INTERCAMBIO MAGNÉTICO
Capítulo 27 LA ESCUELA HINAYANA
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In fact, contrary to the euphoric predictions of the 'post-industrial society' thesis, the generalised upgrading of labour in response to the needs of a 'technological' society has simply not eventuated. Rather, as Braverman (1974) reports, the introduction of new work technologies has led to a progressive 'deskilling' of labour which he insightfully characterises as the 'degradation of work.'
Tellingly, clerical, professional and technically-qualified employment has not escaped the effects of these changes within the labour-process. Thus, while such categories of workers have grown numerically more prominent in advanced capitalist societies, the identity of vast slabs of this new strata as distinctively-privileged occupations has been made a hollow pretence by objective changes in their work situation and the consequent decline in pay, prestige and job security of such employment. (It is also noteworthy that in the present economic crisis in Australia, such presumably high-status professions like architecture and engineering as well as those classic models of professions viz. law and medicine, are experiencing relatively-high levels of unemployment. The ultimate irony of 'post-industrialism' is the incipient growth of unemployment among computer specialists!)
What all of this adds up to, is that Bell's (1974) grandiose (and flawed) vision of benevolent technocratic hegemony has been completely exploded. As was obvious from the outset to those whose vision was not blurred by the rose-tinted prisms of Bell's recklessly-optimistic
futurology, the scientists and engineers instead of becoming a new ruling class were essentially being transformed into the 'servants of power' - to use Baritz's (1965) very apt expression. In effect, as
Giddens (1973) noted, 'post-industrialism' really meant that the 'powerful have knowledge' rather than that the 'knowledgeable have power'.
To put it another way, the assimilation of science and technology
within the existing framework of capitalist power relations symbolises not the creation of a qualitatively-different social system but the entrenchment of the existing system of power and privilege. Thus, the expansion of the ranks of 'intellectual' labour heralds the extension of traditional oppressions rather than the birth of a new millenium. To understand the altered situation of white-collar and professional employment and the potential for enhanced class-consciousness on the part of these groups, it is vital to grasp the phenomenon of
'stratification in the labor process' as V/achtel (1974) dubs it. Before proceeding to do so, however, it is necessary to dispose of some of the misleading formulations which are propagated by the contemporary 'Left'.
The static orientation
There is a vast amount of academic literature providing a wealth of information on various aspects of 'industrial relations' in capitalist society. In fact, few areas have been more thoroughly studied,
measured, tabulated and reported on - even though significant gaps remain to be filled. Yet, for all the massive documentation and, in some cases, the undeniable technical virtuosity of conventional industrial relations research, it is highly-debatable whether this perspective offers (or, indeed, even claims to do so), an adequate
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intellectual basis for the theoretical understanding of working class institutions like trade unions - let alone the factors which conduce to their development and subsequent possibilities.
Characteristically, the industrial relations perspective, as earlier emphasised, is predicated upon the assumption that capitalism is basically unproblematic. Fundamental to this approach, is the presumption that the capitalist system has the ability to endlessly reproduce its productive relations. Trade unionism therefore, not surprisingly, is axiomatically viewed as part of a broad ideological consensus which assumes the inviolability of the capitalist framework of industrial relations and simply devotes its energies to getting the best terms within it.
Significantly, the attempts to develop 'Marxist' approaches to 'industrial relations' ironically embody many of the conceptual deficiencies of the latter. Illustrative of this is Richard Hyman's
(1975) 'Marxist introduction' to industrial relations. Briefly, and very promisingly, the stated aim of Hyman's book is to "sketch an
approach which grasps 'industrial relations' as an element in a totality of social relations of production" (1975: ix). In particular, as he further tells us, his approach "seeks to develop an analysis which is firmly rooted in the Marxist perspective, and is necessarily influenced by the attempts of others to apply this perspective to the field of industrial relations" (Hyman, 1975: 6).
Essentially, what Hyman claims to be offering is a "political economy of industrial relations". (1975: 31) Central to this perspective, is a definition of industrial relations as the "processes of control
over work relations". (1975: 12) More importantly, these 'processes of c o n t r o l ' take place within a distinctively capitalist c o n t e x t .
This means that much of the productive system is privately owned, with ownership concentrated in a very small number of hands, that profit - the pursuit of economic returns to the owners — is the key influence on company policy (whether or not top management actually possesses a financial stake in the firm); and that control over
production is enforced downwards by the owners' managerial agents and functionaries.
