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Journal of Political Economy
Citation preview
Capitalism and Gold
Duncan Innes
The decade of the 'seventies has been characterised by radical and
often dramatic changes in the sphere of international capitalist
relations. Political changes apart, the period has seen a marked
escalation in the price of oil, raging world inflation, recessions in
all the world's leading industrial economies and an increasing
tendency towards poverty and even bankruptcy in many
countries of the so-called Third World . Running parallel with
these developments has been the phenomenon of a massive rise
in the gold price and, concomitant with this, an unprecedented
resurgence of public interest in the metal .
The complex task of understanding these seemingly disparate
phenomena and drawing out the links between them has been
undertaken by many on the left, but often largely with a view to
examining their implications for a particular country rather than
examining their implications for the international capitalist
system itself . In this article, I intend to try and explain some of
the recent developments in the price of gold by reference to
gold's historical role in the capitalist monetary system and by
trying to understand the relation between the changing form of
that system and the broader crises and pressures that are inherent
in the world capitalist economy . Although this article will inevit-
ably leave many key questions unanswered, I hope that the
systematic presentation of the historical evolution of gold's role
in the monetary system will contribute to the debate about the
nature of the present world economic crisis and its effect on the
monetary system .
The first section of the article will outline the classical
Marxist theory of the various functions which money performs in
the capitalist system . This exposition provides a theoretical basis
for the subsequent historical discussion of the role gold came to
6The Functions
of Money
CAPITAL AND CLASS
play in the monetary system and also of the reasons for ti
changing nature of that system over time . The following sectioi
will provide a detailed analysis of the role of gold in the poi
World War II phase of capital accumulation, with particular stre
being laid on the conditions which gave rise to the current cri;
in capitalism and on the effects of that crisis on gold's role in tl
monetary system .
`Money does not arise by convention, any more than ti
state does . It arises out of exchange ; it is a product of ti
same.' (Marx, 1973, p. 165)
According to Marx, the capitalist exchange process (the basis i
which may be expressed in the syllogism, C - M - C) can on
function systematically if the commodities which are exchang(
have as their value a common property, human labour, by whit
they can be measured against each other. The human labor
which is embodied in the commodity is measured by social
necessary labour time . The value of all commodities is thus dete
mined by the amount of human labour, measured in terms 4
socially necessary labour time, which they embody and whi
oppression from some abstract theory of the needs of capital
the existing 'family -household system' for example, is not the
only possible way of reproducing labour-power - but at the samc
time must see the relations of oppression as by now entrancheo
within the nature of capitalist relations of production . The
precise ways in which gender division become built into capital
ism were determined by the history of struggles between men ant
REVIEW ARTICLE:
135
women,within
theworking class and within the bourgeoisie .
Things could have' worked out differently : there was no essential
logic to capitalist production dictating the present outcome .
Thus if we were to ask `Is women's liberation possible under cap-
italism?', we could not expect to find the answer in a theory of
capital. The problem and its answers are alike historical .
As a programmatic statement, I found myself very much in
sympathy with this. But like all programmes, it means different
things to different people. And what characterises Michele
Barrett's version of it is the insistence that the historical analysis
must be one which keeps distinct the economicand the ideolog-
ical . In the analysis of the family, which is the most substantive
section of the book, this means a clear distinction between famil-
ial ideology and household . The ideology of the family presents
the man as breadwinner, the woman as dependent, and the family
itself as a haven of privacy beyond the public world of work.
The household as a material institution, by contrast, is one in
which women perform their domestic drudgery, and from which
they venture forth into low paid, unskilled wage labour; as
Michele has argued elsewhere ('The Family Wage', with Mary
McIntosh, Capital and Class 11) the working class family with
man as sole breadwinner is largely mythological . This distinction
does point to some important questions about the nature of
female dependency, and the illusion of the housebound house-
wife, but in the end leads into strange territory . Having made this
distinction between familial ideology and household, and argued
for a tension between them, Michele Barrett then has to explain
the pervasiveness of this ideology which seems so much at odds
with the reality of the working class household . And here she is
forced onto an Engels-type argument : that familial ideology
arose as part of the class practice of the bourgeoisie, and that
somehow- in a process that is by no means clear to me - the
bourgeoisie were able to impose this on the working class. The
conclusion is that familial ideology is part of bourgeoishegem-
ony. If this were true, it would indeed be reassuring for socialist
feminists. But can the tensions between working class politics and
feminism be so easily resolved?
The argument invites a response at a methodological level . It
is tempting to enter into debate with the version of materialism
offered: to argue, for example, that analyses which re-affirm our
old categories of the economic and the ideological are not the
best way forward for feminism; to argue that we can hope to
avoid indeterminacy without falling back on distinctions develop-
ed within theories which barely touched on the complexities of
gender. But such temptations should probably be resisted . As
Michele Barrett herself argues, the issues will not be resolved at
the level of theory alone, but will depend on an historical analysis
of the contradictory ways in which the oppression of women
has become embedded in the nature of contemporary capitalism .
136 CAPITAL AND CLASS
The difficulty with Women's Oppression Today is that th
explicit argument - for a historical approach - is very much a
odds with the implicit message - which would seem to attac
great weight to methodological imperatives . It could simpl
provoke further episodes in the debate about the nature o
marxist feminist analysis in general, and if the experience c
debates about the nature of Marxist analysis in general is anythin
to go by, such discussions are unlikely to lead far . But if he
programmatic statement for the future of feminist work is take .
seriously, we may be able to free ourselves from the legacy o
recent years and get on with the task of developing feminist
analysis .
Feminist Review aims to develop the theory of Women's Liberation
and debate the political perspectives and strategy of
the movement, and to be a forum for work in progress
and current research and debates in Women's Studies .
Previous issues of Feminist Review have included : Mandy Snell on the
sex discrimination legislation, Beatrix Campbell on sexual politics and
women's liberation, Nicola Murray on Cuba, Veronica Beechey on
patriarchy and much more . . . education,
feminist history, feminist campaigns,
feminism and culture . . .
Why not subscribe?
Feminist Review is published three
times a year. Only 4 .50 for three
issues for a UK individual subscription
Only 5 .50 for an overseas individual
subscription .
Subscriptions, general enquiries and
information about institutional and
airmail overseas rates available from
Feminist Review, 65 Manor Road,
London N.16, UK .
Reviews
WORKING CLASS CULTURE-STUDIES IN HISTORY
AND THEORY
Edited by John Clarke, Chas Critcher and Richard Johnson .
Hutchinson (London : 1979) pp. 301, 8.95
Reviewed by Howard Horne .
Thirty five years ago Adorno and Horkheimer published their crit-
ique of the capitalist `culture industry', `Dialectic of Enlightenment' .
It was an analysis which sought to rescue `high art' from the barbar-
ous distortions and trivialism of `mass art', and to show the deleter-
ious effect of mass culture on the emotional and political sensibilit-
ies of the working class . A subsequent tradition of sociology and
social/cultural history has attempted to retrieve `culture' from the
elitist embrace of the Frankfurt School, replacing `culture as aesth-
etics' with a concept of culture, derived from social anthropology,
which stresses its meaning as a continuous creative process : Culture
as `a way of life', a way of making sense of the world .
It is difficult to locate the authors of Working Class Culture (the
latest commodity from the prolific collective pens assembled in and
around the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies)
within the Frankfurt tradition of cultural theory . Yet neither are
they easily situated in terms of the work of British 'culturalism' .
Much of the text reviewed here represents a sustained theoretical
critique of Hoggart and, more significantly, Williams and E . P.
Thompson-those who seize on the title expecting an integrated
empirical history of the working class to unfold in the pages will be
disappointed . We must read the qualification contained in the
subtitle : `Studies in History and Theory' . There is a case studies
section-sandwiched uneasily between the book's opening and con-
cluding theoretical considerations-but the central organising intent-
ion is, as the authors state in the Preface, `to make theoretical dis-
cussion more aware of its own history and make historical (or'con-
crete') studies more aware of theoretical debts and dependencies .'
