This volume addresses the long-standing neglect of the category of labour in critical social theory and it presents a powerful case for a new paradigm based on the anthropological significance of work and its role in shaping social bonds.

One of the problems the institutional crisis of philosophy is facing in Romania is the difficulty of philosophy graduates to find a suitable place on the complex labor market. The article attempts to elucidate whether philosophy graduates subsequently teach what they study during their university education and to find solutions for a better integration on the labor market of these graduates. An important part of the article is dedicated to analyzing the institutional offer vis-à-vis the challenges that philosophy (...) graduates face once they are attempting to find a job on the labor market. From our analysis we conclude that there is no direct connection between the diversity of jobs among philosophy graduates and the courses that they took during their university studies. (shrink)

The article discusses the works of Samara researchers T.N. Sosnina and L.B. Chetyrova in the field of the philosophy of labor. The analysis is carried out in the context of the need to resolve the socio-epistemological situation of the “death of labor” and to rethink the content of the concept of labor. T.N. Sosnina opened this thematic field of research in Samara in the 1970s with the development of philosophical theory of the subject of labor. As (...) a result, the proper activity of the subject of labor was explained, the subject of labor in the system of spiritual production was singled out, and the prospect of a broad interpretation of labor activity that would include spiritual and managerial components was outlined. Methodological potential of the theory of the subject of labor was further used in the framework of noosphere paradigm approach for the analysis of material production flows and life cycles of the formation of products of nature and society. Taking into account the activity of means and subjects of labor, T.N. Sosnina presented the picture of the world as a universal cooperation. L.B. Chetyrova, discussing historical and cultural panorama of conceptions of labor, interpreted labor as a spiritual and practical activity. Obvious diversity of spiritual culture of the society naturally determines plurality of labor interpretations. Of particular interest is the analysis of the labor concept from the position of linguoconceptology as well as from the prospect of the images of labor in the history of mythology, religion, philosophy, and other worldviews. The Samara philosophy has answered the intellectual challenge of the concept the “death of labor,” proposing pan-ergonism – a worldwiew asserting the totality of labor. This worldview ontologizes the concept of the “labor of the being” and continues the tradition of ergodicy, various versions of which were developed by thinkers of the Silver Age of Russian culture. (shrink)

At the end of 1907 within a couple of months Lunačarskij met both Gor’kij and Brzozowski in Italy and found many important points of contact with each. To compare Lunačarskij’s thought at that time with Brzozowski’s “philosophical program” of 1907 casts some new light on the great variety of interpretations that enlivened Easter European Marxism at the beginning of the twentieth century. On the one hand, it explains Lunačarskij’s “economism” as distinct both from Brzozowski’s extreme anthropologism and Gor’kij’s “cosmism”; on (...) the other, it shows that Lunačarskij’s “philosophy of labour” promoted a violent attitude of conquest and humankind’s domination of nature. Although he criticized Brzozowski’s sympathies with German Idealism, Lunačarskij shared with him a deep appreciation of human creative power, which is evident in his peculiar form of collectivism as well. (shrink)

Originally published in 1925, C. Delisle Burns’ _The Philosophy of Labour _attempts to lay down key aspects of labour and the working class of that time period, covering aspects such as economic obstacles, standards of living and patriotism. Burns does not draw on past philosophers or sociological thinkers of the working-class and instead chose to focus only on the attitude of the workers in factories, mines, roads, railways and other forms of manual labour. This title will be of interest to (...) students of philosophy. (shrink)

Although Richard Rorty has done much to renew interest in the philosophy of John Dewey, he nonetheless rejects two of the most important components of Dewey's philosophy, that is, his metaphysics and epistemology. Following George Santayana, Rorty accuses Dewey of trying to serve Locke and Hegel, an impossibility as Rorty rightly sees it. Rorty (1982) says that Dewey should have been Hegelian all the way (p. 85). By reconstructing a bit of Hegel's early philosophy of work, and comparing it to (...) Dewey's metaphysics and epistemology we can see that Dewey was indeed Hegelian all the way and that Rorty has constructed a false dilemma. We also gain some interesting insight into Dewey's philosophy by viewing it in terms of labor, tools and language. (shrink)

