Abstract
This chapter presents an innovative typology of labour that can be used as an analytical tool for understanding the dynamics of change in work over time. Unpaid reproductive labour required for subsistence has historically been supplemented by paid servant labour and public service labour which do not directly produce surplus value for capitalists. But increasing numbers of workers have been drawn directly into the capitalist nexus through employment in capitalist service labour or production labour. Capitalism’s need to maximise the productivity of these workers has led to many of their tasks being externalised to consumers leading to another type of unpaid labour: consumption work.
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Notes
- 1.
I do not attempt to address the very large sociological literature on the division of labour here for reasons of space. Readers who would like to delve deeper are advised to start with such classic works as Emile Durkheim’s 1893 Division of Labour in Society, republished in 1997, New York: The Free Press and Ray Pahl’s 1984 Divisions of Labour, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
- 2.
Smith, R. L. (2009) Premodern Trade in World History, New York: Routledge.
- 3.
Braudel, F. (1967–1979) Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Century, London: Harper.
- 4.
Polanyi, K. (1944) The Great Transformation, New York: Farrar & Rinehart; Meiksins Wood, E. (1999) The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View, London: Verso.
- 5.
Thompson, E. P. (1963) The Making of the English Working Class, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
- 6.
Altvater, E. (2007) ‘Conceptualising Globalisation: Fossil Energy, Global Finance and the Labour Market’, Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, I (2): 5–14.
- 7.
Smith, A. (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Accessed on August 18, 2012 from: http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-b1-intro.htm.
- 8.
Ricardo, D. (1817) The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Accessed on August 19, 2012 from: http://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/ricardo/prin/index.html.
- 9.
Marx, K. (1867) Capital. Accessed on August 18, 2012 from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1.
- 10.
Marx, K. (1844) ‘Estranged Labour’, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, First Manuscript. Retrieved on June 8, 2018 from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm.
- 11.
Ibid.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Marx, K. (1973) Grundrisse, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Retrieved on August 23, 2010 from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch12.htm#p610.
- 14.
Marx, K. (1863) Capital, Chapter IV. Retrieved on February 1, 2012 from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories-surplus-value/ch04.htm.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Marx, K. (1861–1864) ‘Productive and Unproductive Labour’, Economic Manuscripts, Chapter 2. Accessed on January 20, 2013 from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm.
- 17.
Braverman, H. (1974) Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the 20th Century, New York: Monthly Review Press: 362.
- 18.
Initially published in Huws, U. (2014), ‘The Underpinnings of Class in the Digital Age: Living, Labour and Value’, Socialist Register, 50: 80–107 and subsequently developed further elsewhere.
- 19.
Weinbaum, B. & A. Bridges (1976) ‘The Other Side of the Paycheck: Monopoly Capital and the Structure of Consumption’, Monthly Review, 28 (3), July–August.
- 20.
I first introduced this concept in Huws, U. (1982) ‘Domestic Technology: Liberator or Enslaver?’, Scarlet Women, 14. Reprinted in Kanter, H., S. Lefanu & S. Spedding (eds.) (1984) Sweeping Statements: Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement 1981–1983, London: The Women’s Press.
- 21.
This is discussed more fully in Chapter 11 (‘Who’s Waiting? The Contestation of Time’) in Huws, Ursula (2003) The Making of a Cybertariat: Virtual Work in a Real World, Monthly Review Press.
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Huws, U. (2019). Labour In and Out of Capitalism. In: Labour in Contemporary Capitalism. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52042-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52042-5_2
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