Thence the subtitle, which would more accurately read `Studies in
the History of Theory' ; thence the attack on culturalism .
Chapter 1, `Sociology, cultural studies and the post-war working
138 CAPITAL AND CLASS
class' assesses routinely the ways that sociology has examined the
post-war working class-it is routine because it reiterates the now
accepted critique of the `affluence theorists', and the replacement of
`affluence' by the `rediscovery of class' .
Chapter 2, `Culture and the Historians', is more interesting, for
here Richard Johnson opens his expansive attack on the 'culturalism'
of Williams and Thompson and the `structuralism' of Althusser .
Thankfully, we learn that there can be no straightforward success-
ion : `Neither culturalism nor structuralism will do!'
The criticisms of Williams and Thompson are not new : Accord-
ing to Johnson, neither writer realises the potential of his intellectual
endeavours ; neither writer, in operating within a `Marxist cultural-
ism', is sufficiently cognisant of the structural element of Marxist
theory-we cannot construct historical cultural explanations around
a central premise of `experience' because to do so is to ignore that
social relations have an inner logic which escapes comprehension and
which operates `behinds men's backs .' `Experience' has its own
hidden structure .
Structuralism is also attacked, again for familiar reasons-its
functionalism, its high theoreticism-but this critique does not rep-
resent wholesale rejection-in the book's later theoretical explanat-
ions, where the criticisms are refined and the new definition of cult-
ural studies elaborated, we are told : `In what follows we try to learn
from this settling of accounts with our erstwhile Althusserianism .'
But what do they learn? What is to be the `correct' method of con-
ducting cultural analysis?
What is offered for our consumption can be summarised as a
synthesis of culturalism and structuralism which on first sight
appears unpalatable if not distinctly indigestible . The new synthesis
surfaces visibly in Richard Johnson's plea on behalf of the socio-
logical status of `culture' as an analytical tool :
`It is important to retain "culture" as a category of analysis .
By culture is understood the common sense or way of life of a
particular class, group or social category, the complex of ideo-
logies that are actually adopted as moral preferences or prin-
ciples of life . . .Ideologies always work upon a ground, that
ground is culture . p. 234) .
One point this quotation immediately illustrates is the writer's de-
votion to the current sociological vogue for cartographic metaphors ;
more importantly it sets the `correct' parameters of cultural study-
the way to recover the economic mediations absent from culturalism
and the experiential and cultural mediations absent from structural-
ism . Hence :
`Any analysis of "working-class culture" must be able to grasp
the relation between economic classes and the forms in which
they do (or do not) become active in conscious politics . . .If
class is understood (as we are told Thompson understands class)
only as a cultural and political formation, a whole theoretical
legacy is impoverished and materialist accounts are indisting-
uishable from idealism .' (p . 223)
Thirty five years ago Adorno and Horkheimer published their crit-
ique of the capitalist `culture industry', `Dialectic of Enlightenment' .
REVIEWS
139
It was an analysis which sought to rescue `high art' from the barbar-
ous distortions and trivialism of `mass art', and to show the deleter-
ious effect of mass culture on the emotional and political sensibilit-
ies of the working class . A subsequent tradition of sociology and
social/cultural history has attempted to retrieve `culture' from the
elitist embrace of the Frankfurt School, replacing `culture as aesth-
etics' with a concept of culture, derived from social anthropology,
which stresses its meaning as a continuous creative process : Culture
as `a way of life', a way of making sense -of the world .
It is difficult to locate the authors of WorkingClass Culture (the
latest commodity from the prolific collective pens assembled in and
around the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies)
within the Frankfurt tradition of cultural theory . Yet neither are
they easily situated in terms of the work of British 'culturalism'.
Much of the text reviewed here represents a sustainedtheoretical
critique of Hoggart and, more significantly, Williams and E . P.
Thompson-those who seize on the title expecting an integrated
empirical history of the working class to unfold in the pages will be
disappointed . We must read the qualification contained in the
subtitle : `Studies in History and Theory' . There is a case studies
section-sandwiched uneasily between the book's opening and con-
cluding theoretical considerations-but the central organising intent-
ion is, as the authors state in the Preface, `to make theoretical dis-
cussion more aware of its own history and make historical (or 'con-
crete') studies more aware of theoretical debts and dependencies.'
Thence the subtitle, which would more accurately read `Studies in
the History of Theory' ; thence the attack on culturalism .
Chapter 1, `Sociology, cultural studies and the post-war working
class' assesses routinely the ways that sociology has examined the
post-war working class-it is routine because it reiterates the now
accepted critique of the `affluence theorists', and the replacement of
`affluence' by the `rediscovery of class'.
Chapter 2, `Culture and the Historians', is more interesting, for
here Richard Johnson opens his expansive attack on the 'culturalism'
of Williams and Thompson and the `structuralism' of Althusser .
Thankfully, we learn that there can be no straightforward success-
ion: `Neither culturalism nor structuralism will do!'
The criticisms of Williams and Thompson are not new: Accord-
ing to Johnson, neither writer realises the potential of his intellectual
endeavours ; neither writer, in operating within a `Marxist cultural-
ism', is sufficiently cognisant of the structural element of Marxist
theory-we cannot construct historical cultural explanations around
a central premise of `experience' because to do so is to ignore that
social relations have an inner logic which escapes comprehension and
which operates `behinds men's backs .' `Experience' has its own
hidden structure .
Structuralism is also attacked, again for familiar reasons-its
functionalism, its high theoreticism-but this critique does not rep-
resent wholesale rejection-in the book's later theoretical explanat-
ions, where the criticisms are refined and the new definition of cult-
ural studies elaborated, we are told: `In what follows we try to learn
from this settling of accounts with our erstwhile Althusserianism .'
But what do they learn? What is to be the `correct' method of con-
ducting cultural analysis?
140 CAPITAL AND CLASS
What is offered for our consumption can be summarised as a
synthesis of culturalism and structuralism which on first sight
appears unpalatable if not distinctly indigestible . The new synthesis
surfaces visibly in Richard Johnson's plea on behalf of the socio-
logical status of `culture' as an analytical tool :
`It is important to retain "culture" as a category of analysis .
By culture is understood the common sense or way of life of a
particular class, group or social category, the complex of ideo-
logies that are actually adopted as moral preferences or prin-
ciples of life . . .Ideologies always work upon a ground, that
ground is culture . p . 234) .
One point this quotation immediately illustrates is the writer's de-
votion to the current sociological vogue for cartographic metaphors ;
more importantly it sets the `correct' parameters of cultural study-
the way to recover the economic mediations absent from culturalism
and the experiential and cultural mediations absent from structural-
ism . Hence :
`Any analysis of "working-class culture" must be able to grasp
the relation between economic classes and the forms in which
they do (or do not) become active in conscious politics . . .If
class is understood (as we are told Thompson understands class)
only as a cultural and political formation, a whole theoretical
legacy is impoverished and materialist accounts are indisting-
uishable from idealism .' (p . 223)
Whether or not Thompson would agree with this summary of his
conception of class need not concern us here, for we must proceed
to the next stage of the critique-we must not counter cultural ideal-
ism with Althusserianism . To do so would destroy the possibility
(because of Althusser's epistemology) of constructing a meaningful
model of historical research, further, it would entail the corruption
of `theory' or `rational abstraction' into a condition or stance of
`theoretical autonomy'-it would lead us,
`to neglect the moment of self-creation, of theaffirmation of
belief or of the giving of consent (which) would, once more
return us to "pure mechanicity" .' (p . 234)
Thus in being led towards the `terrain' on which the `map' of the
`cultural ground' is to be theoretically constructed, we are told that
we must retain the positive elements of culturalism and explore the
specific ways, the moments in which creativity and cultural express-
ion arises from within the structural conditions of society .