In recent years, feminist scholarship on emotional labor has proliferated. I identify a related but distinct form of care labor, hermeneutic labor. Hermeneutic labor is the burdensome activity of: understanding and coherently expressing one’s own feelings, desires, intentions, and movitations; discerning those of others; and inventing solutions for relational issues arising from interpersonal tensions. I argue that hermeneutic labor disproportionately falls on women’s shoulders in heteropatriachal societies, especially in intimate relationships between women and men. I (...) also suggest that some of the gendered burdens of emotional labor that feminist scholars point out would better be described as hermeneutic labor. Drawing on feminist philosophy as well as findings from social psychology and sociology, I argue that the exploitation of women’s hermeneutic labor is a pervasive element of what Sandra Bartky calls the ‘micropolitics’ of intimate relationships. The widespread expectation that women are relationship maintenance experts, as well as the prevalence of a gendered demand-withdraw pattern of communication, leads an exploitative situation to appear natural or even desirable, even as it leads to women’s dissatisfaction. This situation may be considered misogynistic in Kate Manne’s sense, where misogyny is a property of social environments rather than a worldview. (shrink)

Matt Beech traces the ideological roots of the Labour Party from its nineteenth century origins in the Labour Movement, through the twentieth century, until the years under Tony Blair. He claims that New Labour in power evolved as a revisionist social democratic government and traces its search for new political ideas both to the New Right and Old Labour. Using interviews with former Labour politicians, advisers and academics, he presents an original and comprehensive analysis of Labour's political philosophy.

Most people would agree that we should behave and act in a responsible way. Yet only 200 years ago, ‘responsibility’ was only of marginal importance in discussions of law and legal practice, and it had little ethical significance. What is the significance of the fact that ‘responsibility’ now plays such a central role in, for example, work, the welfare state, or the criminal justice system? What happens when individuals are generally expected to think of themselves as ‘responsible’ agents? And what (...) are the consequences of the fact that the philosophical analysis of ‘responsibility’ focuses almost exclusively on conditions of agency that are mostly absent from real life? -/- In this book, Frieder Vogelmann demonstrates how large parts of philosophy have fallen under responsibility’s spell, and he uses a Foucauldian approach in an attempt to break it. The three axes of power, knowledge, and self are used in a detailed analysis of the practical regimes of labour (including the welfare state), criminality (including policing, punishment practices, and criminal proceedings), and philosophy, and of the two subject positions required by ‘responsibility’ – those of the attributors and bearers of responsibility – within them. The power relations between these positions, which Vogelmann carefully excavates from the grounds of our practices, reveal that the deck is stacked unevenly from the start. (shrink)

This book contains a series of lectures on the philosophy of work, delivered at Duquesne University. From his study of modern philosophy, the author is convinced of the necessity of integrating a philosophy of work into the traditional system of philosophy. His book presents an analysis of labour in function of Marxism, whose starting-point is a philosophy of work and whose end is the redemption of man through labour.

As the author points out, a philosophy of labor can be extremely helpful in illuminating the more general problems of social and political philosophy. For those who are unacquainted with the philosophic treatment of labor, especially in Marx, this discussion may be an aid. However, there is a strong tendency to oversimplify throughout the book and the reader frequently feels that the author is by-passing the really difficult issues. The positive thesis is that humanization of the labor (...) world is an urgent task.--R. J. B. (shrink)

