Ford’s wages fail to compensate for the exhaustion of its labour force.
Evidence
The answer is difficult because the skilled labour force at Ford is extremely unstable and as a result it is not possible to establish an average for “rational” turnover among Ford workers for the purpose of comparison with the average in other industries. But why is it unstable? Why on earth should a worker prefer lower wages than those paid by Ford? Does this not mean that the so-called “high wages” are less capable of reconstituting the labour power expended than the lower wages paid by other firms? The instability of the labour force demonstrates that as far as Ford’s is concerned the normal conditions of workers’ competition for jobs (wage differentials) are effective only to a limited degree. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1143
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- QUESTION: Gramsci’s point that high wages can under-reconstitute labor power than lower ones invites comparison with modern wage-worker exploitation debates.
Related
- Ford’s high wages derive from a new, more exhausting form of labor-power consumption. (similarity 0.93)
- Ford’s direct control of distribution cut costs and enabled high wages. (similarity 0.83)
- The core-periphery workforce split assumed by post-Fordism is implausible in intense international competition. (similarity 0.79)