Labor and monopoly capital for the 1990s: A review Critique of the debate on the labor process

Abstract

The publication of Harry Braverman’s book Labour and Monopoly Capital in 1974 was undoubtedly one of the most important intellectual developments of the past twenty years. The book quickly established itself as required reading among the left, becoming one of the most cited works of contemporary Marxist literature (rivalled perhaps only by E. P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class). Moreover, Labour and Monopoly Capital quickly made its way into academia, renewing interest in the history and sociology of labour and setting the agenda for a whole generation of historians and sociologists of labour. Braverman initiated what has come to be known as the ‘labour process debate’, thereby reorienting the study of the workplace towards such questions as the nature of skill and the apparent decline of skilled labour, managerial strategies of worker control, and the extent and nature of worker resistance to such strategies.