This approach, while not founded upon particularly original
critiques of existing problematics, is at least stylistically novel . We
cannot doubt the difficulties of studying `culture', particularly when
the intention is to simultaneously reform existing theoretical mis-
conceptions . Similarly, we cannot doubt the worth of John Clarke's
`refusal to collapse "working-class culture" into some simple, ex-
pressive, homogeneous entity .' (p . 253) This refusal occurs in the
concluding chapter of the book which attempts to situate this tent-
ative, synthetic mode of cultural explanation in general terms-
to `revisit' the post-war working class free of the constraints of
culturalism and structuralism .
REVIEWS
141
But we can doubt the direction in which the conclusions con-
tained in `Working Class Culture' (and here we can broaden our gaze
to embrace other output from the Centre) lead in terms of a socio-
logy of culture-what is doubtful, specifically, is the relation of the
cultural `ground of transformations' to the `necessities of produc-
tion.'
One fundamental question must be : Does such a mode of anal-
ysis as the one we are offered make sense of culture? (And despite
two thorough readings of the book, despite their various attempts at
definition, I am still not wholly clear as to their usage of the term) .
Does it make sense, for example, in charting the development of
football since the war (one case study in an unconvincing assort-
ment which includes 19th . century education, organised youth at
the beginning of the century, a study of domestic service between
the wars and `Recreation in Rochdale, 1900-40') to state that
through the increasing commercialisation of the professional game,
the `general life experience' of the working class is increasingly
`reproduced inside football-that of "cultural alienation" .' Att-
ending football matches is no longer, as it once was, a source of org-
anic collective class identification : It `has lost its partial autonomy
as a form of popular culture from the economic and cultural forces
dominant in the rest of society .' (p . 183) As a form of cultural ex-
pression it has been `rendered irrelevant' by external forces which
have redefined its role in working class life . But we are not being
told that football's expressive role in working class culture has ever
been oppositional: `It was rather a symbolic displacement, produced,
transmitted and recognised by working-class men as expressive of
their situation .' (p . 183/4)
But what of an area of working-class culture, and its analysis, where
it is difficult not to draw oppositional implications, even if we must
stop short of ascribing oppositional motives-the eclectic yet highly
visible world of working-class youth subcultures that John Clarke
`revisits' .
It is here that the Centre's own `theoretical debts'- to the 'soc-
iology of deviance' tradition-beome more explicit . Working-class
youth culture is always a deviant youth culture : When we refer to
working-class youth we effectively focus on the stylised, controver-
sial and visible world of male youth cults. For the Centre, as the
football supporter is in a position of constant struggle to re-establish
a meaningful identity in the context of the game, so the skinheads
struggle for the `magical reconstitution of community', the mods'
subcultural style was to `subvert the supposed role of the consumer'
in the heady days of sixties affluence . Working-class youth sub-
sultures are an attempt to establish control of a hostile world ; they
are rational responses to a material situation ; they are `cultural
representations of the class's conditions of existence .'
But what are a class's `conditions of existence'? How is class
defined? Is it defined in terms of the changing relationship of youth
to productive forces and their experience within the productive
process, or is it defined culturally, through reference to specific
leisure institutions and to such notions of style? Paul Willis, in his
case study `Shop floor culture, masculinity and the wage form',
makes one very pertinent point as to what the commonly-shared
142 CAPITAL AND CLASS
continuities of working-class experience may be : `The wage and the
Thursday afternoon wage packet are an essential element of shop-
floor culture .' (p . 195) .
`Working Class Culture' generally avoids the phenomenological
excesses which have marked other books published by the Centre
and its students . (See, as an example of the existential extremes to
which subcultural analysis can be taken, Dick Hebdige's recently
published `Subculture: the meaning of style .') But the analysis
remains incomplete and unconvincing . As Graham Murdock and
Robin McCron once commented on the subcultural method :
'Subcultural studies start by taking distinctive subcultural styles
and the groups who are involved in them, and then working
backwards to uncover their class base .' (Consciousness of class
and consciousness of generation) .
. . .a comment certainly applicable to the case studies contained in
'Working Class Culture' . As Marx stated :
'It is . in reality, much easier to discover by analysis the earthly
kernel of the misty creation of religion than to do the opposite,
i .e . to develop from the actual, given relations of life the forms
in which these have been apotheosized .' (Capital 1, Penguin
Edition . p . 494) .
Despite their protestations to the contrary, the Centre's writers
in general have not foresaken their `erstwhile Althusserianism' . The
active creativity that, for example, Williams and Thompson stress is
replaced by a `creativity' limited to the level of implicit symbolic
subversion-'working-class culture' becomes a structured stylistic
response to a general structural situation . These responses are sub-
versive-by-implication, their true meaning eluding the grasp of the
participants, but their significance does not escape the searching and
perceptive vision of the Centre's writers who quite happily translate
this cultural expression and activity into superbly fluent flights of
symbolic glory .
Such sociological 'readings' of culture can only exacerbate the
everyday put-downs of sociologists-no wonder people who may go
to football matches, become members of youth cults for reasons as
unsociological as 'enjoyment' and `fun', state that sociologists claim
they can discover the politically symbolic implications of 'pissing up
a wall'! Would Thompson see political implications in such an act,
or would he see the political areas of working class culture as, un-
fashionably, such institutions as trade unions?
'Working Class Culture' represents a useful introduction to the
work and theories of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies .
But given their sustained output of plausible books ; their (unwitt-
ing?) construction of the dominant sociological cultural studies
paradigm ; the way their mode of analysis has filtered down through
the intellectual atmosphere to provide a powerful mode for cultural
analysis in the mass media, can there be many of us who have not
had previous exposure to 'Centre Culture', to the Centre's way of
making sense of the world?
Perhaps we should complete the chapter heading from 'Dialectic
of Enlightenment'-'The Culture Industry : Enlightenment as Mass
Deception'-and place it in a revised context .
REVIEWS
143
DEAR COMRADES: READERS' LETTERS TO
LOTTA CONTINUA
Pluto Press (London) 1 .95 pb .
Reviewed by Bob Lumley
`Once when I was a little "smart Alec", I was very attached
to a saying of a certain professional philosopher, who used to
say that when we are interpreting things "We must neither
laugh nor cry, but understand". More recently I have come
to feel that this is the biggest piece of shit I have ever heard
in all my life . No . . . the problem was precisely to laugh, and
to cry, and to understand .' (Adriano Sofri, General Secret-
ary, at 1976 Lotta Continua Conference)
At the conference there wasn't much laughter, very little under-
standing and a lot of tears . Lotta Continua as an organisation was
torn apart by contradictions ; workerists and feminists were at
each others throats. What survived was the newspaper bearing the
name and an `area' of readers . The new project of the leaders
entailed submerging themselves in the `movement' and trying to
creatively develop its contradictions and conflicts rather than re-
imposing organisational models from above . Sofri called it learn-
ing to `live with an earthquake', that is hanging on `not to the
ground, which is slipping away, but to oneself, to one's own
consciousness, to what we call "individual autonomy" .' Neverthe-
less, in an important way, the leaders did not disappear nor did
they continue in their old ways . They became 'opinion-leaders'
and worked to form a `party of opinion' . Only those who wanted
to recreate the party disappeared .
It is worth noting that there were traditions, styles and
theories that made Lotta Continua capable of this strange meta-
morphosis from party to letters-page of the `movement' . Anarch-
ists, anarcho-syndicalists, Luxemburg and others were thought to
be part of the heritage every bit as much as Lenin, whilst the
notion of tradition and dogma had no place .Lotta Continua's
swiftness in starting a campaign in defence of the `framed' Val-
preda('anarchist ballet-dancer') after the Piazza Fontana
bombings contrasted with the slow response of the `orthodox'.
