrading of skills in process production .

However, in their account of the workplace they also go beyond thesimple conception of deskilling to expose the complex and differentiatedcharacter of the apparatus of 'deskilled' collective labour produced by theaccumulation strategies of one sector of 'modern industry', and themanner in which contradictory features of that apparatus pose problemsfor capital at particular junctures in the accumulation process. Theirdiscussion emphasises :

(i) the persistent significance of heavy manual labour in the shadowof highly capital intensive production, conditioned by the trade-offfor capital between, on the one hand, the wage levels of the labourersand the capacity of capital to intensify that labour, and on the otherthe costs of investment and gains in production from further mechani-sation ;

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(ii) The development of job hierarchies, associated with specificproduction processes, in which forms of limited expertise andempirical skill are radically subordinated to the demands of valor-isation . The experience of these workers is summarised thus :

"they know their present job, for all its stresses and problems, is the'best job I could hope for-being unskilled' . They have escaped thetyranny of the bagging line but they live with the fear that it is atemporary release . . . the operator who is paid for being able tooperate a particular chemical process is well aware of the transientnature of his skills . These skills 'cannot be bought'-it 'takes years toreally get to know one of these plants'-but equally, by their verynature, they are tied to the continuance of a particular chemicalprocess".[52]and

(iii) the growing importance, for capital, of engineering an activevigilance, responsibility and initiative among workers on its behalf, asa result of the increasing integration, interdependency, and capital-intensity of the production process . This requirement gains particularprominence as capital responds to increased international competitionby intensifying the process of labour and cutting manning levels. Thisprovides the crucial context for the authors' discussion of suchcapitalist initiatives as 'job enrichment', which may then be located ascomplex responses to the specific problems of valorisation and accu-mulation confronting this sector of capital, rather than being seen ingeneric terms as a qualification of, or retreat from, 'deskilling' .[53]

Nichols and Beynon's account of the labour process invites an analysisof the manner in which the organisation of the apparatus of collectivelabour articulates with the exigencies and contradictions of accumulation,but they do not pursue the issue very far . They move rapidly on to a dis-cussion of the character of struggle in production defined on one hand bydevelopments in the labour process and on the other by the forms of ac-commodation to capital represented by national trade unionism and theorganisation and ideology of 'Iabourism'.[54] Some of the issues whichrequire more systematic discussion in an analysis of the labour processin this sector are suggested by another account of the organisation of'skills', in oil refining :

"The problem of inter-unit mobility was even more intractable. Therewas clearly good reason for management to encourage people todevelop skills in handling jobs on different units . It made it mucheasier to cover illnesses, and the manpower shortfalls due to holidays .In each refinery there was a small group of workers that were official-ly polyvalent, that is to say, whose job was to fill gaps in differentteams as the need arose, and they had to possess the range of skillsnecessary to do this . But the real aim of management was to createa much more general capacity for flexibility among those who were

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normally attached to a particular unit . This seemed, however, to haverun into a number of problems. On the one hand the question ofpayment for new skills once more raised its head in an even moreacute form, on the other there seems to have been some reluctance onthe part of older operatives to actually pass on their knowledge toother people . Finally, management itself accepted a considerabledegree of responsibility for failing to provide enough time foradequate training. What seemed to have happened is that the size ofthe workforce had to be reduced to a point at which it was difficultto spare people from their everyday work ."[551

Here the contradictory pressures of capital for the ossification ofspecialised competencies, for the flexibility and general reliability oflabour power, and for de-manning and intensification of work ; and theforms of resistance and struggle which workers develop around thesecontradictions, are sharply focussed as capital attempts to respond to acrisis of accumulation . In a period of rapid accumulation, on the basis ofnew technology, capital in this sector had moved towards the organisationof the collective labourer as series of specialised job hierarchies comparableto those discussed by Stone and Wilkinson, but a phase of increasing inter-national competition has shifted capitalist strategy towards the intensif-cation of labour and expulsion of workers from the industry . In thiscontext, workers' struggles over manning and relocation have gained somelimited leverage, both from their command over specific forms of quasi-skills and from the more general susceptibility of integrated, highly capital-intensive plant to their non co-operation or disruption .

