Marxist Thought And The Analysis Of Work

Marx was anything but a detached academic observer of the world of work: he was passionately engaged in the struggles of the emergent labour movements within, and against, the new capitalist society in which wage-labour was becoming the dominant form of work. As he famously declared, the task was not only to interpret the world but to change it. The unity of theory and practice was to be a fundamental maxim of all variants of Marxism – of which there were many – and hence intellectual and political controversies were intermingled. The writings by, and about, Marx are voluminous. In a short overview it would be impossible to reference every argument; the reader is advised to seek more detailed information elsewhere. (Working Draft from Richard Hyman. To be eventually published as 'Marxist Thought and the Analysis of Work' in Paul Edwards, Marek Korcynski and Randy Hodson, eds, Social Theory at Work, Oxford: OUP, 2004)

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