Lotta Continua, moreover, exalted working class creativity above
the `cunning' of the party . Yet it too took on some of the bureau-
cratised forms it criticised and made a fetish of the working class
(the Lotta Continuaimage of the worker has been compared to
one of those soldiers with bayonets always ready, often found on
war memorials). Its inability to be organic to movements in
civil society doomed its attempt to lead struggles, and yet its
own movementist currents meant that it had to return to move-
ments themselves when the other `parties' of the so-called extra-
parliamentary Left built concrete bunkers to keep out the earth-
144 CAPITAL AND CLASS
quake. Giorgio Bocca, a liberal journalist, observed in his reviel,
of Dear Comrades : `Sometimes the professors of Il Manifest'
reproach the pedagogues of Lotta Continua for their oscillat
ions and contradictions ; however, let's give them credit for still
being on the field, trying to mediate and explain what th
majority Left out of complacency or cynicism or through a deter
minate plan have by now abandoned' .
For Bocca modern Italian `youth' is a `problem', but he i
not wrong about the mediating role played by Lotta Continua a ,
a paper. Crucially it has carved out a political space that i
`against the State and against the Red Brigades' . At the confer
ence against repression in Bologna in September 1977 a battl:
was fought and largely won against the hard-line, militaristic win ;
of Autonomia, whose actions endangered movements for
autonomy coming from among women and young people searchi
ing for a pre-figurative politics. Then, during the Moro kidnaps
ping, Lotta Continua became the voice of the `party of saving life
against the reason of State embodied in the Christian Democrat
and PCI. In its political interventions the paper played an import
ant role in standing for independence and critical reason an,
humanitarianism against a wind of conformism . The role is not
without its contradictions and these have come into the open o~
the letters page . The range of contributions come mainly from
certain `area' (three quarters bourgeois, one quarter proletarian
says Bocca) that includes both sympathisers with `armed struggle
and pacifists. Recently the editor has been given a suspended sen ,
ence for publishing a letter from someone supporting the Re .
Brigades, an act which symbolises a position both of promotion
of free speech and one which wants to keep open a debate ox
the tactical, strategic and moral `rights' and `wrongs' of the use o
violence for political purposes .
The letters page of Lotta Continua has had this function o
being the sounding-board for discussions taking place within the
`movement'. An editing process takes place which gives som
coherence and continuity to contributions, and which, inevitl
ably, sets certain political agendas and priorities . Of 8,000 letter
sent in 1977, 1,000 were published in the paper, and 350 cam;
out in the book (which is then selectively translated into th;
English version) . It would be terribly interesting to be a fly-on'
the-wall during an editorial session to see precisely how and wh :
decisions are made about what letters are `representative' . What
does come out at a quick glance at a letters-page is the amount o
space dedicated to correspondence, and the minimising of headl
lining and packaging. This is made possible because Lotte
Continua is a daily, but it also reflects a respect for self'
expression and an interest in the `small things' of life as well as ii
the great themes .
This approach of getting people to speak their minds ant
bare their souls, and to `laugh, and cry, and understand' togethe
makes for a form of politics that breaks with the older dominanc ;
of super-rational leaderism . In this Lotta Continua was not
inventing something out of thin air, but giving vent to the need ,
and new forms of politics emerging in the `movement' (For a,
excellent account of this see Italy 1977-8, Living with an Earth
quake by Red Notes) . I just want to point to a couple of develop
REVIEWS145
ments; firstly, the women's movement in Italy became generalised
at a moment of political crisis andgrew against the dominant
practices of the Left in a more dramatic confrontation than
elsewhere . Although feminism has mostly adopted class analyses
as well as analyses of women's oppression,its impact has been
magnified and made more destructive/constructive than say in
Britain. Secondly, in similar ways,a `youth culture' appeared as
an identifiable social phenomenon in Italy onlyin the mid-
70's when clubs, circles, rock concerts,drugs and a diffuse notion
of generational difference and conflict combined with a new
`existentialism' .
Both these developments have been powerful forces in re-
defining politics in relation to the personal, and the majority of
letters in Dear Comrades are about this process. It represents a
turn away from general ideologies that has had an impact at the
levels of theory and intellectual practices as well as in forms of
political militancy and in the living of `everyday life'. Especially
among the `old' New Left there has been a return to empiricism,
to the study of what people `really are thinking' rather than
what they `should be thinking' . Marxism is widely regarded as an
ideology of regimes and parties, and Foucault enjoys popularity,
often coming out in Italian before the French edition . Interest
focuses on the micro-exercise of power and the need for a capil-
lary contestation . Significant too is the taking up of oral history
with a particular stress on investigating `culture' (in an anthrop-
ological sense) : here links run to theHistory Workshop .
All more
personal and intimate forms of expressionare the vogue; letters,
diaries, singing ballads and so on.Several of the Lotta Continua
letters contain `home-made' poetry, and one says that Cossiga
definitely does not write poetry.
Commentators like Bocca, and also the `professors' ofIl
Manifesto, speak of a crisis of `reason' and a rebirthof 'irration-
alism' ; they treat the contestation as a problem of pathology
(underpinned, of course, by unemployment etc). Such an
approach often leads to the processesof 'criminalisation' that
have become a key mechanism in the reconstructionof a strong
Italian State. Although we want no truck with such tendencies,
we have nonetheless toface the bitter and negative realities
behind rebellions in society, and identify those forces that divide,
'disaggregate' and weaken opposition. Earthquakes not only pro-
voke invention, self-reliance and thesearch for new structures of
comradeship, but also fears, anxieties and breakdowns. Many of
the letters in Dear Comradesspeak of suicides, of loneliness, of
heroin-addiction, and just readingthem is overwhelming emot-
ionally. In an important way theLotta Continua letters are
testimony of crisis, confusion and despair, and do not provide
`ways forward' so much as an airingof problems . Given the
propensity for people on the Left to feelthey should always be
positive and look on the bright side (even though they might
not really have thought the revolutionwas around the corner),
such openness is a good development. That said, there are other
tendencies that are self-defeating,such as self-indulgence in a
romanticisation of a comrade's death and a return to a Catholic
humanism. Bocca quotes a letter speakingof putting a hand on
the heart near the breast . in reaction to a death (discretely left out
146 CAPITAL AND CLASS
by the English translators) ; and Lea Melandri, a libertarian wh
works on psychoanalysis, writes to the paper criticising the wa
`Walter is commemorated by comrades with the images of eterna
Sentiment, an old-age literature which has been so little analyse(
that it appears spontaneous and natural' . She goes on to say that
this has serious political implications : `The analyses of fascisr
and anti-fascism circulating in the movement today-what hav
they to do with these elementary, highly calculated myths an'
well-consolidated structures of the Historical Imaginary, which i,
reality inspire the political behaviour of thousands of people
. . .until we have given some attention (both theoretical an,
practical) to sentiment and the imaginary, every condemnation c
violence can only sound like a deliberate recall to conventiot
ality, or like expediency'. Melandri's comments point to th(
deeper continuities of structures of thought and the unconsciou
that call in question some of the claims to absolute breaks wit'
an `old politics', and ask for a degree of self-questioning. Tht
runs against the grain of tendencies for the re-establishment o
orthodoxies and formulae such as those present in the languag,
of 'Sinistrese', the jargon of the `movement' .
