EUR  â¬165.60EUR  â¬138.00 excl. VAT
Farewell to Work?
Essays on the World of Workâs Metamorphoses and Centrality
Series: - Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Volume: 198
Author:
Farewell to Work? presents the large process of capitalâs productive restructuring, triggered in the 1970s. A process with tendencies to both intellectualize labour power and increase the levels of working classâ precariousness, on a global scale.
Its main hypothesis is that instead of workâs loss of centrality in contemporary capitalism, when the world of production is analysed in its global dimension, including countries in North and South, a substantial process of growing heterogeneity, complexity and fragmentation is observed. This configures a new morphology of the working class. Therefore, at the same time that new mechanisms are created to generate surplus labour, there is, simultaneously, an increment in casualisation and unemployment, pushed by a process of corrosion of labour rights.
Its main hypothesis is that instead of workâs loss of centrality in contemporary capitalism, when the world of production is analysed in its global dimension, including countries in North and South, a substantial process of growing heterogeneity, complexity and fragmentation is observed. This configures a new morphology of the working class. Therefore, at the same time that new mechanisms are created to generate surplus labour, there is, simultaneously, an increment in casualisation and unemployment, pushed by a process of corrosion of labour rights.
Ricardo Antunes is a Full Professor of Sociology (University of Campinas) and author of The Meanings of Work and Addio al lavoro?, among other books. He was Visiting Professor at University CaâFoscari and a Visiting Researcher at University of Sussex.
"Ricardo Antunes is a lucid and passionate (these two characteristics can coincide) narrator of the epochal transformations of workersâ labouring, living and organisational conditions [â¦] A narrator that, in profoundly describing the capacity of global capital to materially transform and subjectively manipulate work and workers, never loses sight of societyâs social antagonisms and of the possibilities of emancipation from wage labour, inscribed in the capitalist social relations of our time." â Pietro Basso, Un cataclisma, e il suo lucido narratore. Preface to the Italian edition of Farewell to Work?
"Ricardo Antunesâs book presents theoretical insights of great interest on the current question of the Marxist distinction between âabstract labourâ and âconcrete labourâ, and on the increasing hegemony of the former on the latter, under the capitalist organization of society. Supported by György Lukácsâ Ontology of Social Being, this Brazilian sociologist courageously defends the idea of labourâs central role as the âproto-formâ of social organization, and clarifies the importance of the transition from the heteronomous condition of workers to that of real autonomy." â Nicolas Tertulian, in: Actuel Marx no. 22, France
"I have read Farewell to Work? with all the attention that it deserves. The question of changes in the organic composition of capital â with all its justified controversies â is really a matter of concern to all of us. I dealt with this problem, a long time ago, when I had the energy for such a task. In almost all of the Western languages, there is an extensive bibliography on the subject. Behind it lies the peculiar idea that the category of labour is vanishing. This is similar to that theoretical current that longs for a society in which only the bourgeoisie exists, without the proletariat. I really like this book. It is clear, objective, well-informed and indispensable to those worried by the subject. Congratulations! It is the most important book on Economy and Politics that has emerged here in the last years, very long years." â Nelson Werneck Sodré, in: Brazilian historian
"This remarkable and very up-to-date book by Ricardo Antunes demonstrates that capitalism, above all, remains a form of exploiting the workforce. Technical and social forms of organizing the production of commodities â whether material or cultural, prosaic or virtual â are modified. It is not about waving âfarewell to workâ, but to recognize along with Ricardo Antunes that forms of labour and productionâs technical and social organisation change continuously, nationwide and worldwide. In all cases, the expropriation is put in question, always accompanied by the contradictions between labour and capital, i.e., the workers and the owners of the means of production. That is why the class contradictions remain the main driver in the history of capitalism, moving towards socialism." â Octávio Ianni, from the back cover of the Spanish edition of Farewell to Work?
