From: Francisco Paulo Cipolla (cipolla@SOCIAIS.UFPR.BR)
Date: Wed Jun 25 2003 - 16:08:31 EDT
I have just checked through Amazon to see if I could get Basso´s book but it was not available yet. Has it just been released Rakesh? Paulo Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > Jerry wrote: > >> > >> The point remains that Marx did _not_ write that struggles over > >> the length of the working day can be conceived as "defensive" > >> struggles. And -- more to the point -- regardless of what Marx > >> did or did not write, struggles over the length of the working > >> day are expressions in part of the aspirations of the working class > >> for additional leisure time which collide with the drive by > >> capital to -- wherever possible -- increase absolute surplus value. > >> To conceive one-sidedly of such struggles as primarily "defensive" > >> fails to grasp what workers are fighting *for*. > > In his brilliant book Modern Times, Ancient Hours: Working Lives in > the 21st Century (Verso, 2003) Pietro Basso provides a careful > analysis of the 35 hour work week in France. Basso shows that this > gain has been won at the cost of increased intensification and > flexibilization (more shift work, less overtime pay, employer > determination of working schedules). Perhaps would some argue that > capitalist progress in the reduction of working time should not be > measured in terms of the length of the working day or the hours worked > in the course of a week or in the number of weeks worked per year; > rather progress has come in the form of the reduction of work in the > course of a lifespan. That is, while life spans have almost doubled in > the last one hundred years, the absolute number of hours worked by a > proletarian over the course of his lifetime has even decreased a > bit. Is this proof of the continued progressiveness of capitalist > development? Basso thinks not for clearly specified reasons. What do > others think? Basso's book raises questions of fundamental importance. > Could not be recommended more highly. Yours, Rakesh
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