A letter from Gandalf the Grey, Wizard in Lord of the
Rings and FIAT worker, represents the creative handling o
contradictions and the exploration of cultural exchange acros
social frontiers . Gandalf writes of his problems of `shoulderint
the responsibilities' of being a `revolutionary vanguard' : `Thc
crux of the problem is this : either the revolutionary left find)
some way of increasing the number of militants on the sho,
floor, or asking a non-existent vanguard to "shoulder its respot
sibilities" and criticising them because "they don't take the init
iative" become senseless, and frustrating for those few comradc
who still manage to stand the horrors of factory work. Becaus
the "vanguard" are comrades like the rest, who feel the weight
of our contradictions, who don't want to be made to feel guilty
We're tired (at least, I am) of being the same "vanguard" whicl
"has to shoulder responsibilities", in the same way the Metrc
politan Indians are tired of "having" to be ironic and witty, an(
the feminists are tired of "having" to think about liberation, an,
gays are tired of "having" to worry about sexuality, and even the
freaks "have" to be into hypodermics and joints. We've got t,
stop this division of roles . I want to be a whole militant fightin:
for the liberation of the total human being. I want to be
vanguard, Indian, gay, freak, and I want to roll joints (I alread
do) .'
Gandalf is a seeker after pleasure and good times as part o
his politics, and this leads him to break with a workerism that ha
been a limit as well as a strength of the oppositional movement
in Italy . To quote Sergio Bologna, a leading light of 'operaismc
who has moved with the changes : `The struggle in Italy ha
thrown up new forms of insubordinate behaviour . On the one
hand the people who practice them must come towards th(
working class. But also the working class . . . must accept the ne :
trends of opposition, and make them its own . We must breal
down this idea of a `separate' working class culture . We must
break down the idea of the factory as a separate politics
institution' .
REVIEWS
Inthe current situation such a project is still very much on
the drawing-boards in terms of a political recomposition of the
proletariat . The lacerations produced by terrorismand the
turning-inwards and privatisationhave accentuated tendencies
towards pessimism of the will. The large factory today is under
attack; FIAT, for example, wantmassive redundancies . (Incid-
entally, these developments are covered in Red Notes' forth-
coming book Fighting for Communism-10 Yearsof the
Struggle at FIAT.) However, for the moment, the employed and
`guaranteed' are the relativelyprivileged, and the unemployed,
semi-employed and marginalised sectors,who probably make up
most of the letter-writers and readers of Lotta Continua, are on
the outside. Although each letter affirms an identity 'I am . . .'
and struggle for a collective identity, the social pressures, not
just in Italy, but at an international level, are in the direction of
deepening divisions and marginalisation . Above all a reading of
the Lotta Continua letters drives home this reality, but it is not
an uncontradictory one. What they show is the strength of
starting from where people are, discussing their difficulties in
every shape and form and on the basis of the localised and the
particular moving towards generalisation . The first step, however,
is the generalisation of the discussion of problems, and of the
asking of questions that arise in the conflict with oppression and
exploitation .
The collection of letters, Dear Comrades, is highly specific
to the Italian situation, but raises a number of vital questions
about everyday practice (what to do if you're a feminist working
in a newsagent that sells porn ; how to organise in a small village ;
how to respond to terrorism . . .) Just for this the English trans-
lators, whose sensitivity to theimmediacy and colloquialism of
the letters is remarkable, havedone an excellent job . Yet more
important is the suggestiveness of this approach for political
interventions of our own . Numerous avenues,from letters-pages,
to workers' inquiries and oral history are open to exploration .
THE WOODCARVERS OF HONGKONG : CRAFT
PRODUCTION IN THE WORLD CAPITALIST
PERIPHERY
By Eugene Cooper
Cambridge University Press (153 pp ., 10.00) 1980
Reviewed by Colin Filer
147
This book helps to fill two holes . First, it is a piece of Marxist
ethnography, writing rooted in participation, not the kind of
abstract speculation about `modes' which has marked (and
marred?) much of the Marxist renaissance in social/economic
anthropology. Second,it reports participation in the life of
urban artisans, and not the cultivators who attract the vast
148 CAPITAL AND CLASS
majority of participant observers (looking for a quiet life?) in
the Third World .
Remarking on the way that anthropologists in mainland'
China, as employees of the Institute of National Minorities, were
subject to re-education during the Cultural Revolution, the
author finds it `altogether fitting' that his study 'should reflect'
a concern on the part of the investigator to reunite the man ot
knowledge, the anthropologist, with the object of his knowledge
the labourers and the relations of production in which they inter-
act' (p . 8). On the other hand, it isn't clear how his participation'
and reflection differ in the contribution which they make to,
socialist/communist practice from the kind of 'fieldwork' and
'ethnography' which have for decades been the tools-in-trade of,
English-speakinganthropologists, whatever their political'
complexion. Unless, of course, the use of Marxist concepts in the ,
text is enough to cast a retrospective red glow over the partic-
ipation which it presupposes . (Note-for what it's worth
members of the Association of Social Anthropologists (G .B .) have ,
recently been asked to contribute books and papers to the 'post
Gant' reconstruction of the INM library in Peking. The British-
educated, recently 'restored' Director of the INM-FeiHsiao-
t'ung-is said in the accompanying blurb to have been hitherto'
(for 20 years or more) 'unable to practice his discipline' . Butl
while Professor Fei was 'in the cold'-in1972-Dr
. Coopers
heard him 'speak warmly of his experience at a May 7 cadr=
school where he learned to plant cotton' (p.8) [1]) . Profess-
ional ethnographers have reason to resist a policy which'
transforms their special practice into the general and social oblig-
ation of the intellectual-it puts them out of business, and itl
takes away their 'freedom' to restrict participation to those lives'
and labours which attract their 'scientific' (or romantic) interest
on terms which they determine by themselves. Dr. Cooper keeps,
his 'freedom' and his business .
His highly detailed account of the art-carved furniture ind-
ustry in post-war Hong Kong is meant to modify Samir Amin'si
account of the 'peripheral formation' by showing that the latter'si
'disarticulation' may include a 'margin' where some branches of,
production can 'enjoy the luxury of a relatively laissez-faire
albeit still export-oriented, capitalist development' (p . 134), ands
where, in consequence, 'subordinate modes, rather than contin-
uing to exist in disfigured or distorted forms, may indeed be'
radically made over in the very image of the capitalist mode of,
production' (p. 135) . At the 'periphery of the periphery' we find)
a 'central' form of The Transition ; in Chinese art-carved furniture,
so Eugene Cooper tells us, there can be identified a period ofl
'manufacture', originating in the Chinese Treaty Portsin the'
Nineteenth Century, tied to a growing external market in Europe'
and America, 'blossoming' in the capitalist hothouse of Hong,
Kong after 1949, and thus providing the material condition :
for its dissolution in the decades following.
This period was marked by both the concentration and the'
differentiation of production : units of productiongrowing to,
contain a minimum of 30 workers, while the process of produc
tion was divided into four specialist occupations-rough carving,,
smooth carving, carpentry and painting-in the typical propor-
REVIEWS
149
tion 8 : 8 : 12 : 2. But workers owned their tools, dictated the
pace and duration of their work, and controlled entry to their
several trades by arduous conditions of apprenticeship. Many of
their bosses were still practicing craftsmen .
In the 1960s, the employers introduced machinery to deskill/
displace carpenters, and some (the biggest fish in this small pond)
diversified into the making of Western-style furniture, threaten-
ing the craft of carving too. Time-wages encroached on the
workers' preference for piece-work; the money-form began to
dominate the general relation of employment, rolling back a
wide variety of payments in kind; workers discouraged their sons
from apprenticeship; employers sent their sons away to learn
accountancy and `modern business methods', and ceased to work
alongside their employees .
