Wage labour has grown more pervasive even as manufacturing employment declined
Evidence
The fact that manual industrial workers no longer form the majority of wage-labourers does not of itself imply the beginning of the end of the ‘work-based society’. Wage-labour has if anything become a more pervasive feature of social experience in the past half century, with the decline of peasant agriculture and the growing involvement of women in the labour-market. The fact that much of this labour now involves interacting with other people rather than producing goods does not change the social relations involved: one striking feature of contemporary industrial relations is the spread of trade unionism to the ‘caring professions’ (health, teaching, social work, etc.) — 1988 saw major industrial disputes involving nurses in both Britain and France. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 480
Categorization
- XREF: Direct rebuttal of postindustrial/work-based-society theorists like Habermas, Castells, and the same thesis Jameson inherits from Mandel. — connects to: Growth rests on workers selling labor for less than the value they create — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 95; Deindustrialized regions supply surplus labor at lower wages to late capitalism — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 286; Capitalist growth structurally reduces rather than increases employment. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 245 (+2 more)
- QUESTION: Worth checking whether unionization of caring professions has continued or reversed since 1988.
Broader Connections
- Growth rests on workers selling labor for less than the value they create
#expands(0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 95 - Deindustrialized regions supply surplus labor at lower wages to late capitalism
#expands(0.80) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 286 - Capitalist growth structurally reduces rather than increases employment.
#qualifies(0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 245