Lecture 25 Sociology 621 April 23, 2008 Ideology & Exploitation: the problem of consent 1. The Problem: Exploitation = a relation in which the exploiter depends upon the effort of the exploited --> at some level the exploited must cooperate with the exploiter. 2. One image of this process = purely coercive: why do the exploited work? Because of threats and fear. 3. Sophisticated version = Bowles & Gintis, “Contested Exchange” 3.1 The paper is primarily addressed at neoclassical economists. Neoclassical view of production process = production function consists of function that transforms inputs into outputs: labor + capital (raw materials, means of production, etc.) --> output. 3.2 Critique of this position = there needs to be a “labor extraction function” = an additional function that tells us how much actual labor you get from a give labor input. Why? Because the labor contract is not costlessly enforced. 3.3 Labor extraction is a function of: a) surveillance (probability of catching shirking) and b) the punishment of being caught (especially being fired). 3.4 punishment: for being fired to “hurt” the wage of an employed worker must be greater than the income the worker would get if fired --> wage must be at least slightly above the market clearing wage. 3.5 surveillance: surveillance costs money. The more spent on surveillance, the higher the chance of catching shirking. 3.6 BUT: [On the basis of the logic of “expected utility” of compliance vs shirking] Compliance depends upon pain of being caught and Probability --> a trade-off for employer between paying higher wages (therefore creating more pain) and putting more money into surveillance. 3.7 Implications: 1) permanent unemployment (because wages are not market clearing: there will always be people willing to work for less); 2) workers wages contains a “rent” component -- a component above the cost of producing labor power. [Note this is different from the “rent” component of the wages of employees in contradictory locations -- it goes to all employees simply by virtue of being employed].Lecture 25. Ideology, Exploitation & Consent 2 3) the rent component of the wage Æ divisions within the working class between employed and unemployed. This pretty complex: by pushing their wages up, employed workers indirectly increase equilibrium unemployment. 4) The welfare state blunts the fear of firing Æ greater rent. 4. Critique: The model operates with an impoverished of the ideological practices (subjective underpinnings of the actors) within production. This is true in two respects: 1) there is an unsatisfactory specification of the normative underpinnings of coercion itself; 2) compliance is not simply bound up with coercion. Nature of the Immediate Relations in Production Cognitive process Domination Asymmetric Reciprocity Strategic threats & rational promises & rational rationality submission consent Nonstrategic obedience responsibility ego norms alter norms legitimacy justice/fairness Note: The columns in this table constitute a gestalt: Rational submission without the corresponding normative order would constitute despotism. Rational consent without the corresponding norms of responsibility and fairness constitutes opportunistic cooperation. 4.1 Ideological foundations of coercion: ego and alter norms of obedience and legitimacy. Surveillance/coercion is less costly if workers have a disposition to obey when they perceive the authority as legitimately constituted. Absence of legitimate authority = despotism = generally much less efficient because of high surveillance costs. 4.2 Market Despotism is one type of factory regime: a regime with minimal ideological mechanisms of engendering compliance. The course of capitalist development Æ undermines this form of labor extraction. 4.3 Modifications of market despotism. Since despotism is inefficient, generally minimal levels of due process/nonarbitrariness are established --> legitimacy to authority in exchange for normal obedience to commands. This, however, is usually insufficient because it still relies onLecture 25. Ideology, Exploitation & Consent 3 surveillance/threats for enforcement, and this is inefficient when (a) labor is highly skilled (and thus workers control application of skills), or (b) the labor process is highly interdependent and thus surveillance of individual performance is problematicÆ increasing problem in the course of capitalist development, particularly for nonworking class employees, but also for workers. 4.4 Shift from domination to asymmetrical reciprocity: hegemonic factor regimes based on consent --> to some extent the material interests of the employees are looked after by the employer. Normative foundation = “fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”: workers follow norms of responsible honest labor in exchange for being treated fairly/justly by their employers. This generates loyalty on the worker to the firm. 4.5 Consequences of hegemonic consent: surveillance is shifted from primarily a vertical to a horizontal phenomenon: workers enforce the norms on each other -- both norms against rate busting and against slacking, not pulling your weight. Mutual surveillance replaces hierarchical surveillance as the central, daily mechanism of social control for producing compliance. 4.6 Endogeneity of ideological practices: These norms emerge and are sustained endogenously within the interactive practices of production; they are not primarily the result of socialization, propaganda, schools, churches. These may reinforce these norms -- as in Bowles & Gintis’s well known argument about schooling (working class schools Æclassroom practices stressing obedience to authority; middle class schools Æ classroom practices stressing responsibility, autonomy). But the norms themselves are grounded in the material realities of the labor process itself. 4.7 The noncontractual basis of contract: all of this connects to an old sociological theme: rational strategic action is normatively -- nonstrategically -- regulated. 5. Some additional issues 5.1 Alternative interpretation of cooperation & mutual surveillance: Keeping the wolves at Bay: workers monitor each other in order to keep management from coming down hard of them. 5.2 ENDOGENEITY of norms. There are two kinds of views one might have: 1) The norms/values are actually created within the labor