Such an analysis of the development of the labour process in chemicalprocess production constitutes an attempt to locate the specific anduneven character of the process characterised by Braverman and others asdeskilling, in relation to the exigencies of valorisation and accumulation .In that sector capital has, for a period, cultivated residual forms of exper-tise organised in a manner which enhances their subordination to the re-quirements of accumulation, as well as developing a more general ideo-logical offensive designed to engineer the forms of `responsibility' requiredby capital in the context of 'capital-intensive' production .

The development of the labour process in motors represents a some-what different variant of these features of mechanisation and strugglearising from the persistent transformation of the immediate process ofproduction in response to exigencies of valorisation and accumulation .There the introduction of flow-line production, adopted throughout theindustry during the 1920s and 1930s, had a massive impact in the dis-placement of skilled by semi-skilled workers during that period, as capitalsought to reduce the turnover time of capital, to reduce the value oflabour power and to intensify labour . In the post-war period the continu-ing advance of mechanisation and automation in motors has broughtincreasing productivity and a more tightly integrated flow productionwithout further pronounced effects on the narrow and specialised tasks ofthe workers :

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"the replacement of the craftsmen on direct production work bysemi-skilled operators was brought about by the mass productiontechniques of the 1930s . Consequently, the subsequent mechanisationhas had little further effect on the composition of the direct labourforce. The introduction of transfer machines for example, has meantthat fewer semi-skilled machine operators are required to produce anyoutput desired ; but the machines are still tended by semi-skilledoperators".[561

Thus the post-war valorisation and accumulation strategies of capitalin motors have not created a totally homogeneous unskilled stratum ofworkers but a mass of semi-skilled workers embodying a limited hetero-geneity of forms of training and experience . This mass of semi-skilled worktasks has constituted a terrain on which major struggles have developedbetween capital and labour, both around attempts at the intensification oflabour and around the structuring and advancement of wages .

The increasing integration and capital intensity of production, as ithas interplayed with the intensification of international competition inthe industry, has led to recurrent attempts by capital to intensify pro-duction . Thus the previously quoted study of labour relations in the motorindustry argues that

"under the less mechanised and integrated production systems . . .superficially scientific methods of labour measurement still allow con-siderable room for shop-floor negotiation : the 'allowances' to beadded to the 'elements' of which particular operations are composed,the 'effort-rating' of ' the workers studied, and even the 'elements'themselves, may all be adjusted to make a specified work load accept-able. The mechanisation of handling, however, combined particularlywith the use of automatic data processing and other control devices,has very much reduced the margin of managerial uncertainty in work-load assessment-and thus also reduced the area within which the'effort bargaining' which is a major function of union workplaceorganisation can operate . At the same time, the high capital costs ofthe new equipments puts a considerable pressure on management towork it as intensively as possible, so that its own front in bargainingis likely to be stiffened ."[571

However it is not merely a question of the reduction of managementuncertainty . Such developments, in the context of relatively full employ-ment during the post-war boom, have also generated important sources ofleverage for effective workplace worker organisations which can sometimesexploit the integration and capital intensity of the plant to effectivelyresist intensification and to recover some porosity in the working day .Thus, as Beynon argues in his important study of conflict on the frontierof control at Ford's Halewood plant

"these controls over the job gained the operative a degree of auto-nomy from both supervision and higher management. Through their

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steward they were able to regulate the distribution of overtime,achieve a degree of job rotation within the section, and occasionallysub-assembly workers, in particular, were able to obtain `slack' workschedules . But there were quite precise limits to the way in whichworkers can run the section . " [ 58 ]

As Beynon has emphasised such precarious counter-controls cannot beunderstood through an analysis of developments in the labour processalone but must be seen in the wider contexts of both the post-war develop-ment of workplace union organisation and changes in class relationsbeyond production. One important component of the articulation oftransformations in the labour process with these developments concernsthe specific character of wages struggles in motors, which have involvedattempts by capital to develop forms of grading and wage payment whichmost effectively compel the exercise of specific dexterity and experienceto maximise intensity and productiveness, and attempts by workers, bothsectionally and more generally, to adopt the rhetoric of 'skills' to gainskilled wages and conditions on the terrain of semi-skilled mass production .

