Analysing the labour process and the global political economy of work

The concept and analysis of the labour process lies in the heart of Marx’s ‘Capital: A Critique of the Political Economy’. In this perspective, analysing the labour process starts with understanding both labour and capital as historically specific social relations. The focus is on understanding labour as a commodity that is unlike any other and reflecting a complex social relation. The workers are selling their labour power, but it is during the labour process this labour power is transformed into labour. In the capitalist mode of production, this transformation is key to creating surplus value. Today, in scholarly and activist engagement, it is largely agreed that control and conflict, but also consent, are key dimensions in understanding the underpinnings of the social relations of the labour process. Over the past decades, labour process analysis has seen various theoretical offers. In this chapter, three impactful framings reflecting the theory building and knowledge situated in the US and Western Europe are presented. These perspectives grasp the complexity of the labour process distinctively differently. But an integrative reading of their methodological choices and research designs deems fruitful for today’s labour process analysis in the global economy.