The Future of Work

In this wide-ranging analysis of the processes, mutations and trends currently characterizing the world of work, Adrián Sotelo V. offers important new insights into the ways these changes are bound up within the deep contradictions of a global capitalist system plagued by systemic crisis, and roots the paradigmatic shifts in social and labor relations in Neoliberalism’s pro-business policies.

List of Tables and Figures
Preface
List of Abbreviations
Introduction

PART I – STRUCTURAL CRISIS AND ABSTRACT LABOUR

1. Capital-labour as Antipodes?
Introduction
The World of Work: Extinction or Centrality in the Current Day?
Why Speak of an Antipode?
Why does it Persist in the 21st Century?
Conclusions

2. The Labour Process and Productive Labour in Contemporary Capitalism
Introduction
The Labour Process (Constant and Variable Capital): a Re-evaluation
Theoretical Premises
Productive and Unproductive Labour
Conclusions

3. The Structural Crisis of Capital and Abstract Labour
Introduction
Absolute and Relative Surplus Value
The Crisis of Relative Surplus Value, the Dismeasure of Value, and the Dismeasure of Labour Power
The Capitalist Crisis as a Crisis of Value & Surplus Value
Conclusion

PART II – THE WORLD OF WORK IN THE 21ST CENTURY

4. Surplus Value and the Super-exploitation of Labour
Introduction
Exploitation and the Labour Theory of Value
Marini’s Approach to the Sociology of Work
Two Patterns of Capital Accumulation: Structural Heterogeneity vs. Technological Standardisation
Labour Power: Strategic to the Production of Extraordinary Profits
The Precariousness of the World of Work
Conclusions

5. The New Morphology of Capitalism
Introduction
The Socio-political Significance of Old and New Peripheries in the Global Economy
The Character of Super-exploitation under Advanced Capitalism
The Hegemonic of Relative Surplus Value in Capitalism and Labour Super-exploitation
Critiques & Counter-critiques
Super-exploitation, Surplus Value and Rates of Profit
Exploitation in Advanced Countries
Wages and Labour Productivity
Neoliberalism, Austerity and Labour Super-exploitation in Advanced Capitalism
Conclusions

Epilogue: The Future of Work

References
Index