CONCLUSION

Braverman's work has not merely 'completed' Baran and Sweezy'sanalysis of monopoly capitalism by extending it to embrace the labourprocess but has performed the more substantial service of returning atten-tion more generally among Marxists to the study of the development ofthe capitalist labour process . My discussion has focussed on 'deskilling' asthe major theme of Braverman's own return to that study . I have arguedthat it is necessary to advance beyond both the spurious concreteness ofthe generic impulse towards deskilling, which governs Braverman'saccount, and the truncated mode of formal analysis developed by theBrighton Labour Process Group, towards a historically located theorisationof the transformation of the capitalist labour process within which de-skilling may be adequately located as a tendency . Such a theorisation, towhich this paper serves only as a preliminary contribution, would ex-plicitly locate the forms of transformation of the labour process in relationto phases of valorisation and accumulation, and trace their articulationwith class relations beyond production . Only on that basis would it appearpossible to develop an analysis of the labour process which will be of realvalue in the formulation of working class strategy and appropriate formsof political intervention in struggles within production .

NOTES

The author teaches sociology at the University of Warwick .1

This article is a revised version of papers read at the C .S.E. 1977Annual Conference and at a B .S.A. Industrial Sociology Group con-ference on "Skill and the labour process" . I have benefitted from dis-

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cussion with members of the Warwick C .S.E. and Trade Unionismgroups, and from comments by Bill Schwarz and John Humphreys .

2 Early reviews of Braverman concentrated on exposition of his analysiswhile more recent reviews have developed more critical assessments .Among the major reviews are Heilbroner, 1975 ; Davies and Brodhead,1975; de Kadt, 1975 ; Monthly Review, 1976; Young, 1976 ; Jacoby,1977; Schwarz, 1977 ; Lazonick, 1977 ; Nichols, 1977 ; Coombes,1978; Cutler, 1978 and MacKenzie, 1977 .

3 Among examples of this criticism see in particular Schwarz, 1977 ;Jacoby, 1977 ; Coombes, 1978 ; Nichols, 1977 ; Palmer, 1975 ; Fried-man, 1977 and MacKenzie, 1977 .

4 See in particular Schwarz, 1977 ; Lazonick, 1977 ; Jacoby, 1977 ;Coombes, 1978 and Palmer, 1975 .

5 Schwarz, 1977, p . 162 .6 His discussion of economism (LMC pp . 150-151) is underpinned by

assumptions concerning the capacity of capital in the monopolysector to finance wage gains out of monopoly superprofits, whichclearly articulate with the position of Baran and Sweezy-see dis-cussion below .

7 Braverman, 1976, p. 124. At one point in Labour and MonopolyCapital Braverman recognises working class self-activity outside pro-duction only to counterpose to it the total domination secured bycapital through and within production :

"This working class lives a social and political existence of its own,outside the direct grip of capital . It protests and submits, rebels or isintegrated into bourgeois society, sees itself as a class or loses sight ofits own existence, in accordance with the forces that act upon it andthe moods, conjunctions and conflicts of social and political life .But since, in its permanent existence, it is the living part of capital,its occupational structure, modes of work, and distribution throughthe industries of society are determined by the ongoing processes ofthe accumulation of capital. It is seized, released, flung into variousparts of the social machinery and expelled by others, not in accordwtih its own will or self-activity, but in accord with the movement ofcapital ." (LMC p . 378)

8 LMC pp . 53-54, where the discussion of accumulation in Marx (1 976a)and Baran and Sweezy (1966) is footnoted . Braverman provides acasual reference to the predominance of absolute surplus value in theearliest stages of capitalist production (p . 45), and a brief discussionof the significance of relative surplus value in the context of commen-tary upon the scientific and technical transformation of the capitalistlabour process (p . 70) but they do not constitute an integral part ofhis analysis of the degradation of work . As Braverman conceptualisesdeskilling in generic terms of capitalist control he has no need to ela-borate an analysis of valorisation and accumulation, and merelyacknowledges en passant the analysis of Baran and Sweezy (1966) .However he nowhere repudiates their concept of the surplus . Jacoby,

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1977, p . 200 claims that "Braverman parts from Baran and Sweezy intheir most 'revisionist' concept-their concept of surplus" and returnsto the orthodox concept of surplus value, but this rests upon a mis-reading of another distinction drawn by Braverman, between hispreoccupation with movements of the surplus labouring populationand Baran and Sweezy's focus on the surplus . (see J acoby, 1977 p .200, quoting LMC p . 255)

9 The analysis developed by Marx, 1976b, makes explicit the theori-,sation of the transformation of the labour process from its inheritedform to a form appropriate to capital accumulation-from 'formal' to'real' subordination of the labour process to capital-in a mannerhardly visible in Capital itself. However it is only in Capital that thetransformation of the labour process is effectively related to the limitsand contradictions besetting specific phases of . valorisation andaccumulation .

