A much-needed, Marxist economic account of service and retail work, as well as the political alternatives.
In Service Workers in the Era of Monopoly Capital, Fabian van Onzen uses Marxist theory to analyse the process by which service and retail workers are exploited by the capitalist class. His analysis takes us through the primary concepts of Marxism-surplus-value, commodity form, etc.-and demonstrates their relevance for understanding the service industry. The book reveals that service and retail workers-shop employees, cleaners, hospitality workers-are integral to the capitalist system and have significant power to transform society if organised effectively.
Van Onzen argues that the key to ending the exploitation of service workers is through the socialist transformation of society. The book contains an examination of how service work could be organised under socialism and provides examples of how former socialist countries changed the nature of service labour.
By:
Fabian van Onzen
Imprint: Haymarket Books
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 228mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781642597967
ISBN 10: 1642597961
Series: Studies in Critical Social Science
Pages: 220
Publication Date: 24 January 2023
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface List of Figures and Tables 1 Introduction 1 Centrality of Service Work in Contemporary Capitalism 2 Overview of Book 2 Historical Materialism 1 Method of Historical Materialism 2 Mode of Production and Social Formation 3 Historical Materialist Research 3 Marxism, Class and the Service Industry 1 Marxist Class Analysis 2 Marxist Definition of Class 3 Two Approaches to Class Analysis 4 Main Classes of Capitalist Mode of Production 4.1 The Working Class 4.2 The Bourgeoisie 4.3 The Petty-Bourgeoisie 4.4 The Dissolution of the Petty-Bourgeoisie 5 Summary 4 Service Labour and Value Theory 1 Marxism, Services, Commodities 2 The Commodity-Form 3 Surplus-Value and Service Workers 4 Surplus Value in the Service Industry 5 Productive and Unproductive Labour 6 Increased Surplus-value 7 Conclusion 5 Retail and the Circulation of Commodities 1 Circulation of Commodities 2 Circulation Time and Costs of Circulation 3 Production in Circulation 4 Consumption Time and Consumption Period 6 Monopoly Capital and the Sales Effort 1 Marx on Commercial Capital 2 The Emergence of Monopoly Capital 3 Imperialism and Monopoly Capitalism 4 Imperialism and the Split in the Bourgeoisie 5 Dependency Theory: Centre and Periphery 6 Unequal Exchange 7 Two Stages of Production and Realisation 1 Stage One: Production of Goods 2 Stage Two: Realisation of Surplus-value 3 Possibilities for Resistance to Monopoly Capitalism 8 A Marxist Analysis of Outsourcing 1 Bidvest-Noonan: A Case Study in Outsourcing 2 Conclusion 9 Cleaning Workers and Surplus Value 1 Molly Maid: A Case Study 2 Conclusion 10 Organising Retail and Service Workers 1 Retail: H&M Workers in Germany 2 Cleaners in Struggle 3 Exposure Campaigns and Workers Power 4 Conclusion 11 Service, Retail and Transport under Socialism 1 What is Socialism? 1.1 Workers Power 1.2 Socialist Mode of Production 1.3 Socialist Planning 2 Food Consumption under Socialism 3 Socialist Integration and Retail Labour under Socialism 4 Residential Cleaning under Socialism 4.1 Cleaning Outside the Home 5 Transportation under Socialism 6 Conclusion 12 Afterword Bibliography Index
Fabian van Onzen is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Lone Star College in Houston, Texas. His work has appeared in the Marx and Philosophy Review of Books, Monthly Review Online, and Capital and Class.