오늘을 살아가는 현대인들에게 있어 노동(일)은 생계를 유지하기 위한 수단의 측면을 넘어 사회, 정치적으로 자신의 지위와 역할을 나타내는 상징적인 기능을 수행한다. 이것은 현대인들에게 있어 노동의 의미가 사회적으로 중요한 역할과 기능을 한다는 것을 말해준다. 하지만 사회·정치적인 측면에서 강화된 노동의 형식과 내용은 자본을 중심으로 하는 신자유주의 시장경제체제 속에서 인간 존재를 노동을 위한 수단으로 전락하게 만드는 위험성을 노정하고 있다. 그러므로 우리는 인간의 삶과 노동에 대한 인식을 사회적이고 정치적인 측면에서 살펴볼 수 있는 개연성을 갖게 된다. 더욱이 인간의 삶을 위한 수단의 측면인 노동이 사회와 정치, 그리고 (...) 경제체제 속에서 역전된 현상, 즉 노동으로부터 소외된 현대인의 삶의 모습을 통해 우리는 노동의 의미를 되새겨 볼 필요가 있다. 이 점에서 본고는 현대사회에 만연하고 있는 노동으로부터 소외된 인간 삶의 문제를 해결하고 극복할 수 있는 방안을 동양의 철학사상을 통해 모색하여 본다. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Clear Division of Labor Within Environmental Philosophy?William M. Throop (bio)In discussions about the future of environmental philosophy, I have found myself supporting two positions that are in tension with one another. The first, which has been well explored in the last decade, is that environmental philosophy should have a more dramatic impact outside of academic circles. It should affect policy and guide the behavior of non-philosophers, which (...) usually requires that it deeply engage the empirical details of problems it addresses. The second is that environmental philosophy needs to improve its status within the larger philosophical community, which requires its practitioners to use methods that dominate mainstream philosophy and to be conversant with contemporary work in ethical theory, epistemology, metaphysics, and continental philosophy. Some have argued that this tension places a double burden on those training to be environmental philosophers; they must demonstrate both theoretical and practical excellence. I fear that such a standard will limit [End Page 147] the growth of environmental philosophy. It will be daunting to new environmental philosophers and achieved by only a few.With respect to this tension, I suggest that environmental philosophy should support a robust division of labor. Many new environmental philosophers should be recruited from cohorts trained primarily in core areas of philosophy. Most of these thinkers will probably focus on highly theoretical issues—issues that anyone in the field would recognize as philosophical.Their knowledge of environmental problems may be superficial and their audience likely will consist primarily of other philosophers. Their impact beyond philosophy may be quite limited (except for their students). I come from this tradition, and I am still delighted by the purely intellectual puzzles that our field generates. Work of this sort should be honored, but our field will be sterile if it is dominated by this kind of thought.I hope that many other new environmental philosophers will be trained in interdisciplinary environmental graduate programs or "applied" philosophy Ph.D. programs where they will acquire the interdisciplinary expertise necessary to address practical problems and to effectively engage non-philosophical audiences. This group of "practical" environmental philosophers should also include a host of practitioners in other fields who contribute to philosophical dialogue. I suspect that much work in this area will be case-based, empirically sophisticated and, where it addresses non-philosophical audiences, more reliant on compelling metaphors than on tight arguments. I doubt that it is fruitful to view this group as applying the work of the former group. The aims, the sources of insight and the standards of quality for the two groups are categorically different. For practical philosophers, the political feasibility of a proposal matters, and the arguments must have the capacity to move relevant stakeholders. The results of this work may appear to be philosophy-lite to those in the first group, but only if judged by standards that are inappropriate if we accept a division of labor in the field.This division of labor cannot be an apartheid. Many promising innovations in environmental philosophy will come from the interface between these groups. And unfortunately, a good bit of questionable work done in each group may result from a failure to understand progress that has been made by the other group. For example, philosophers focused only on theory may draw implications for action that fail to accord with current empirical information. Practical philosophers may [End Page 148] critique simplified metaethical positions that have long been abandoned in favor of more sophisticated versions. A healthy dialogue and a mutual respect should diminish these dangers. Such a division of labor has significant implications for graduate education, hiring and evaluation of faculty, and allocation of prestige within the field. The health and growth of environmental philosophy will depend on part on how we address these implications.William M. Throop Bill Throop is provost and professor of philosophy at Green Mountain College, an environmental liberal arts college in Poultney, VT. His background is in epistemology and philosophy of science, but in the last decade his work has focused on conceptual and ethical issues in ecological restoration and wilderness preservation. E-mail: throopw@greenmtn.eduCopyright © 2007 Indiana University Press... (shrink)

