Indeterminacy and the Future of Work: Marx, Burawoy, and Labor Process Theory

• In Event: 50858 - Contributions to Marxist Sociology

Abstract

Though sociologists, activists, students, and workers of many stripes continue to mourn the tragic recent loss of Michael Burawoy, we remain indebted to his vast intellectual contributions. In studies deeply informed by Marxist labor process theory (LPT) and his experiential knowledge of working life, Burawoy’s touchstone participant observer studies of the “politics of production” keenly demonstrated how the industrial workers that he toiled alongside—and not industrial engineers or heavy-handed managers—played a most active part in the organization of production processes. In more recent years, however, LPT has been largely neglected by U.S.-based sociologists of labor. In short, organized labor, rather than the organization of work, remains the prevailing discourse within the sociology of work. This paper draws on field data from a three-year participant observer study (2020-2023) where I experienced peer-to-peer platform work firsthand—working anywhere between 20-75 hours each week on four gig platforms. I identify three profit generating strategies universally deployed by all four platform cases (e.g., ridehail, shopping, courier, and manual labor) within the labor process: rent-seeking, opaque control, and surveillance. Beyond the labor process itself, however, these firms selectively rely on mechanisms which extant research suggests is limited to late-stage businesses cycles: enrolling platform users—both workers and consumers—into costly subscription services and onerous financialization or credit schemes. Building upon the empirical material and these typologies for generating surplus value, the paper concludes by discussing the enduring indeterminacy of the social relations of production within capitalism past, present, and future. Given what I refer to as "continuities of contradiction" between industrial and post-industrial or platform capitalism, Marx, Burawoy, and the LPT framework will continue to illuminate the politics of production well into the future.

Author

• Michael Slone, Case Western Reserve University