"Ricardo Antunesâs book presents theoretical insights of great interest on the current question of the Marxist distinction between âabstract labourâ and âconcrete labourâ, and on the increasing hegemony of the former on the latter, under the capitalist organization of society. Supported by György Lukácsâ Ontology of Social Being, this Brazilian sociologist courageously defends the idea of labourâs central role as the âproto-formâ of social organization, and clarifies the importance of the transition from the heteronomous condition of workers to that of real autonomy." â Nicolas Tertulian, in: Actuel Marx no. 22, France
"I have read Farewell to Work? with all the attention that it deserves. The question of changes in the organic composition of capital â with all its justified controversies â is really a matter of concern to all of us. I dealt with this problem, a long time ago, when I had the energy for such a task. In almost all of the Western languages, there is an extensive bibliography on the subject. Behind it lies the peculiar idea that the category of labour is vanishing. This is similar to that theoretical current that longs for a society in which only the bourgeoisie exists, without the proletariat. I really like this book. It is clear, objective, well-informed and indispensable to those worried by the subject. Congratulations! It is the most important book on Economy and Politics that has emerged here in the last years, very long years." â Nelson Werneck Sodré, in: Brazilian historian
"This remarkable and very up-to-date book by Ricardo Antunes demonstrates that capitalism, above all, remains a form of exploiting the workforce. Technical and social forms of organizing the production of commodities â whether material or cultural, prosaic or virtual â are modified. It is not about waving âfarewell to workâ, but to recognize along with Ricardo Antunes that forms of labour and productionâs technical and social organisation change continuously, nationwide and worldwide. In all cases, the expropriation is put in question, always accompanied by the contradictions between labour and capital, i.e., the workers and the owners of the means of production. That is why the class contradictions remain the main driver in the history of capitalism, moving towards socialism." â Octávio Ianni, from the back cover of the Spanish edition of Farewell to Work?
Foreword
Preface to the English edition
Acknowledgements
List of Tables
Introduction
part 1
Heterogeneity and Fragmentation of the Working Class
1âFordism, Toyotism and Flexible Accumulation
2âMetamorphoses in the World of Work
3âDimensions of the Trade Unionismâs Contemporary Crisis Dilemmas and Challenges
4âWhich Crisis of Labour Society?
â1âFirst Thesis
â2âSecond Thesis
â3âThird Thesis
â4âFourth Thesis
â5âFifth Thesis
part 2
Labourâs New Morphology
5âThe Explosion of the New Services Proletariat of the Digital Age
â1âThe End of the Myth
â2âService Work and Marxâs Fundamental Clues
â3âCan Immaterial Labour Generate Surplus Value?
â4âMiddle Class, Precariat or the New Service Proletariat?
6âFreeze-Dried Flexibility A New Morphology of Labour: Casualisation and Value
â1âIntroduction
â2âBrazil in the New International Division of Labour
â3âThe New Forms of Labour and Value: Tangibility and Intangibility
â4âThe Design of the New Morphology of Labour
7âThe Working Class Today The New Form of Being of the Class-that-lives-from-Labour
8âThe Crisis Seen Globally Robert Kurz and the Collapse of Modernization
â1âAn Explosive Book
â2âAnd Its Main Gaps
9âThe International Working Class in 1864 and Today
â1âIntroduction
â2âThe New Morphology of Labour: Informality, Casualisation, Infoproletariat, and Value
â3âConclusion
Master References
Index
Preface to the English edition
Acknowledgements
List of Tables
Introduction
part 1
Heterogeneity and Fragmentation of the Working Class
1âFordism, Toyotism and Flexible Accumulation
2âMetamorphoses in the World of Work
3âDimensions of the Trade Unionismâs Contemporary Crisis Dilemmas and Challenges
4âWhich Crisis of Labour Society?
â1âFirst Thesis
â2âSecond Thesis
â3âThird Thesis
â4âFourth Thesis
â5âFifth Thesis
part 2
Labourâs New Morphology
5âThe Explosion of the New Services Proletariat of the Digital Age
â1âThe End of the Myth
â2âService Work and Marxâs Fundamental Clues
â3âCan Immaterial Labour Generate Surplus Value?
â4âMiddle Class, Precariat or the New Service Proletariat?
6âFreeze-Dried Flexibility A New Morphology of Labour: Casualisation and Value
â1âIntroduction
â2âBrazil in the New International Division of Labour
â3âThe New Forms of Labour and Value: Tangibility and Intangibility
â4âThe Design of the New Morphology of Labour
7âThe Working Class Today The New Form of Being of the Class-that-lives-from-Labour
8âThe Crisis Seen Globally Robert Kurz and the Collapse of Modernization
â1âAn Explosive Book
â2âAnd Its Main Gaps
9âThe International Working Class in 1864 and Today
â1âIntroduction
â2âThe New Morphology of Labour: Informality, Casualisation, Infoproletariat, and Value
â3âConclusion
Master References
Index
Researchers, members of trade unions and social movements and all those interested in sociology of work, economy and the contemporary working class.