Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle

The labor market is a mere veil over the exploitation of workers, with a small but powerful class of productive property-owning capitalists extracting a surplus from a larger and propertyless class of wage laborers. Michael D. Yates' book Work Work Work reveals the mechanisms critical to this subterfuge, such as herding workers into factories and extreme forms of surveillance. He explains the reality of labor markets, the nature of work in capitalist societies, and the nature and necessity of class struggle, which alone can bring exploitation to a final end.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 23 July 2022
Publisher: Monthly Review Press,U.S.

The labor market, as viewed by most economists, is merely a commodity, bought and sold in markets akin to any other. Once the transaction is completed, their interest in the outcome wanes. Individual prospective workers offer their services to individual employers, each acting solely from self-interest and treating each other as equals. The forces of demand and supply ensure that there is neither a labor shortage nor a surplus, and, in theory, workers and bosses achieve their respective goals.

However, Michael D. Yates presents a radically different perspective in his book, Work Work Work: Labor, Alienation, and Class Struggle. This book unveils the stark reality: The labor market is merely a facade, concealing the exploitation of workers. Peeling back the layers reveals the extraction of a surplus by a small but powerful class of productive property-owning capitalists from a much larger and propertyless class of wage laborers.

Work Work Work provides insights into the mechanisms crucial to this deceitful scheme. In every workplace, capital employs a comprehensive set of control mechanisms to hinder those who labor from protecting themselves against exploitation. These include practices such as herding workers into factories and the extreme forms of surveillance employed by contemporary "captains of industry," such as the Waltons family (of the Walmart empire) and Jeff Bezos.

In these lucid and passionately written chapters, Yates elucidates the realities of labor markets, the nature of work in capitalist societies, and the inherent necessity of class struggle, which alone possesses the potential to eradicate exploitation and the system of control that sustains it. Through his insightful analysis, Yates challenges the prevailing economic narratives and sheds light on the urgent need for workers to unite and confront the oppressive forces that perpetuate inequality and exploitation.

Weight: 316g
Dimension: 140 x 210 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781583679654