The starting-point of this article is an phenomenological analysis in relation to forms of labour in the present world of media and information realities. The priority is given to analysis in view of modern consciousness of labour in so far as it is important for the modern understanding of human praxis. In a retrospective view on Kant and Locke the philosophical definitions and reasons of labour are reconstructed, which characterize the philosophy of modern times in the whole and on its (...) route. Owing to there is the possibility to have a eye for the problems and breaches of present world of labour, which can be identified as fundamental experiences of loss. It is the philosophical work of remembering, which clarifies the negative aspects of modern world of labour concerning the conception of human self and world completely. (shrink)

This article explores the concept of labour through a diremptive reading of Polish philosopher Stanisław Brzozowski’s essay “Prolegomena filozofii ‘pracy’” written in 1909. This essay appears as a chapter in his main work Idee: wstęp do filozofii dojrzałości dziejowej, first published in 1910. In “Prolegomena,” Brzozowski defines labour as an inner gesture that delineates the duration of life. In the interpretation of this definition the influence of Henri Bergson on Brzozowski’s thought is stressed. Inspired by Bergson, Brzozowski understands labour as (...) the only ground-creating—and therefore metaphysical—activity of humanity, when faced with the absence of transcendent grounds for existence in modernity. Emphasis is placed on Brzozowski’s insistence in “Prolegomena” that labour is irrational in its delineation of the absolutely new. He describes it as the α of the inner gesture of labour that cannot be known until it is performed. This unknown α is interpreted as his way of describing the groundlessness of the ground-creating activity of labour, and that this groundlessness means that labour eludes the control of the subject. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to introduce a theory of affective labor as byproductive, a concept I develop through analysis of the phenomenology of various affective labor practices in dialog with feminist scholarship, both on gendered and racialized labor, and on affect and emotion. I motivate my theory in the context of literature on affective and emotional labor in philosophy and the social sciences, engaging the post-Marxist literature on affective and immaterial labor and emphasizing (...) feminist critiques. I argue that affective labor is not only the work of producing affects for others to consume or the reproductive work that rejuvenates and sustains labor power and social life, but also the work of metabolizing waste affects and affective byproducts. Thus, byproductive labor is a neologism I develop to bring into view an affective economy and indeed a political economy of affects to the side of the distinction between productive and reproductive labor in its paid and unpaid variants. I make three central c... (shrink)

Brzozowski’s ‘philosophy of labour’—to which he devoted a number of writings starting in 1902—presents problems of interpretation. A conceptual approach to his conception shows it to be a sometimes uneasy mix of realist and anti-realist notions. Brzozowski appears to have thought that labour is not first of all about the things it supposedly transforms, but rather about itself. I suggest that Brzozowski can be read in the spirit of Nelson Goodman’s nominalist constructionalism (“worldmaking”). On this account, labour in Brzozowski’s idiom (...) turns out to be the constitution of forms of symbolizing sufficient unto themselves and the needs they satisfy. However, that Brzozowski was not entirely consistent in the views I impute to him—he forever sought for some ‘external’ measure of the rightness of labour/symbolizing—can be explained at least in part by his ‘humanism’, that is, his commitment to the task he assigns humankind, that of creating the one meaningful world attesting to virtually unrestricted human power. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an original interpretation of Marx's conception of unalienated labor, which I frame as a response to Aristotle's view of work, or technē. Both Aristotle and Marx share a particular conception of freedom as “normative self-determination,” according to which an activity is free insofar as it does not depend for its value on externally valuable things. For instance, when my activity is a mere means for satisfying some need separate from it, it comes to depend (...) for its value on the externally valuable effect—the “needs-meeting”—it achieves. Or, when my activity is only causally—but not normatively—enabled by the cooperative contributions of others, it comes to depend for its value on those externally valuable contributions. On Aristotle's view, work is unleisurely (ascholos) and servile (doulos) because it is normatively dependent in both of these ways. For Marx, by contrast, work possesses the capacity to “internalize” these external determinants of its value. Unalienated work does this, first, by satisfying “internal” needs, or needs whose satisfaction does not constitute a normatively external effect of the work that satisfies them. The satisfaction of internal needs is valuable because of the manner or way in which they are satisfied. Second, unalienated work would not only be causally, but also normatively, enabled by the contributions of others, in that those contributions would help to make it the distinctively valuable act that it is. Unalienated work would be valuable because, and not despite, its cooperative character. In both of these respects, then, cooperation is essential to make work fully free. (shrink)

