If there is no automatic and immediate transformation of the mode of production as a result of a change in social forms, then such hybrid formations as we see in the Soviet Union should not come as a surprise. It took capitalism centuries to develop its own mode of production, which, as we shall see later in these pages, is still being worked out and developed. Socialism, as a mode of production, does not grow “automatically" in the way that capitalism grew in response to blind and organic market forces; it must be brought into being, on the basis of an adequate technology, by the conscious and purposive activity of collective humanity. And this activity must overcome not just the customary conditions of the previous mode ofproduction, but those ofthe many millennia during which class societies of all sorts have existed, since with the decline of capitalism we come to the end not merely of a single form of society but of the "last antagonistic form of the social process of production," in Marx's words, the “closing chapter of the prehistoric stage of human society."t4 Considered from this point of view, the notion that the labor processes to be discussed in this book can be divested of their capitalist character by the simple expedient of citing the Soviet Union seems to me the worst sort of slot-machine science.
In any event, the purpose of this book is the study of the labor processes of capitalist society, and the specific manner in which these are formed by capitalist property relations. I cannot offer here any parallel study of the specific manner in which this structure has been imitated by the hybrid societies of the Soviet bloc. The latter study forms its own and considerably different subject matter, and has enormous interest in its own right. But since this mode of production was created by capitalism and not by Sovietism, where it is only a reflexive, imitative, and one hopes transitional form, it is with capitalism that the study of the labor process must begin.
The “New Working Class"
The term “working class," properly understood, never precisely delineated a specified body of people, but was rather an expression for an ongoing social process. Nevertheless, to most people’s minds it represented for a long time a fairly well-defined part of the population of capitalist countries. But with the coming of broad occupational shifts (which will be described in later chapters), and a growing consciousness of these shifts in recent decades, the term has lost much of its descriptive capacity. I can therefore sympathize with those readers who would want me to begin with a concise and up-to-date definition of the term “working class." Such a definition, if it could easily be managed, would be helpful to the writer as well as the reader, but I cannot help feeling that an attempt to provide it at the outset would result in more confusion than clarification. We are dealing not with the static terms of an algebraic equation, which requires only that quantities be filled in, but with a dynamic process the mark of which is the transformation of sectors of the population. The place of many of these sectors in class definition is rather more complex than otherwise, and cannot be attempted until much has been described and the standards of analysis clarified.
To make this a little more concrete: I have no quarrel with the definition of the working class, on the basis of its “relationship to the means of production," as that class which does not own or otherwise have proprietary access to the means of labor, and must sell its labor power to those who do. But in the present situation, when almost all of the population has been placed in this situation so that the definition encompasses occupational strata of the most diverse kinds, it is not the bare definition that is important but its application. I can only say at this point that I hope a reasonable and useful picture of the structure of the working class emerges from this study. If readers will indulge me this far, I think they may see the necessity for this course later in the exposition, as I came to see it in the course of the investigation.\*
For purposes of clarity, however, I should note at the start that although I will be describing the immense changes in the shape of the working class during the past century, I cannot accept the arbitrary conception of a “new working class" that has been developed by some writers during the past decade. According to this conception, the “new working class" embraces those occupations which serve as the repositories for specialized knowledge in production and administration: engineers, technicians, scientists, lower managerial and administrative aides and experts, teachers, etc. Rather than examine the entire working population and learn how it has been altered, which portions have grown and which have declined or stagnated, these analysts have selected one portion of employment as the sole focus of their analysis. What saves this procedure from being completely arbitrary in the eyes of its practitioners is that they use the word new in a double sense: it refers to occupations that are new in the sense of having been recently created or enlarged, and also in the sense of their gloss, presumed advancement, and “superiority" to the old.
16 Labor and Monopoly Capital
Introduction
17
\* In an essay on the origins and functions of hierarchy in capitalist production, Stephen A. Marglin says: "In according first priority to the accumulation of capital, the Soviet Union repeated the history of capitalism, at least as regards the relationship of men and women to their work. . . . The Soviets consciously and deliberately embraced the capitalist mode of production. . . . Now, alas, the Soviets have the catch-up-withand-surpass the-U.S.A.’ tiger by the tail, for it would probably take as much of a revolution to transform work organization in that society as in ours."13
\* “Though extremely precise, [Marx] was not much inclined to define his concepts in set terms. For instance, the present treatise on capitalist production does not contain a formal definition of ‘capital'. . . . The fact is that the whole book is his definition."15 This comment by the translators of the Everyman edition of Capital is important, especially as a hint to the beginner in the study of Marxism. It holds true, with all proportions guarded, in the present case as well, if we are to arrive at a “definition” of the working class that will go beyond the elements that most students of this subject already know well.