10 This is implied in Marx's caution concerning the ideological and or-ganisational features of skill within the developed capitalist labourprocess :

"The distinction between higher and simple labour, 'skilled labour'and 'unskilled labour' rests in part upon pure illusion, or, to say theleast, on distinctions that have long since ceased to be real, and thatsurvive only by virtue of a traditional convention ; in part on the help-less condition of some sections of the working class, a condition thatprevents them from exacting equally with the rest the value of theirlabour power. Accidental circumstances here play so great a part thatthese two forms of labour sometimes change places ." (Marx, 1976a,p. 305, footnote)

11 Some commentators,. for instance Mandel in his introduction to Marx,1976b, p . 944, identify real subordination with mechanisation andmodern industry while manufacture is identified with formal subor-dination. While Marx clearly considers modern industry as the cul-mination of `real subordination' it is also clear that the manufacturingdivision of labour represents a form of 'real subordination' . ThusMarx, 1976b, argues that :

"The real subsumption of labour under capital is developed in all theforms evolved by relative as opposed to absolute surplus value . Withthe real subsumption of labour under capital a complete (and con-stantly repeated) revolution takes place in the mode of production, inthe productivity of the workers and in the relations between workersand capitalists ." (p . 1034) and

"The social productive forces of labour, or the productive forces ofdirectly social, socialised (collective) labour come into being throughco-operation, division of labour within the workshop, the use ofmachinery, and in • general the transformation of the production bythe conscious use of the sciences, of machines, chemistry, etc . for

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specific ends, technology etc ., and similarly, through the enormousincrease in scale corresponding to such developments." (p. 1024 andsee also the discussion on pp . 1054-1055)

This conceptualisation underlines the central significance of scale anddevelopment of a complex apparatus of collective labour as well asmachinery in Marx's analysis of the mystification of the capitalrelation arising through the real subordination of labour and thelabour process to capital . It should be noted that this usage is carriedover into Capital itself, both in the organisation of the material underthe heading of the 'Production of Relative Surplus Value', and in theoccasional specific usage of the notion of real subordination (e .g.Marx, 1976a, pp. 448, 453, 481 and Marx, 1972, p. 236 wherereference is made to "the more or less imperfect subordination oflabour to capital".)

12 The specific place of the 'intensification' of labour in the analyses ofAbsolute and Relative Surplus Value is ambiguous in some respects,but must primarily be located as an element of Relative Surplus Valueproduction . See the discussion of Palloix, 1976, in footnote 23 .

13 In this context Marx's celebrated discussion of the contradictionsbetween specialisation and the flexible development of human compe-tences in modern industry (Marx, 1976a, pp. 614-619) cannot be in-terpreted only as a contrast between capitalist reality and potentialforms of the organisation of labour in a socialist society, nor only as acontrast between forced specialisation of labour powers within thecapitalist factory and the crippling obsolescence of such specialis-ation when the labourer is thrown out of employment, but also as acontradiction besetting the capitalist organisation of the labourprocess itself in relation to the pursuit of valorisation .

14 Brighton Labour Process Group 1976, 1977 .15 Thus they emphasise that:

"It is important to note that when Marx talks of the development ofthe productive forces he explicitly does not refer solely to the de-velopment of the technical basis of production . The development ofthe productive forces that is the basis for the real subordination oflabour to capital is a development of both the objective conditions oflabour, and of the social combinations of labour . The capitalist labourprocess cannot be specified on the basis of its technological com-ponents . But also note that it cannot be specified on the basis of therelation established within it between the individual worker and theinstruments of production . It can only be specified as a particularform of organisation of labour, a form which is a specific form ofcoercion and the realisation on an adequate basis of the objective ofvalorisation." Brighton Labour Process Group, 1977, p . 6 .

16 Ibid. On deskilling and job enlargement pp. 19-20 and for a sharpstatement of the argument concerning the lodging of skills within alarge-scale collective labour process, p . 11 .

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17 Ibid, p . 23 . The paper is prefaced and concluded by clear statementsof the 'level of analysis' adopted . Note, however, the rather differentform of abstraction, including accumulation, adopted by Palloix .

