Abstract
The introduction returns to the analyses of Gramsci on the advent of what he termed the New Worker and contemplates the nature of the profound changes taking place today. These changes embrace work and consumption and specifically in terms of their influence on the ‘subject’. The chapter considers the ways in which contemporary models of capitalism and the ‘subject’ have changed over the last three decades? What are the links between production and consumption in this transformation? How might we understand the consumption of (in)tangible goods against this background? What is the nature of the new worker today?
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Notes
- 1.
According to H. Beynon as quoted in B. Coriat. c.f. H. Beynon, Working for Ford, Penguin, 1973, it is worth reflecting upon the use of sociology and other human sciences (such as ethnology) in English and French colonies. Note that when this discipline is used, it tends to happen very ex post facto.
- 2.
Readers might refer to Jacques Frémontier’s book (1980) on the culture or morality of retention in the French working class; “The strength of desire and even greater strength of the repression of desire produce a discourse and behaviour sublimination that might be construed as the very foundation of ‘working class culture’” (p. 16).
- 3.
These are privately or state-owned sectors along with central and local public authorities. All have more or less adopted the same efficiency principles. Some do this to satisfy shareholders, others to cut operating costs—a priority for all governements seeking to reduce public deficits (an example in France being the RGPP Révision générale of politiques publiques [“General revision of public policy”] package and its effects on budgets and working conditions in the public sector).
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Durand, JP. (2019). Introduction. In: Creating the New Worker . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93260-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93260-6_1
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