(Hyman, 1975: 19)
T y p i c a l l y , Hyman makes much of his 'dialectical' approach and insists upon according conceptual primacy to the 'social relations of product- ion' . Y e t , he neglects to demonstrate precisely how the changes within the capitalist labour process which are presently transforming the occupational structures of capitalist societies and drastically altering the patterns of union growth and activity are mediated by the social relations of production. More precisely (and bluntly), Hyman's approach evidences little concern with bringing Marxism up to date in the face of the profound structural transformations which have been generated by the capitalist mode of production. Indeed, other than occasionally acknowledging that 'clerical' and 'technical' workers e x i s t , Hyman does not explore the significance of the
structural locations of such layers in the labour process for either their unionisation or their industrial behaviour.
C e r t a i n l y , he gives little analytical attention to the degree to
which the stratified nature of the labour process generates divergences of interest between the various segments of the labour force thereby
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conducing to sectionalism in their organisational activities. (See below 1.) Consequently, while he advocates greater trade union and worker solidarity, he can provide no inkling as to the actual or potential structural bases for such alliances. Thus, although the value of 'industrial relations' in its bourgeois forms is interrogated and even condemned as irrelevant by Hyman, all that he can seemingly offer in the final analysis is a vague wish for the "abolition of
'industrial relations' as it exists today through working-class struggle". (1975: x) (See below 2.)
The limitations of current Marxist efforts to provide a theoretical approach to industrial relations are even more glaring apparent in
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Clearly, the rcon-ifications of the tendency for the hieravchical form of the labour-process to stratify not only between but vrlthin oacu:pa,tions would, seem to require at least some theoretical explan- ation.
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Despite such criticisms, Hyman's work is a great advance over the descriptive, empiricist approaches which tend to predominate in
Hn^stria.l relations', since it offers much-needed theoretical insight into the com:plex contradictions which underlie the wage- labour relationship under capitalism. It is quite true, as Hyman indicates, that the 'institutionalisation of class conflict' is highly-precarious in that such conflict is inherent in the class relationship. But if the sectional nature of such conflict is not spelled out in more detail, the limits (and possibilities) of such struggle is almost impossible to assess. Admirable though his aims are to provide an approach to industrial relations which is 'exrplicitly theoretical', Hyman's basic failure to relate his analysis to amy empirical reality results in a fundamentally
untenable level of generality and abstractness in his social gaze. }!hile it can readily be conceded that theory may assume a wide variety - both of forms and of levels of abstraction, the validity of a theory with pretensions to informing radical social action, basically resides in its capacity to clearly grasp the nature of reality and to delineate th^ conditions for its c'nange. ^tting it simply, if we are going to aspire to change reality, it is imperative that we are first able to make sense of it.
the work of writers like Allen (1971) and Lane (1974). Stated simply, Allen sets out to formulate a 'sociology of industrial relations',
while for his part. Lane modestly proposes to investigate the 'politics and trade unionism of the British working class'. Allen's basis
premiss, as he confides "is that movement is generated and perpetuated by the existence of contradictions at every level of social behaviour and in all its aspects. It is on the notion of contradiction that the possibility of model building for a dynamic analysis really rests." (1971: 8-9). Yet, as he simultaneously reveals, "there is little
evidence of the use of such a model" (Allen, 1971: 9) in his book. Sadly, for Marxist theoretical advances in 'industrial relations' Allen is perfectly correct in this judgement.
Accordingly, in place of any coherently worked-out theory, we are offered the feeble argument that "implicit in the book is the assump- tion that movement occurs through contradictions". (Allen, 1971: 9). However, this statement only begs the question of what conceivable purpose can there be in having an assumption - implicit or otherwise - which has no basis in the overall analytical framework.
Interestingly, in both Allen's and Lane's books, the trade unions are cast in leading parts in the industrial relations drama. Allen, for example, is of the opinion that the "central institutions in the sociology of industrial relations are trade unions". (1971: 20) Likewise, Lane insists that: "Absolutely central to an understanding of the political condition of the working-class is a clear and unem- bittered appreciation of that class's one durable monument: the trade unions". (1974: 28) The basic inadequacies of these 'Marxist'
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approaches are especially-evident in their exponents' concept of 'industrial relations'.
Most notably, to Allen, "industrial relations arise out of the prime economic relationship in society which is the buying and selling of
labour-power". (1971: 9) Ironically, by giving analytical prominence to labour as a commodity, Allen's methodological approach explicitly highlights the market or distributive aspects of social class as the central reality of 'industrial relations' - contrary to Marx's own
view, which gives theoretical primacy to the antagonistic relations of production in explaining capital-labour interactions. (See below) As Marx himself was at pains to point out, the locus of worker oppression
under capitalism is to be found - not in the sphere of market relation- ships but in the realm of production relations. From Marx's theoretical perspective, the market relationship a fortiori mirrors the fundamental
polarity in capitalist production relations i.e. between those who