18 Thus they argue that :

"There is still a relationship between labour and the conditions oflabour within production which provides labour with a degree ofcontrol and hence with a lever with which to enforce its class ob-jectives which may, of course, be different from those of the fullydeveloped proletarian labour of the mature capitalist mode of pro-duction." Ibid, pp. 6-7 .

19 Thus they note, on the one hand, that "capital, having a monopolyof knowledge and power over the relations between labour and themeans of production, uses this power, this real domination, in orderto enforce the objective of valorisation", while, on the other, theyremark that "this relation of capital to labour is not a static one,but is constantly reproduced in new conditions, it is the site of con-stantly renewed class struggle" . Ibid, pp . 13 and 11 respectively .Indeed, despite the slogan 'valorisation in command', the extractionof relative surplus value is given the same analytical status as mechani-sation or large-scale production in the characterisation of real subor-dination, rather than being understood as the strategic objective whichis pursued through these related forms . See p. 9 .

20 Cutler, 1978 . In addition the Brighton paper explicitly locates distinc-tive forms of working class demands and struggle characteristic of thephase of formal subordination, as noted above, in a manner whichcontradicts Cutler's claim . I cannot, within the limits of this paper,confront the underlying grounds of Cutler's criticism in the repu-diation of the labour theory of value by Cutler et al . 1978 .

21 Palloix, 1976 . All comments refer to this translation . I have abstractedwhat I take to be the core of Palloix's argument from a text which intranslation remains sometimes rather opaque .

22 Palloix, 1976, p. 56 .23 Palloix's conceptualisation of aspects of valorisation diverges from

that of Marx, as sketched out earlier, in that the production of ab-solute surplus value is made to embrace the extension of the workingday and intensification of labour/reduction of porosity while relativesurplus value is identified solely with technical transformations whichultimately reduce the value of labour power. (Palloix also, somewhatconfusingly, terms absolute and relative surplus value extensive andintensive surplus respectively .) Despite certain ambiguities Marx'streatment of intensification is clearly at variance with that adopted byPalloix as is shown in the following explicit formulation :

"Once the capitalist mode of production has become the establishedand universal mode of production, the difference between absoluteand relative surplus value makes itself felt whenever there is a questionof raising the rate of surplus-value . Assuming that labour power is paidfor at its value, we are confronted with this alternative : on the one

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hand, if the productivity of labour and its normal degree of intensityis given, the rate of surplus value can be raised only by prolonging theworking day in absolute terms ; on the other hand, if the length of theworking day is given, the rate of surplus value can be raised only by achange in the relative magnitutes of the components of the workingday, i .e. necessary labour and surplus labour . . . this change presup-poses a change in either the productivity or intensity of the labour ."(Marx, 1976a, p . 646, and see also the discussion on pp . 533-534)

While this represents a clear difference of conceptualisation it is lessone of substance than of analytical focus. In this context Marx clearlytreats as the crucial differentiating feature of relative from absolutesurplus value the fact that a transformation of the labour process isintegral to both increasing productiveness and this phase of the in-tensification of work (thus it remains appropriate to treat porosityin the context of formal subordination as a form of absolute surplusvalue production), while for Palloix the dominant considerations arethe distinctive manner in which productivity of labour is related tothe circuit of accumulation, and the similar manner in which workingclass resistance may confront both the extension of the working dayand the intensification of work .

The implication of these different emphases is only that Palloix'sdiscussion of valorisation and accumulation within modern industryis conceptualised in terms of the relation of absolute and relativesurplus value production whereas Marx analyses the relation of in-tensification and productivity as aspects within the form of relativesurplus value . At the same time Palloix acknowledges the co-relationof productivity and intensity which is the basis of Marx's concep-tualisation :

"The intensification of work involves reducing the amount of timeduring which labour power produces no value . It thus promotes theproduction of an extensive (absolute) surplus . But this form of pro-duction of an extensive (absolute) surplus, linked to mass production,is necessarily related to the production of an intensive (relative)surplus. Nevertheless, the limits of the production of an extensive(absolute) surplus are determined by the resistance of the workingclass to the intensification of the system of work." (Palloix, 1976,p. 50)

24 Palloix, 1976, pp. 49-50. The first point seems to displace Marx'sdiscussion of the role of transient gains for individual capitals basedon reduction of labour-time below the social average . It should benoted, however, that Marx sometimes treats as analogous 'exception-ally productive labour' and 'intensified labour' . See Marx, 1976,p. 435 .