As the lines of class struggle sharpened, the requirements of
resistance changed the mutual relations of the workers . Formerly
divided by the place from which they came (Canton or Che-
kiang), the material in which they worked (rosewood or teak-
wood), or the substance of their craft (carving or carpentry),
from 1960 onwards they were more significantly split by their
allegiance to the Communist or Nationalist cause. Communist
carpenters joined the union of `carvers'; Nationalist carvers the
union of `carpenters'. (Begging a question or two, the author
remarks that `a division of the labour force which was bequeathed
to the industry in its manufacturing period became the vehicle for
the expression of political ideologies more characteristic of a
capitalist mode of production' (p . 17). Through the workers'
experience of (successful) strikes, the backwash of the Cultural
Revolution, and finally, the new `understanding' between the
U.S. and the P.R.C ., the Communist Union went from strength to
strength, acquiring both numerical and political pre-eminence as
representatives of labour . The representation of capital stayed
largely informal, operating through a multitude of `personal
connections' among the employers.
But this level of operation gave no special advantage to the
employers, since a high rate of labour turnover within the
confines of this small industry aided the formation of a parallel
'connectedness' among the employees . . .so long, that is, as
craftsmen did not stray to other branches of production. There
was a contrast here between the carvers and the carpenters. The
former sought protection of their craft against the threat of its
extinction posed by the diversification of the industry which con-
tained it . 'The latter were persistently being lost to the building
industry, which, during Hong Kong's `building boom', could
afford to offer higher rates of pay-and might thereby have been
partly responsible for the mechanisation of the furniture
industry .
Like any piece of detailed ethnography, this book raises
problems of generalisation which are almost bound to weaken
any theoretical conclusion it attempts. It does contain a brief,
though rather inconclusive, discussion of two such questions,
namely (1) whether Hong Kong is a `social formation' separate
from mainland China, and (2) what kind of `peripheral formation'
Hong Kong represents. But there is even less attention given to
what must, in the light of the book's theoretical pretensions, be
150CAPITAL AND CLASS
a more important question, namely what position is occupied b
the art-carved furniture industry of Hong Kong in any genera
taxonomy of branches of production, which has to be a part c
any theory of `peripheral formations' or`peripheral accumulation
In particular, it isn't clear what makes this industry 'marginal' c
`peripheral'within Hong Kong apart from its apparent failure t
conform with Amin's general postulates .
The only other branches of production discussed in the boo
are building (in the context already given) ; ivory-carving (p . 37)-
because, unlike wood-carving, it has already been party
mechanised (by the introduction of dentists' drills) ; porcelai:
production (p . 132)-because it entered the period of manufac
ure' before the integration of Chinainto the world market ; an(
agriculture (p .91)-because there is very little of it in Hon
Kong. We learn that the ACF industry was one of those tha
benefited directly from the U.S. trade embargo on the P .R .C'
in the sense that it protected it from competition in its majc
market from the better qualityproducts of its reconstructe
counterpart on the mainland. . . a protection since withdraws
The author also tells us that `the appeal ofthe finished commot
ities of the industry was their craft,that is, their carved, natur
and they were therefore not subjectto competition from an
western mass-produced substitutes'(p . 13) . But he fails to not
that their `appeal' lay also, maybe more so, in their nationality
their `Chinese' quality-a quality that overlaps, and yet is nc
identical with, that of being 'hand-made' . From the point of vie-
of use-value, both thesequalities, and others too, might b
adduced in explanation of developments within the industry
Finally, we find that the rate of unionmembership among th,
workforce of this industry is ten timesthat prevailing generall\
in Hong Kong's industrial sector (65% compared to 6.5%). Bui
this peculiarity is not elaborated by the author .
It would be pointless and unfair to cavilovermuch at the,
omissions, for Dr . Cooper's book is `only' anethnography, and it'
particularity must complement, and likewisebe essential to, more
general appraisals of `peripheral accumulation' . One must simpl'
exercise a certain scepticism over claims that one such minut,
sector of production (its Hong Kong workforce never rose above
2,000) can of itself reveal muchof this general picture . On the
other hand it should be said that ethnographicwork devoted thi
to branchesof production/reproduction, rather than to place
(as `communities' etc.), is welcome on its own account, a
counter-balancing the`norm' in economic anthropology, an,
therefore helping us to pose correctly questions of the interpla'
of sectoral and local forms of capital (andits alternatives) .
Reference
1 . See Cooper, E. (1973) `An Interviewwith China's Anthro
pologists', Current Anthropology 14.4 .
REVIEWS
151
CONTESTED TERRAIN : THE TRANSFORMATION
OF THE WORKPLACE IN THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY
by Richard Edwards
Heinemann (London : 1979) 4 .50
Reviewed by Theo Nichols
This book is very much a product of American debate about the
labour process, and is characterisedby a certain isolation from
the European literature-a feature that is all the more unfort-
unate given the initial American-generatedtransatlantic impact
of Braverman's work. No reference is made hereto contributions
on monopoly, trade unions and the labour processby writers like
Mandel, Mallet, Touraine, Gorz/Bosquet, Herding; or in Britain
specifically to Hyman, Benyon; or to writings associated with
the CSE. No reference is made either to the analysis, vast as it is,
of the `new middle class' .
At the same time Contested Terrain might well remind many
readers of Friedman's Industry and Labour-but this meritsno
mention either . A pity, because it would be interesting to read
these two books together . Like Friedman,Edwards has a healthy
concern with `control' and `resistance' . Like Friedman he seeks
to introduce an historical element (but casts his netwider,
plotting and illustrating the history of US capitalism by reference
to a `panel' of companies, AT and T, IBM, Ford, GE, Polaroid,
Pabst Brewing, Pullman, United States Steel and International
Harvester) . Like Friedman again, heworks with a core/periphery
distinction . And just as Friedman'sanalysis `works' through the
articulation of whatmight be termed a `vertical' dimension
('direct control'/'responsible autonomy') and a `horizontal'one
(dual/internal labour markets, and of course sub-contract)so
Edwards' analysis operates with a somewhat similar if more com-
plicated matrix . It is difficult to hold back the thought that
Friedman himself is by origin Canadian, but whether Contested
Terrain, and even Industry and Labour,can be located within a
burgeoning North American tendency or not, the key features of
Edwards' book, as we shall see, are its stress on control, on the
one hand and labour market segmentation on the other. The
interrelation of these is complicated, however. Because of this,
before proceeding further, and in order to show how Edwards'
analysis `works', I will break it down into several component
parts .
Component One : this is a general treatment of the capital-
labour relation, helped along in chapter 1 by introducing three
workers. In this way some common elements are established-
that workers sell their labour-power in a market and deliver it
under conditions imposed by capital ;that since what is sold is
human potential, and what is at stake is the workers' livelihoods,
control, conflict and resistance are universal, in one form or
another .
152 CAPITAL AND CLASS
Component Two : this provides evidence on the actual struc
ure and historical development of the US economy ; it plots th(
rise of monopoly, relating this to problems of control in the
workplace/corporation but also to the rise and fall of anti-truss
socialism, syndicalism and militancy . Perhaps inevitably, much c
this is, as they say, `schematic' ; but the core/periphery distinctio,
is established. (These matters are mostly dealt with in chapter
`Running Full : The Breakdown of Competition', which deal'
with the transition to monopoly (1890-1920) and chapter .
`Seeing the World : Corporations and Monopoly Capitalism')I
Component Three :this constitutes an elaboration of the cone
cept of control. Three elements are distinguished : directions
evaluation, discipline ; and three systems : simple, technical an(
bureaucratic control .
Simple Control(the 'one-boss workshop') is detailed i'
chapter 2 `The Personal Touch : Competitive Capitalism and th
Simple Form of Control', and the persistence of this is noted it
the contemporary entrepreneurial firms (11 out of 12 millioi
enterprises) of the peripheral economy. But this persistence aside
simple control is seen historically to have extended to hierarchica
control, whereby foremen, lacking the personal touch of the
entrepreneur, having only negative sanctions available to them
and being at some remove from top management, often acte(
arbitrarily and fuelled disputes (this is described in chapter 41
`The Crisis of Control in the Firm'). The first four decades of thin
century are characterised as a period of experiments, beginning ;
and failures. Brute repression on the shopfloor itself is seen a ,
being symptomatic of the absence of a viable system of controls
and the problems now having to be faced are the rising burden o
non-production workers and the need to re-organise an hithert(
elite into costly but still committed workers. Out of the exper
iements/beginnings/failures-and numbered here are welfar-
capitalism, Taylorism and scientific management, company
unions, also training for foremen, industrial psychology and busi
ness schools-is seen to come, from the 1920's, but attaining full
force only after the Second World War, the re-organisation o'
work on structurallines .
