Neo-Liberal Workplace and Labour Process Analysis: Resilience of Dialectics in Understanding Consent and Resistance in the Workplace

Abstract

This paper contributes to understanding the debates on labour process analysis which continue to underpin conceptual framework for explaining the dynamics of neo-liberal workplace. The generic character of capitalist mode of production has distinct features that have been elaborated on, in labour process analysis. In the context of “structured relations” between capital and labour, labour process theory provides the foundational theoretical framework for examining and understanding the social relations of production within the workplace. However, while the debates over labour process continue to reflect a “broad church” of perspectives comprising “eclectic orientations” of diverse strands, dialectical analysis remains resilient in providing critical understanding to consent and resistance in contemporary workplace. The diverse contributions to the debates on labour process provide the critical perspectives to emerging dynamics of world of work, and endemic dimensions of control imperatives of management. The conceptual lineages of labour process debates; both of the earlier Marxist contributors and that of “second wave” analysts, remain strong and “elastic” in providing understanding of contemporary neo-liberal workplace.