Class, Productive and Unproductive Labour - Journal of Alternative ...

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Class, Productive and Unproductive Labour: Divisions in the Global Working Class?The most important question with regard to class is as towhether class as a construct can be used to explainapparent divisions between workers in the global North andthose in the global South. To this end, a discussion of thedistinction between productive and unproductive labour isundertaken which will relate to the various activities thattake place during the production and consumption of acommodity, and will endeavour to understand the divisionsthat exist between workers.2. ClassCapitalism has become increasingly global in itsoperation, but the key consideration at hand is whetherworkers can have power to influence capitalism. Wright(2001:29), in describing the potential power of workers,suggests that “…exploitation constitutes a social relationwhich simultaneously pits the interests of one group againstanother and which requires their ongoing interactions; andsecond, it confers upon the disadvantaged group a real formof power with which to challenge the interests of exploiters.”Put simply, to make profits, capitalists need workers as partof the productive process. It is this need that gives workersthe potential to exert influence within or against capitalism.From the position of workers engaged in globalproduction, to apply Wright’s logic to an increasinglyglobalized capitalism, is to stress the need for political actionbeyond the national boundaries of any particular workingclass. For workers and capitalists alike, globalization wassignificant because the shackles that bound capital toindividual nation states were removed. This process greatlyaltered the balance of power in favour of the capitalistagainst the worker. Critical to Wright’s argument about thepower the working class has to exert influence is the abilityof the working class to control its own labour, the right it hasto withhold that labour, or the ability it has to determine thelevel of exertion in performing that labour (2001:29). Thecritical point is that this power was greatly diminished whenit became possible for capital to simply shift production to amore favourable location with a more compliant workforce.Indeed, capitalists need not shift their investment in18
Dr. Timothy Kerswellresponse to the threat of workers withholding or decreasingthe intensity of labour, capitalists are also able to shiftproduction simply in search of greater profits.At the heart of power that capitalists have in a globalizedproduction setting, is the discipline that is exerted on theworking class through its fractured nature. The potentialwillingness to withhold or slow down production from onegroup of workers is nullified by the willingness of anothergroup of workers to work should the opportunity arise. Farfrom confronting capitalists and capitalism and attemptingto exert influence, the dynamics of global capitalism have ledto a situation where workers are far more inclined to acceptcompromise working longer hours, for lower wages in worseconditions. To examine the dialectical opposite of Wright’sview of the power held by the working class in capitalism, asmuch as the capitalist needs the worker, within a capitalistsociety, the worker needs the capitalist in order to meet theirmaterial needs. The worker, above everything, needs to beemployed.If the compromising situation workers of the early 21 stcentury find themselves in is ever to be altered, it is thesubjective strength of the workers that will have to change.Global solidarity amongst workers involved in globalizedproduction would be significant as it would reassert thebargaining position of the workers. If capitalists lost theability to force workers to bargain against one another forwork, then the dynamics of global capitalism would beentirely changed. The important question that flows fromthis strategic point however, is in relation to who would beinvolved in such a solidaristic relationship. In consideringaggregate groups of workers, the most obvious conceptaround which a basis for solidarity can be formed, is thenotion of the working class.In accounts that see workers of the world as a singularwhole, what brings the majority of the people in everycountry together as part of the working class is the wagerelation. This position is held by Marx and Engels in theCommunist Manifesto, but equally it is held by numerousmodern theorists both Marxist and non-Marxist alike. The19
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