This article considers 1) the relevance of subjectivity and the problem of its absence in regard to recent debates around labor-process theory; and 2) the importance of maintaining a phenomenological conception of labor to the broader political project of critical theory and labor-process theory. By drawing on some of the classic texts of critical theory and some of the more recent texts in labor-process theory, I argue that understanding labor as both an instrumental and communicative practice works to undermine Habermasian conceptions of communication and praxis. What is at stake here is a critical conception of praxis that is able to recover labor as a fundamental problem in critical sociology. It is my contention that this mediation between critical phenomenology and labor-process theory can be productive not only in reinvigorating the political dimension of labor-process theory but also critical theory itself.
Adler, P.S. ( 2007) The Future of Critical Management Studies: A Paleo-Marxist Critique of Labor Process Theory. Organization Studies28(9): 1313-45.
2.
Adorno, T. ( 2005) Negative Dialectics. Continuum: New York, NY.
3.
Angus, I. ( 2008) Walking on Two Legs: On the Very Possibility of a Heideggerian MarxismURL (consulted 25 February 2009): http://www.ianangus.ca/feenbrg.htm
4.
Benjamin, W. ( 2007) Illuminations. Translated by Harry Zohn. Shocken: New York, NY.
5.
Braverman, H. ( 1998) Labor and Monopoly Capital. Monthly Review Press: New York, NY.
6.
Burowoy, M. ( 1979) Manufacturing Consent. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, IL.
7.
Feenberg, A. ( 2005) Heidegger and Marcuse: The Catasrophe and Redemption of History. Routledge: New York, NY .
8.
Gandesha, S. ( 2004) Marcuse, Habermas and the Critique of Technology. J. Abromeit and W.M. Cobb (eds) Herbert Marcuse: A Critical Reader, pp. 188-209. Routledge : New York, NY.
9.
Habermas, J. ( 1970) Toward a Rational Society. Beacon Press : Boston, MA.
10.
Habermas, J. ( 1984) The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume One. Beacon Press: Boston, MA.
11.
Habermas, J. ( 1987) The Theory of Communicative Action, Volume Two. Beacon Press: Boston, MA.
12.
Habermas, J. ( 1990) The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
13.
Hancock, P. and Tyler, M. ( 2008) Beyond the Confines: Management, Colonization and the Everyday. Critical Sociology34(1): 29-49.
14.
Hegel, G. ( 1977) The Phenomenology of Spirit. Translated by A.V. Miller. Oxford University Press: New York, NY.
15.
Heidegger, M. ( 1962) Being and Time. Harper and Row: New York, NY.
16.
Heidegger, M. ( 1993) The Question Concerning Technology. D.F. Krell (ed.) Basic Writings, pp. 307-43. Harper Collins: San Francisco, CA.
17.
Horkheimer, M. ( 1989) Notes on Science and the Crisis. S.E. Bronner and D. Kellner (eds) Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, pp. 52-7. Routledge: London.
18.
Horkheimer, M. ( 1993) The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research. In M. Horkheimer, Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early Writings, pp. 1-14. Translated by J. Torpey. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
19.
Horkheimer, M. ( 2004) The Eclipse of Reason. Continuum: New York, NY.
20.
Horkheimer, M. and Adorno, T.W. ( 2002) Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA.
21.
Husserl, E. ( 1970) The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology . Northwestern University Press: Evanston, IL.
22.
Jay, M. ( 1996) The Dialectical Imagination. University of California Press: Los Angeles, CA.
23.
Knights, D. and Willmott, H. ( 1990) Labor Process Theory. Macmillan: London.
24.
Lukacs, G. ( 1971) History and Class Consciousness. MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
25.
Marcuse, H. ( 1964) One-Dimensional Man. Beacon Press: Boston, MA.
26.
Marcuse, H. (1968) Negations. Beacon: Boston, MA.
27.
Marcuse, H. ( 1989) From Ontology to Technology: Fundamental Tendencies of Industrial Society. S.E. Bronner and D. Kellner (eds) Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, pp. 119-27. Routledge: London .
28.
Marcuse, H. ( 1997) Reason and Revolution. Humanities Press : Atlantic Highlands, NJ.
29.
Marcuse, H. ( 1998) Some Social Implications of Modern Technology. D. Kellner (ed.) Technology, War and Fascism: Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, pp. 39-67. Routledge: London.
30.
Marcuse, H. ( 2005) On The Philosophical Foundations of the Concept of Labor in Economics. R. Wolin and J. Abromeit, (eds) Heideggerian Marxism. University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln, NE.
31.
Marx, K. ( 1977) Capital, Volume I. Vintage: New York, NY.
32.
Marx, K. ( 1988) Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Prometheus: Amherst, NY.
33.
Negt, O. and Kluge, A. ( 1993) Public Sphere and Experience: Toward an Analysis of the Bourgeois and Proletarian Public Sphere. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, MN.
34.
O’Doherty, D. and Wilmott, H. ( 2001) Debating Labor Process Theory: The Issue of Subjectivity and the Relevance of Poststructuralism. Sociology35(2): 457-76.
35.
O’Neill, J. ( 1972) Sociology as a Skin Trade. Heinemann : London.
36.
O’Neill, J. ( 1989) The Communicative Body: Studies in Communicative Philosophy, Politics, and Sociology. Northwestern University Press : Evanston, IL.
37.
Smith, D.N. ( 1998) The Ambivalent Worker: Max Weber, Critical Theory and the Antinomies of Authority. Social Thought and Research21(1/2): 35-83.
38.
Spencer, D.A. ( 2000) Braverman and the Contribution of Labor Process Analysis to the Critique of Capitalist Production - Twenty-Five Years On. Work, Employment and Society14(2): 223-43.
39.
Tarr, Z. ( 1989) A Note on Weber and Lukacs. International Journal of Politics , Culture and Society3(1): 131-9.
40.
Thompson, P. ( 1989) The Nature of Work: An Introduction to Debates On the Labor Process. Macmillan: London .
41.
Thompson, P. ( 1990) Crawling from the Wreckage: The Labor Process and the Politics of Production. D. Knights and H. Willmott (eds) Labor Process Theory, pp. 95-124. Macmillan: London.
42.
Tinker, T. ( 2002) Specters of Marx and Braverman in the Twilight of Postmodernist Labor Process Research. Work, Employment and Society16(2): 251-81.
43.
Weber, M. ( 2003) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Dover: Minneola, NY.
44.
Wiggerhaus, R. ( 1994) The Frankfurt School. Polity: Cambridge.
45.
Willmott, H. ( 1990) Subjectivity and the Dialectics of Praxis: Opening up the Core of Labor Process Analysis. D. Knights and H. Willmott (eds) Labor Process Theory, pp. 336-78. Macmillan: London.
46.
Worrell, M.P. ( 2006) The Other Frankfurt SchoolFast Capitalism 2.1. URL (consulted 1 April 2009): http://www.fastcapitalism.com/
47.
Worrell, M.P. ( 2008) Dialectic of Solidarity. Brill: Boston, MA.