Law No. 11,340/2006, also known as the "Maria da Penha" Law, was created after the condemnation to exclusively protect women victims of violence. In Article 9, § 2, item II, there is a specific rule on the employment contract, which allows the judge to ensure that women in situations of domestic and family violence maintain the employment relationship for up to six months. During this period, women have the right to be absent from work, thus contributing to the preservation of (...) their physical and psychological integrity. The objective of this paper is to better analyze how the international system may further contribute to increasing the labor legal protection of women victims of domestic violence. A prospective-documentary technique was employed to analyze the Brazilian domestic legislation and the international system, including norms of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS). These analyses reveal that despite the separation of social phenomena – domestic violence occurring in the private sphere, and work belonging to the public sphere of the victim's life – international principles, so-called soft law rules, can be used to further enhance the protection of women victims of domestic violence in Brazil. These women require a whole set of mechanisms that protect their physical, psychological, and emotional integrity, but also guarantee financial and professional support. This multidimensional response to domestic violence is central to a country that ranks 5th in the world for femicide. (shrink)

This paper investigates the compatibility of Hegel’s analyses of the mechanization of work in industrial society with Hegel’s notion of freedom as rational self-determination. Work as such is for Hegel a crucial moment on the way to a more complete realization of human freedom, but, as I maintain with Adorno, the technological developments of the last two centuries raise the question of whether the nature of work itself has changed since the industrial revolution. In his Jena lectures, Hegel recognized significant (...) problems that the mechanization of work poses for human freedom that—on my assessment—his later, mature thought does not sufficiently address. One finds, however, a more comprehensive depiction of the same worries that Hegel mentioned in his Jena lectures in Adorno’s critique of the dominant forms of labor in contemporary society and his understanding of technological rationality, which according to Adorno, dominates the contemporary world. I suggest, furthermore, that juxtaposing Hegel’s and Adorno’s thoughts on technology and the mechanization of work reveals Adorno’s philosophy of technology to be an extension, rather than a critique, of the spirit of Hegel’s own philosophical project as immanent critique of the necessary entailments of any given concept. (shrink)

As Bhaskar (1989:1) argues, we need to take philosophy seriously because it underwrites both what constitutes science and knowledge and which political practices are deemed legitimate. At present, the field of educational research internationally is witnessing a pragmatist trend, whereby practical education research is carried out without reference to ontological and epistemological concerns. For David Reynolds, a leading UK school effectiveness academic, '[p]recisely because we did not waste time on philosophical discussion or on values debates, we made rapid progress' (1998:20). (...) Equally, for Teddlie, '[t]he orientation of many in the US is to do rather than to reflect […] In reality many practitioners are currently interested in what could work at their school […rather…] than in ruminations about social inequalities associated with different socioeconomic classes' (Teddlie and Reynolds 2000:27). The purpose of this chapter is not only to reclaim critical realist social philosophy for educational research, but also to reclaim reality from the positivist and statistical methodology that underpins School Effectiveness Research (SER) and to make clear the difference that realism makes by virtue of its critical explanatory power in unmasking the ideological nature of SER and its adoption by New Labour. (shrink)

