Afterword

Summary

Throughout this first volume of my book, my intention has been to put forward an argument for the continued relevance of class – both as a relation of social domination pervading contemporary societies, and as a category of social analysis broadly understood.

In the first part, I was concerned with global labour studies as a research field. I argued that global labour scholars tend to take ‘the side of workers’. This is visible in key contributions to the literature, which contain a normative- critical subtext. According to it, neoliberalism and capitalism entail class domination, and this contributes to the suffering of workers. Consequently, it would be desirable for class domination to end – and workers deserve support when they exercise their collective power to resist and challenge their own subjugation.

The implications of this normative line of reasoning for empirical research in the field are profound. In particular, they go against a key assumption of the PRA, an approach oft- used by global labour scholars. It sets out to identify sources of workers’ power – and sees the activities of unions as one instance of where it is exercised. With reference to materialist state theory, I emphasized that unions have a ‘double character’: They are apparatuses facilitating both mass integration and the advancement of workers. I inferred, contra the PRA, that their interventions cannot simply be seen as forthright expressions of workers’ power. They also invite workers to abide by the existing rules and regulations concerning collective action, and to moderate their demands accordingly. In a nutshell, they strengthen workers by allowing them to make forceful, collective demands, but they also contribute to fortifying class domination. It follows that scholarship in the field of global labour studies needs class analytical tools capable of capturing the contradictory class effects of trade union activity and the tensions surrounding it.

The second part of this volume was dedicated to developing such tools. In keeping with a Marxian understanding of materialism, I started from the wager that the social world in general should be examined, in the first instance, by looking at the organization of work. Importantly, this is an anti- reductionist endeavour. In my understanding, work should not be seen as a merely economic activity.