`Structural Control',treated in a particular case study by
Beynon, Armstrong and myself in the guise of 'technico
bureaucratic control' is treated by Edwards as a general term fog
two systems, the technical (discussed in chapter 7), and th--
bureaucratic (chapters 8 and 9). We have, then, a three-fob
conceptual distinction of control systems-simple control'
technical and bureaucratic-and each system is representative o'
one of three consecutive periods. (Edwards really loves threes-
workers, control systems, control elements, whatever it is-and'
we have not seen the end of the threes yet).
Technical control, associated with 'continuous-flow' product-
ion, epitomised by Ford but going back earlier, can emerge only,
when the entire production process, or large segments of its, area
based on a technology that paces and directs the labour force
Technical control is at its height in the 'feed-back' systems of
the present-day, which both increase 'direction' by technicall
means and aid 'evaluation'. But even in its less developed forms,,
technical control can reduce the 'direction' function of thei
REVIEWS153
immediate boss (foreman) .However, in its earlier period,
Edwards sees this (apparently) technically-induced interlocking of
control to homogenise the workforce, including `white collar'
workers, and to open the door to unionism. It did not, therefore,
by itself constitute an adequate control system for the `core'
firm's main industrial labour force.
Bureaucratic control is essentially a post-war development.
Edwards is careful to note that it has not completely eliminated
hierarchical and technical control, rather it is now the predom-
inant system (pp. 131-2); he also points to its internal contra-
dictions (pp . 153-61). But the ambit of such control systems is
potentially vast-job categories, work rules, promotion proced-
ures, discipline, wage scales, grades, definitions of responsibil-
ities, and, with trade unions, the bureaucratisation of `joint
administration' . Bureaucratic control can encompass manage-
ment, increase the stratification of a firm's labour force, indiv-
idualise grievances in the same instant that it evaluates them on
universal criteria, and also, Edwards argues, it avoids excessive
reliance on negative sanctions through the positive inducement
offered by `job ladders' (pp . 143-4) .
Component Four : this concerns segmentation of the labour
force. Three divisions are held to push the 20th century work-
force into heterogeneity (whereas in the 19th century, capital,
having inherited a highly heterogenous workforce, is seen to have
pushed towards homogeneity). The divisions concern (1) condit-
ions of employment in the core and periphery (2) the rise of a
large administrative staff (3) institutional racial and sexual dis-
crmination. Three labour markets are specified : the secondary
market (basically casual labour) ; the subordinate primary market
(including `traditional' working class jobs in mass production ; the
unionised in lower clerical work, transport and utilities-in fact,
better paid, more permanent, usually unionised jobs with some
scope for seniority and advancement, but still of a repetitive,
routine kind, prone to machine pacing) ;the independent primary
market (includedhere
are jobs inthe
`middle layers' of the firm, foremen and long-term clerical/sales/
technical jobs; craft workers ; professionals like accountants and
doctors; up to one third of the total being contributed by those
in the state sector) . Chapter 9 `Labour Re-divided ; Part 1
Segmented Labour Markets' contains descriptive material on this .
At this point the main components should be clear enough :
One, the control problematic ; Two, the core/periphery distinct-
ion ; Three, the three control systems, simple, technical and
bureaucratic ; Four, the three labour markets . However, the
author believes that labour market `segmentation arises not from
market forces themselves (e .g . monopoly power [TN]) but
rather from the underlying uses of labour power' (p. 165). Con-
sequently, given his insertion into the problematic of control
(One) Edwards seeks to articulate control systems and labour
markets (Components Three and Four) .
Taking up some observations from Piore, he argues explicitly
that, though job skills etc create different types of labour, 'it is
the system of control that creates the context within which
experience, training, schooling, skills and other attributes assume
their importance', and, admitting the relationship is not perfect
154
CAPITAL AND CLASS
or exhaustive, he charts a relationship between simple control and
secondary market jobs (in small manufacturing, service jobs, retail
sales, temporary and typing pool office work) ; between technical
control and subordinate primary market jobs (in auto and steel
plants, assembly line production, machine-paced clerical work)
between bureaucratic control and independent primary sector
jobs (itemised as jobs at IBM, Polaroid, craft work, non-produc-
tion staff jobs, pp . 178-9) .
A series of problems arise. There are empirical ones about
whether the fit between jobs and control systems is yet more
imperfect than allowed ; about the notion of `representativeness' ;
and about the similarities (or not) of some of the jobs grouped
together . There are also problems of how Edwards analytical
distinctions are, in reality, woven into historical process (which
must include a cultural `component') . Also about the (thus far, in
this account) implicit equation of the working class with all those
in the labour market, i .e . with all sellers of labour-power . These
sorts of problems are never far from the surface in the book's
final two chapters. For instance, in chapter 10, subtitled `The
Fractions of the Working Class', the working class is made synon-
ymous with wage/salary workers : fraction 1 being `the working
poor', fraction 2 `the traditional proletariat', and, inevitably,
fraction 3, `the middle layers' (ie those in the `independent
primary sector') . This certainly has implications for the hope
entertained in the subsequent chapter that `once workers raise a
challenge to the existing system of control in the firm, they
(which?) will through their experience (which?) be led to see the
common (is it?) contents of these struggles' (p . 215) .
More generally, the conjunction of the historical and the
analytical in this book, and the concentration upon control
systems, does tend to generate questions about causality, and
loose ends. For example, that primary market employment rests
on certain conditions-scale and volume of profits, stability to
make long-term commitments-is easily lost to sight (even though
Edwards knows this very well, e .g . p . 183 and chapters 3 and 5) .
And despite the dominant logic of the book-from distinct
systems of control to segmented labour markets to class fractions
(if this is what they be)-Edwards is also, to say the least, most
prudent to add that `at each step in the logic . . . other forces
than those deriving from the organisation of the workplace come
into play' so that `the labour process cannot be the entire
explanation' (p . 198) .
For the first step (i .e . from control to labour markets) the
forces he lists include `unionisation', `the cultural legacy legit-
imising racial and sexual discrimination' and `employers'
conscious attempts to fragment their workforces to class forces in
schooling and family structure to the constraints of technology' .
For the second step-from markets to class fractions-he lists
`patterns of ethnic residence and culture' and `the impacts of
popular media, ideology and political participation' . Quite how
Edwards terms `the diversity of these influences' could be
adequately integrated and encompassed within the covers of one
such book I do not know, nor do I know of anyone who does .
But they powerfully infuse `the transformation of the Workplace
in the twentieth century' and are not happily integrated here .
REVIEWS
INDUSTRIALISATION AND THE STATE
IN LATIN AMERICA
Edited by Jean Carriere
Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation
(Amsterdam) 1979
Reviewed by Ronaldo Munck
155
Edwards'problematic of control leads him to ask
important
questions(Three cheers for this?) But there is more than
one
sense inwhich the dominating terrain of his
Contested Terrain
ought to be contested itself .
Still, the opening up of a discussion of `issue politics' in the
last chapter, on `Capitalismor Democracy?', strongly suggests
that the above is something of which Edwards himself has
become aware in writing the book and/or in observing the reality
of modern-day American politics. And, it is always as well to
remember that if we demand everything at once, we may have to
wait forever. On the other hand, there is no warrant in this to
incite thelabour market industry to go beyond Edwards'
wretched threes. A redundant warning ; it has
of course, already .