This article contributes to the debate on automation and justice by discussing two under-represented concerns: labour justice and equality. Since automation involves both winners and losers, and given that there is no ‘end of work’ on the horizon, it is argued that most normative views on the subject – i.e. the ‘allocative’ view of basic income, and the ‘desirability’ views of post-work and workist ethics – do not provide many resources with which to address unjustly unequal divisions of labour involved (...) in technological innovation. This article problematises these common responses reframing the problem from the perspective of labour justice. While the allocative view assumes that labour justice follows ‘spontaneously’ from income redistribution, the desirability views are chiefly interested in either defining or contesting the meanings of work for individuals, overlooking the interdependent nature of work and concerns of equality other than autonomy. Two conceptions of labour justice are thus applied to the problem: Paul Gomberg’s contributive justice, and Iris Young’s democratic division of labour. Instead of deciding between them, the normative core of ‘contributive parity’ is suggested as a critical standard for assessing unequal labour structures, and for envisaging a future in which technology can be an ally in making social cooperation fair. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s attitude toward science is ambivalent: he remarks approvingly on its rigorous methodology and adventurous spirit, but also points out its limitations and rebukes scientists for encroaching onto philosophers’ territory. What does Nietzsche think is science’s proper role and relationship with philosophy? I argue that, according to Nietzsche, philosophy should set goals for science. Philosophers’ distinctive task is to ‘create values’, which involves two steps: (1) envisaging ideals for human life, and (2) turning those ideals into prescriptions for behaviour and (...) societal organization. To accomplish step (2), philosophers should delegate scientists to investigate what moral rules and social arrangements have best advanced this ideal in the past or might in the future. (shrink)

The current legal and political practice of human rights invokes entitlements to freely chosen work, to decent working conditions, and to form and join labor unions. Despite the importance of these rights, they remain under-explored in the philosophical literature on human rights. This article offers a systematic and constructive discussion of them. First, it surveys the content and current relevance of the labor rights stated in the most important documents of the human rights practice. Second, it gives a (...) moral defense of these rights arguing that their support involves an appropriate response to important human interests and to the human dignity of workers. Finally, it explores central normative issues about the relation between labor rights and human dignity. It responds to some objections about the importance of work, explains why labor human rights may not exhaust the demands of dignity regarding labor and arbitrates a common tension between independence and solidarity within our practical affirmation of human dignity. (shrink)

This article explores Marx’s contention that the achievement of full personhood and, not just consequently, but simultaneously, of genuine intersubjectivity depends upon the attainment of recognition for one’s place in the social division of labour, recognition which is systematically denied to some individuals and groups of individuals through the capitalist organization of production and exchange. This reading is then employed in a critique of Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition which, it is argued, cannot account for the systematic obstacles faced by (...) some struggles for recognition. (shrink)

The article explores the problem of preferable technological changes in the context of work. To this end, it addresses the ‘why’ (motives and values) and the ‘how’ (organizational forms) of automation from a normative perspective. Concerning the ‘why,’ automation processes are currently mostly driven by values of economic efficiency. Yet, since automation processes are part of the basic structure of society, as is the division of labor, considerations of justice apply to them. As for the ‘how,’ the article suggests (...) ‘fair hybrid cooperation’ as an alternative ideal to guide automation priorities. It is achieved when the division of labor between humans and machines does not hinder, and preferably enables, workers’ experience of certain primary qualities in their work activity. By analogy with Rawls’ primary goods, these are qualities that it is necessary for every worker to experience in order to pursue their life plans: security, self-direction, self-development, dignity, and recognition. According to this criterion, the tasks to automate first are those hindering these contributive primary qualities. This provides us with a normative vocabulary and a standard to orient automation decisions but also to assess existing organizational forms and envisage alternative cooperative imaginaries. To illustrate how the ideal may play out in the real world, the article concludes with a ‘fair hybrid cooperation test’ and a nurse bots case for meaningful work. (shrink)

This paper explores Arendt’s and Foucault’s thinking through the lens of the modern labor paradigm. Even if the question of labor is a less prominent path in both thinkers’ research, it leads to the heart of the modern era as they both understand it. In their respective fields, Arendt and Foucault sketch a similar link between the beginning of the modern age and the transformation of the notion of labor. While Arendt directly examines the modern glorification of (...) labor and the emergence of the labor society, Foucault provides numerous analyses of labor as an instrument and target of disciplinary society, along with an epistemic distinction of modernity deeply connected to the term, ‘labor.’ This joint reading contributes to what might be called their philosophies of labor, as well as to the ongoing debate about the nature and meaning of labor in contemporary society. (shrink)

