On the Labor Process and Productive Efficiency: Discussing the Socialist Project

Abstract

From an analysis of a hypothetical transition from manufacture capitalism to socialism, this essay stresses why, according to Marx's proposition, it is necessary that this transition takes place under machinery's domain. In the case of manufacture it is possible to identify a tradeoff between productive efficiency and the humanization of labor activities. The essay clarifies how the initially hypothetical speculation acquires a historic sense inasmuch as Taylorism-Fordism's nature can be understood as a reinvention of the manufacturing system. The essay argues that the wide assimilation of Taylorism-Fordism in the Soviet Union's implementation of socialism imprisoned it within the above-mentioned tradeoff, making it perversely impregnated with the immanent mediocrity of Taylorism-Fordism.

Keywords:

• Labor Process
• Manufacturing System
• Socialism
• Taylorism-Fordism
• Machinery

Notes

¹For Devinatz (2003, 515), this article constitutes the “bridge” that enables us to move from the starting point, in 1913, to the postrevolutionary treatment of Soviet Russia.