A collection of conference papers doesnot usually lend itself to
a sustained and organised theoreticalproject. This book has gone
further than most similar collections however in organising its
material around coherent topics .
The first two sections deal with `industrial strategies and the
state', with the two central articles discussing the role of the
state in the capital accumulation process in Chile (Carlos Fortin)
and Mexico (E. V. K. Fitzgerald) . These two very different cases,
one a military dictatorship, the other a form of Bonapartist state,
provide a useful addition to the growingliterature on the topic
.
Adolfo Dorfman, a long time student of industrialisation in
Argentina, closes this section with a broad discussion of the state
sector, which falls into the familiar trap of supporting this sector
as a progressive `actor' against imperialism .
The second section enters directly into a debate which was
taken up by the CSE in its early days and sporadically revived
since-the question of imperialism . David Slater puts the case
that neither import-substitution nor export-oriented industrial-
isation can bring about a capitalist transformation of the peri-
phery . Sandro Sideri complements this with a broad reappraisal
of the `new international economic order', discussing the process
of regional integration in LatinAmerica as shaped by the strat-
egies and concrete studies of the transnationals in Mexico (Rhys
Jenkins) and Venezuela (Fred Jongkind) which really polarise the
debate on the precise effects of imperialism/dependency in the
so-called Third World. Jenkins provides ample evidence to back
up the dependency theorists' view of transnationals as responsible
156CAPITAL AND CLASS
for the very model of capital accumulation in the periphery-'de-
nationalisation', repatriation of profits, income concentration
`marginalisation', etc. Jongkind 's study of Venezuelan capitalists
based on the questionnaire method, concludes to the contrary
that `autonomous' national industrial development is taking
place in that country. He thus questions the traditional Marxist
emphasis on the constraints placed by imperialism on the indust-
rialisation process, and would presumably support the Bill Warrens
line of argument .[ 2 ]
I cannot take up the arguments of this vast discussion here
but only point out that it is inserted in a broader debate being,
taken up in journals such as Latin American Perspectives on the
resolution (hopefully!) of the `dependency debate' . [ 3 ] From this
discussion, and Slater's paper mentioned above, I get the impres-
sion that the classical Marxist debate on imperialism itself is,
far from resolved . Much can still be gained from re-reading Lenin,,
Bukharin, Hilferding and Luxembourg. The second point, related
to the case studies mentioned above, is a certain dialogue of the
deaf I perceive in discussions over the `national bourgeoisie' .
This is neither `dead' (Jenkins) nor `thriving' (Jongkind)-quite
simply, its very conditions of existence are determined by its
continual reproduction as a subordinate partner to imperialism .
So, when Jongkind says that `dependency does not appear to be
a problem for the national industrialists' (p . 207) he is correct for
a particular country (Venezuela) at a particular moment of accel-
erated capital accumulation. Not for one moment can this sub-
jective assessment deny the subordinate position of national
capital units so clearly outlined by Jenkins.
The third part of this book-not really reflected in the
title-discusses variations in labour control strategies throughout
Latin America. This is an area of investigation only recently being
opened up by Marxists, but already finding widespread dif-
fusion.[4] Discussing the case of Brazil, John Humphrey shows
how the role of the state in capital-labour relations must be anal-
ysed as an aspect of capital's domination of the working class, in
the context of a specific pattern of capital accumulation. Jackie
Roddick discusses the position of the working class in Chile and
Argentina, since the 1973 and 1976 military coups respectively.
Her discussion of the Chilean Plan Laboral is reflected in the
more recent anti-union labour legislation in Argentina. Juan
Carlos Torre complements her discussion with a brilliant histor-
ical reconstruction (unfortunately in Spanish) of working class
struggles in Argentina from 1955 to 1976. The theme of repress-
ion gives way to that of co-optation and manipulation of the
working class in Mexico. Together with Kruijt this same author
provides a most informative outline (again in Spanish) of labour
relations in a mining enclave-the Cerro de Pasco Corporation in
Peru .'
What emerges from these articles, apart from the wealth of
detailed information, is the obvious need for greater theoretical
discussion on the role of labour in the `Third World' .[5] Are anti-
imperialist tasks still posed for the working class in Argentina or
Mexico, and what do these amount to in practice? Also, partic-
ularly in the comparison of Chile and Argentina, I can see a need
for further focus on the internal forms of organisation of the
REVIEWS
157
working class. The working class in Argentina is not just more
`militant' and so can resist the dictatorshipbetter, but it is struc-
tured at the base through organs of proletarian democracy which
allowed it to recover from even the serious defeat of 1976. The
outbreak of labour resistance in Brazil in recent years also renews
the need for taking up the classical discussionof workers'
councils, etc . i n the context of countries dominatedby
imperialism .
References
1 cf S. Villamil (ed),Transnational Capitalism and National
Development-newperspectives on dependence, Harvester
Press (in
Development-new perspectiveson dependence, Harvester
Press (in association with the Institute of Development
Studies, University of Sussex), 1979 .
2 B. Warren `Imperialism and capitalist industrialisation',New
Left Review No . 81 (1973) .
3 Forthcoming issue on `Imperialism and Dependency' .
4See the journals Newsletter of International Labour Studies
(The Hague), and Labour, Capital and Society (Montreal) .
5Cf Robin Cohen `The new international
labour studies : a
definition' Working Paper Series No . 27, Centre for Develop-
ing Area Studies, McGill University, Montreal .
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draw on the work of CSE groups. Recent editions have included:
No. 11 Industrial Democracy and the Control of Labour
Nationalism and Class Struggle in Zimbabwe
Finance Capital and the Crisis in Britain
The State and the Future of Socialism.
No. 10 The Value of Value : Rereading Capital
Education for Emancipation: The movement for Indpendent Worki
Class Education 1908-1892
A Short History of the CSE
Women and the Reserve Army of Labour
On Amin's Model of Autocentric Accumulation
A Critique of Brazilian Political Economy
Word Processing and Patriarchy in the Office.
No. 9
The Economic Policy of the New Chinese Leadership Patrick Tissier
Labour Time, Work Measurement and the Commensuration of Labor
P. S. Taylor
Debate: Theory of the Capitalist State M. Williams
Strategy: Which Way Out of the Ghetto D. Elson
Theory and Politics of Michel Foucault Bob Fine
No. 8The Politics of Workplace Trade Unionism R
. Hyman
Crisis, The Labour Movement and The Alternative Econ
Crisis, The Labour Movement and The Alternative Economic Strateg
London CSE Group
The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and FeminismHeidi Hartman
State and Capital in Brazil R. Munck
Critique of Soviet Economics D. Sayer
No . 7Valorisation and 'De-skilling'
: Critique of Braverman T. Elger
Social Fascism: Workers and Political Parties in the Frankfurt Area 1
1930 J. Wickham
Health Policy and the CutsT. Manson
No. 6
On the Theoretical Consistency of Sraffa's Economics S. Savran
Trade Unionism and the Struggle for Liberation in South AfricaD .
Hemson
The Anomalies of Capital S. Himmelweit and S. Mohun
Regionalism: Some Current Issues D. Massey
Intellectual and Manual Labour: An Introduction to Alfred Sohn-Re
M. Reinfelder and P . Slater.
No. 5 In Defence of Value
: A Reply to Ian Steedman P. Armstrong, A. Gly
and J. Harrison
Capital, Fractions of Capital and the State: Neo-Marxist Analyses of
South African State S . Clarke
The Soviet Economy in the 1920s and 1930sM . Harrison
Debate: Trade Union Internationalism and the Supra-National State
J. Baker .
No. 4
The Inflational Crisis of CapitalismMakoto Itoh
Value and the Theory of RentR. Murray
Ideology, Crisis and the Cuts K. McDonnell
British Housing Policy and the Housebuilding Industry M.Ball
Archive : The Value FormK. Marx .