harry braverman, labor and monopoly capital

Introduction

(10): intermediate classes discussed in the Second International--but abortive

(11): labor movement's critique of capitalism as a mode of production became a critique of capitalism as a mode of distribution

(16): insistence that machine/technology is embedded in social relations

(19): the growth of the forces of production within a mode of production (i.e., the growth of potential forces of production--for the next mode of production, within antiquated forms--industrial capitalism "gives us" electric power, internal combustion engine, atomic power)

(20): technology does not produce social relations, but is produced by social relations represented by capitalism.

(23): Khruschev ridiculing Chinese industrialization as 'eating soup with an awl'

(26): new/old working class confusion -- everything, in some sense, is 'new' as an occupation, in other words, because the labor process has--always--been in flux

(27): this book is about the working class as a class in itself, not a class for itself

(29-30): three expressions of class consciousness

1. absolute expression -- pervasive durable attitude
2. long-term relative expression -- slowly changing traditions, organization
3. short-term relative expression -- dynamic complex of moods and sentiments

PART ONE

Chapter 2

(51): labor-power critically important--won't necessarily look like this to the master of laborers. but for the individuals who allocate their own labor, this is of critical importance (and this is where, he's suggesting, the labor theory of value begins)

(52): emphatically not Smithian--three conditions of capitalist production

1. workers separated from the means of production, can only gain access to them by selling labor-power
2. workers freed of legal constraints that prevent them from disposing of their labor power
3. purpose of employment is the expansion of capital

(54): what the capitalist buys is the right to dispose of the worker for an agreed period of time. this is not the purchase of labor (which is an inalienable human function), but of labor-power.

(55-56): the essential distinction between human and animal labor is the infinite malleability of the former; example of the ox (who lacks the many-sided potentiality of the human)

(57): labor process has become the responsibility of the capitalist

(58): capitalist, thus, strives to take control--this presents itself, to us, as the problem of management.

(60-63): from "timid" to "avid" capitalists--they avoid taking control, at first. but eventually, the potential benefits are simply too great (controlling/moulding the labor process--this is, also, a precondition for rapid technological change)

(66): absolute surplus value, and habituation (association of early industry with prisons, workhouses, and orphanages)

Chapter 3

(72): distinction between the social division of labor and the division of labor in detail

(74): the stupidity of Durkheim (thank you!)

(80): Babbage's innovation--dividing the craft cheapens the laborers you are hiring; decreases the value of labor-power

(82): the capitalist mode of production systematically destroys skills where they exist--bringing into existence skills that correspond to its needs. the end of the generalized distribution of knowledge about the production process.

Chapter 4

(90): Taylor is not someone who was seeking the best way to do work in general, but the best way to manage alienated labor (labor power that is bought and sold).

(98): natural soldiering (laziness) and systematic soldiering. Taylor saw himself as up against the latter.

(100): the conclusion Taylor drew was simple--so long as workers control the labor proceess, capital cannot realize the full potential inherent in their labor power.

(107): and this is the pivot on which management turns--the control over the decisions that are made in the course of work no longer belong to the worker.

(113, 119): three principles of scientific management:

1. dissociation of the labor process from the skills of workers--it should be planned not according to craft or other principles
   
2. separation of conception from execution
3. use of the monopoly over knowledge of the labor process to control each step

(118): Taylor understood the Babbage principle

Chapter 5

(126): separation of hand and brain is the most decisive step, again (socially, of course, their unity still exists; but not individually, in the labor process as experienced by the worker)

(129-130): the influx of laborers from ruined agriculture, the advent of new industries which require some skill training -- all this can obscure a long-term, secular trend toward the incessant lowering of working-class skills.

(132): craftsman traditional repository of technical knowledge of the production process

Chapter 6

(146-149): the way in which the worker is habituated to the capitalist mode of production is not through manipulation or cajolery, but through socioeconomic forces--the capitalist mode of production destroys all other forms of organization of labor, and thus eliminates all alternatives for the working population.

PART TWO

Chapter 7

(156): science, like labor, has been turned into capitalist property [question, here, of the role of the State?]

(166): the distinctiveness of the scientific-technical revolution, the systematic application of science to the labor process (which really takes off in the last quarter of the nineteenth century)

(169): initially, it is the organization of labor that changes. next, it is the instruments of labor that are revolutionized. to the question of how this happens, though, there is no unitary answer (it is open to history, we might say)

(171): and this, then, coincides with a systematic attack on the unity of thought and action in the labor process. this signals its total destruction, in a sense. [there is an important point about technology being both an effect and a cause of the separation of planning and execution, here]

(172): he is arguing, though, that this is an ideal that is only realized within definite limits [the question is what are these limits, and how can they be established]

(179-180): worker is seen as a machine from the perspective of capital, which is the animating principle of this method of labor organization (of this mode of production)

(182): moving, in a sense, towards abstract labor stripped of all its concreteness

(184): two approaches--the engineering approach, which abstracts from social relations, and the social approach, which views technology as situated in social relations.

(185): we must look at technology as it affects the labor process.

(188): the key element in the development of machinery is not size, speed, etc., but the manner in which its operations are controlled (and thus, of course, what this spells for workers and the labor process)

(190-191): trends in machine development -- from universal to specific to universal functions again?

(193): excellently put--machinery presents us with the possibility of human control over the labor process. but this is nothing but an abstraction, as humans is not explicated in the concrete social setting in which we find ourselves. what it really means is that the mass of humanity is subjected to the labor process, rather than it being set to serve the interests of humanity in general [well expressed, here]

(195): machinery offers management a mechanical means of doing what it might be unable to do through organization or discipline -- take effective control of the labor process.

(199): revolutionary effects of 'numerical control'

(203): price ratio is 12 (old) to 1 (new)

(206): the pursuit of the increased productivity of labor, under capitalism, becomes "generalized social insanity"

(208): in this relentless pursuit of productivity without reference to human need, we have the reductio ad absurdum of capitalist inneficiency.

(212): the crux, again -- machinery enabling control of the labor process, from outside.

(216, 218-219): very interesting tables about levels of control (17!)

(227): dead labor and living labor

(229): it has become fashionable to attribute powers to machine, where we ought to be speaking of social relations

(230): in reality, machines also present us the possibility of eliminating drudgery for all (and a commensurate sharing of the remaining boring tasks) -- this is a classic presentation of forces/social relations contradicton

(237): value of labor power/machine implementation discussion --some interrogation needed, here, of his earlier argument and the preconditions for it.