There is no doubt that Immanuel Kant has a woman problem. His anthropo-logical studies of women are full of cutting remarks, and despite a generation offeminist Kantian scholarship, it is an open question whether he meant to include women as full, equal agents in either his moral or political philosophy. Those who engage this question within Kant’s political philosophy ask whether or not women can “work their way up” to full, active citizenship. If women can achieve equality in this way, (...) the argument goes, then we can solve Kant’s woman problem. But this approach, I argue, asks the wrong question. It focuses on the status of wives rather than on the structure of the domestic sphere as a whole, and therefore obscures the ways in which the valuation of domestic space and reproductive labor shape access to rights and equality in Kant’s political philosophy. I will argue that this approach misses the deeper structural and gendered inequalities built into Kant’s conception of the state. Re-examining Kant’s “woman problem” points us toward a larger problem with labor and inequality in the Kantian state: Kant’s map of the rightful institutional order normatively requires that someone do the dependency work that makes independence possible. (shrink)

This article uses Foucault’s lecture courses to illuminate his reading of Marx’s Capital in Discipline and Punish. Foucault finds in Marx’s account of cooperation a precedent for his own approach to power. In turn, Foucault helps us rethink the concepts of productive force and labour power in Marx. Foucault is shown to be particularly interested in one of Marx’s major themes in Capital, parts III–IV: the subsumption of labour under capital. In Discipline and Punish and The Punitive Society, Foucault offers (...) a genealogy of the forms of labour power ( Arbeitskraft) and productive force ( Produktivkraft). One of his central problems is to understand how labour power is converted in productive force and how, prior to that, productive subjects who can properly bear and dispose of their labour power are formed. Foucault’s reading of Capital resonates with those currents of Marx interpretation today that seek to repoliticize the concept of productive force and to offer a materialist account of subject formation. (shrink)

This symposium paper for the APA analyzes Locke's labor theory of property acquisition as a formal argument – or set of alternative arguments – and shows how several of them are indeed sound, if appropriately limited by what amounts to a social welfare proviso. That proviso is, however, strong enough to limit the acquisition of private property in a significant way. The argument here anticipates fuller and more decisive ones in later work by the same author.

In this article, I maintain that the social process of labour commodification, through which the individual capability to uphold a decent welfare is bound to participation in the labour market, poses a problem of justice from the republican prospective on freedom as non-domination. I first discuss the reasons we might hold that capitalism brings a form of systemic domination by virtue of one of its intrinsic features: unequal access to the means of production. Then, I argue for a minimum de-commodification (...) of labour power as a criterion of justice, adding that it should be conceived as a cosmopolitan proviso because states unfairly suffer from their limited economic capacity to neutralize capitalist systemic domination. Lastly, I compare the normative account of global justice that I am proposing in this article with sufficientarianism, with the capability approach, and with Thomas Pogge’s ‘Global Resources Dividend’. (shrink)

Marx conceives of labor as form-giving activity. This is criticized for presupposing a "productivist" model of labor which regards work that creates a material product — craft or industrial work — as the paradigm for all work (Habermas, Benton, Arendt). Many traditional kinds of work do not seem to fit this picture, and new "immaterial" forms of labor (computer work, service work, etc.) have developed in postindus trial society which, it is argued, necessitate a fundamental revision of (...) Marx's approach (Hardt and Negri). Marx's theory, however, must be understood in the context of Hegel's philosophy. In that light, the view that Marx has a "productivist" model of labor is mistaken. The concept of "immaterial" labor is unsound, and Marx's ideas continue to provide an illuminating framework for understanding work in modern society. (shrink)

But in the age of the disintegration of experience human beings are no longer subjectively disposed to letter writing. For the present it looks as though technology is eliminating the preconditions for the letter. Because letters are no longer necessary, given the speedier possibilities of communication and the shrinking of spatio-temporal distances, their inherent substance is disintegrating as well. Benjamin brought to letter writing an antiquarian and uninhibited talent; for him the letter represented the wedding of something in the process (...) of disappearing and the utopia of restoration.In the intimate sphere of the conjugal family privatized individuals viewed themselves as independent even from the private... (shrink)