25 lbid, p . 54 .26 Mandel, 1975 .27 For a sympathetic critique see Rowthorne, 1976 . While Rowthorne

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emphasises the value of Mandel's attempt to develop an historicallylocated account of the complex interplay of fundamental processesimplicated in the accumulation of capital he is critical of - Mandel's tooready reliance on rising organic composition/falling rate of profitarguments, both theoretically and in relation to post-war capitalistdevelopment . This he relates to an incipient technicism in Mandel'saccount of waves of technical innovation which, despite his treatmentof the reserve army of labour, gives insufficient attention to thestructural mediation of technical innovation in state and capital'sstrategy . As Rowthorne recognises these important criticisms do notundermine the value of Mandel's contribution as outlined in the text .

28 For brief comments on Braverman's conceptualisation of the reservearmy of labour see below pp . 24-26 .

29 See Sweezy, 1942 ; Baran and Sweezy, 1965 ; and Sweezy, 1974 .30 For critiques see Mandel, 1575, esp. chapter 17 ; Gamble and Walton,

1976, chapters 3-4 ; and also Rowthorne's critique of Mandel whichunderlines the point that the critics should not and need not rest theircase on a mechanical invocation of rising organic composition/fallingrate of profit arguments (see also Fine and Harris, 1976) . It is worthadding that these strictures do nothing to undermine the emphasisBaran and Sweezy place on the increasing centrality of advertisingand marketing strategies for oligopolistic capitalism, or Braverman'srelated analysis of the elaboration of this part of the corporate appa-ratus and personnel, in LMC, chapter 12 .

31 LMC, chapters 10, 11 and esp . 17 .32 See Beechey, 1977, who develops an analysis of the specificity of

female wage labour in capitalist production .33 Mandel, 1975, esp. chapter 5 ; see also Rosdolsky, 1977, pp . 282-313 .34 As Jacoby, 1977, notes, many American socialists have adopted a

`dual labour market' theory to address such systematic divisionswithin the working class . Most such analyses of dual labour marketshave been merely descriptive taxonomies, limited to (a) the character-isation of employer strategies of labour-market segmentation designed,for example, to secure the stability of a pool of trained and experi-enced workers ; as (b) such strategies articulate with, and amplify, pre-given divisions within the working class . Marxian authors have madesome attempt to integrate and qualify such taxonomies by locatingthem within the process of capital accumulation (see Gordon, 1971,and Edwards, 1975) but such syntheses have tended to identifydualism directly with the contrast between monopoly and competitivesectors of capital, and to treat hierarchisation simply as a strategy ofideological division, thus loosing sight of the dynamic and contradic-tions of such strategies for capital, and the terrain this provides forclass struggle . Rubery (1978} provides a valuable assessment of thesedifferent approaches to the analysis of the internal differentiation ofthe working class, and begins to discuss the manner in which suchdifferentiation develops in class struggle . She emphasises the centralrole of sectional worker organisation, but also attempts to locate thatsectionalism in the interplay between (i) established forms of worker

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organisation, and (ii) the terrain of struggle afforded by capital'sstrategies of transformation of the labour process . (See also footnote51 .)

35 For a vivid account of the realities of subordination inherent in thereorganisation of craft work under the auspices of capitalist manu-facture, see McKendrick, 1961 . .

36 Foster, 1974, esp. chapter 7 .37 Stedman-Jones, 1975, p. 65 . It should be obvious that I agree with

Stedman-Jones that the notion of the 'labour aristocracy' does not, initself, constitute an analysis, but is rather, a label for a nexus of inter-relations between labour process, phases of accumulation, and workingclass politics and culture . Moorhouse (1978) provides a hostile assess-ment of attempts to develop an analysis of the 'labour aristocracy',which usefully summarises the problems, and emphasises in particular(a) the number of different accounts of this nexus on offer, and (b)the problematical character of the relation between working classpolitics and developments in the labour process . However, on the basisof this argument he seeks to absorb the debate into general analyses ofworking class sectionalism and the cultural hegemony of capital, ina manner which denies the evident significance of vertical divisions,between skilled and quasi-skilled workers and non-skilled workers, asa basis for cultural and political divisions .

38 Hinton, 1971, esp . chapter 2 . In addition Burgess, 1975, provides auseful account of the phases of development over the whole secondhalf of the nineteenth century, and Burgess, 1969, focusses on thetransformation in engineering in mid-century .

39 Turner, 1962, pp . 110-112 .40 Stone, 1973, quotation from p . 47 .41 Wilkinson, 1977 . Rubery (1978) provides a more explicit critique of

Stone than Wilkinson along the lines suggested by his account . Seealso the critical comments by Palmer (1975) p . 31 .

42 Hobsbawm, 1964, quotation from p . 170 .43 Samuel, 1977, quotation from p . 59 .44 Though lack of space precludes further discussion, it should be noted

that a valuable aspect of Braverman's analysis of Taylorism is hisaccount of the development of a corporate apparatus of planning andcontrol (LMC esp. chapters 5, 15 and 18) . However, it is doubtfulwhether the notion of a shrinking elite of conceptualisers counter-posed to a mass of deskilled clerical labourers constitutes an adequatebasis for the analysis of that apparatus .

45 Hobsbawm, 1964, quotation from p . 356 . See also Landes, 1969,pp . 301-323 .

46 Sohn-Rethel, 1976, 1978 .47 Palmer, 1975, quotation from p . 32.48 Montgomery, 1976, and the commentary by Green, 1976, who em-

phasises the parochial character of the control demands of craftgroups, and the preoccupation with wages and effort among thesemi-skilled .

49 Palmer's discussion of Braverman has been characterised by deKadt

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(1976) in terms of the distinct levels of analysis at which they haveworked : Braverman at the most general level of the logic of capital,and Palmer at the more particular level of specific forms of workerresistance and diverse employers' strategies . Palmer (1976) seems toaccept this characterisation and equate it with the distinct preoccu-pations of political economists (laws of motion) and social historians(resistance and struggle of the 'losers'), adding only that the laterconstitutes a countervailing logic which qualifies the former . However,this concedes too much, both in general and in relation to aspects ofPalmer's argument: the bases and forms of resistance must themselvesbe theorised in relation to the dynamic of accumulation if class(resistance and struggle of the 'losers'), adding only that the latterstruggle is to be analysed as integral to the laws of motion of capital,and not be merely tacked on at the end .

50 Hyman, 1971, pp . 40-41 and p. 70. See also Fox, 1958, pp. 359-360for related observations on changes in the organisation of narrowskills in the boot and shoe industry .

51 Rubery (1978) offers a useful analysis of the bases of bargaining leve-rage among semi-skilled workers in mechanised production . She em-phasises that :

"the development of capitalism not only presents problems forworker control and organisation, inducing defensive tactics on thepart of existing trade union organisations, but also offers new oppor-tunities for organisation . Thus the development of machine techno-logy may to some extent have undermined the skilled union's basis fororganisation and control but, by transforming much unskilled labourinto semi-skilled labour or, rather, by increasing the proportion of thelabour force directly involved in the mechanised production process,it increased the bargaining power of a large section of the labourforce. Semi-skilled workers were now in control of a greater volumeof production, and further represented a threat to some skilledworkers as the real skill differential declined, thus forcing someskilled unions to recruit semi-skilled workers, whilst in other indus-tries organisation of semi-skilled workers proceeded independently ."Ibid, p. 30.

This focus on the bargaining terrain afforded by mechanisation mustclearly be seen in relation to changes in the reserve army, of labour,but appears more satisfactory than Friedman's (1977) almost totalreliance on the 'drying up of the active reserve army' as a basis foranalysing worker resistance among the less skilled .

52 Nichols and Beynon, 1977, quotation from p . 23 .53 This suggests that neither deskilling nor 'responsible autonomy' (see

Friedman, 1977) can adequately be analysed as generic control stra-tegies . For a critical assessment of Friedman see Schwarz, 1978 .

54 Indeed, the authors move on so rapidly that they make little attemptto theorise their discussion of the labour process, so that, inevitably,their treatment of the tactics of worker organisation remains only

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97

tenuously related to that discussion .55 Gallie, 1978, p. 80 .56 Turner et al . 1967, chapter 3, quotation from p . 86 . The authors also

note that the numbers of somewhat skilled indirect workers haveincreased .

57 Turner et al . 1967, p . 92 .58 Beynon, 1973, p . 148 .

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