The working-time and the three spirits of capitalism/A duracao do trabalho e os tres espiritos do capitalismo.
| Autor | de Castilho, Larissa Ximenes |
-
Introduction
The expression "spirits of capitalism" refers to the work of writers Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, entitled "The New Spirit of Capitalism" (1), which aims to facilitate the understanding of the historical conditions that allowed capitalism, at different historical moments, get the engagement of the necessary stakeholders for its survival as a dominant mode of production.
According to the authors,
The spirit of capitalism is precisely the set of beliefs associated with the capitalist order that contribute to justify and sustain that order, legitimizing the modes of action and the provisions consistent with it. These justifications, whether general or practices, local or global, expressed in terms of virtue or in terms of justice, give support to the achievement of more or less arduous tasks and, more generally, the adherence to a lifestyle favorable to the capitalist order. (Boltanski; Chiapello, 2009, p 42). (2) This article aims to draw a historical overview about the working-time and its limitation along the three main phases of capitalism, identified by Boltanski and Chiapello as its "three spirits". Before that, it is important to point, although briefly, forms of work and control of working-time in the pre-capitalist modes of production.
In the 1990s, the sociologist Sadi Dal Rosso began his journey through the workingtime history in the world having as a starting point ancient Rome, predominantly agrarian and slavery economy, although also having freeholders, leaseholders and migratory workers, who performed similar working-time amounts. According to him, slaves working day was certainly longer than the other workers because the social interdictions to work upon Romans were not applicable to them. (DAL ROSSO, 1996)
The main limitation to the exercise of agricultural labor in ancient Rome was a natural one, as it began at sunrise and ended at sunset. In addition, the seasons also influenced the amount of work performed, as in winter work was to obtain the minimum required for subsistence, while in the fall, spring and summer there was more work. In order to control de working-times, Dal Rosso says that the exact count of the hours was not accessible to all Romans, and measuring instruments, such as the water clock, were only available to the most aristocratic segments of society. (DAL ROSSO 1996).
In the Middle Ages, the way of measuring time was modified after the Catholic Church reform that occurred in the sixth century AD, which spread monasteries across the European continent and instituted the canonical hours for the holding of offices by the monks.
The canonical hours were collective religious acts, for which exercise the monks were call up by the church bell at certain intervals, separated by three hours. The bell played, first, this role of awaken and call the monks to the divine offices. But the ringing of the bell exercised another very important function: to spread in distance and served as a beacon of hours for the whole population that inhabited the villages and towns close to the monasteries. The church bell tolling the hours of divine service organized social life of the population. also organized the working day, as it enabled a reliable and affordable mean for the division of time and labor control. (DAL ROSSO, 1996. P. 74) (3) With the formation of city-states, the power to set the time went from the Church's hands to the merchants and bourgeois ones, and the municipal tower became the place where the bells or "jacquemarts" (4) were installed. For the populations living away from city centers, working-time was still conditioned by sunrise and sunset. (DAL ROSSO 1996)
Dal Rosso, from the data collected by in the work of Gosta Langenfelt (5) estimated that the working-year in the Middle Ages were up to 2500 hours, assuming that people did not work on Sundays and during major religious festivals, and had part-time work during the vigil for religious festivities preparations. Also according to him, this pattern working-year was expanded with the advent of mercantilism and the transition for the capitalist mode of production.
According to this estimate, the working-day had the following dynamics through history:
Duracao anual do trabalho por periodo historico Roma Antiga 1908ral Idade Media 1906ral Mercantilismo 1907ral Revolucao 1910ral Industrial Inicio do 1908ral Seculo XX Nota: Tabla derivada de grafico lineal. 2. The working-time in the first spirit of capitalism. The working-day by Marx.
Boltanski and Chiapello (2009) draw a historical and social overview about the existence conditions of the three spirits of capitalism, which they list as the main variations of that mode of production since its beginning. According to the authors, the first spirit of capitalism is the figure of the heroic bourgeois entrepreneur, from the late nineteenth century, which is associated with the ideas of liberation from traditional forms of personal dependence and innovation.
That spirit was also guided by the bourgeois values, which in the economic field was manifested by the tendency to rationalize everyday life in all its aspects, and in private life, by traditional positioning, attaching great importance to the family, the lineage, the heritage, the chastity of women (to avoid disadvantageous weddings and squandering of capital) and the patriarchal character of the relationship with the employees. In addition, there was a strong "belief in progress, in the future, science, technology, the industry benefits" which justify a utilitarian view, according to which sacrifices had to be made in the name of progress. (Boltanski; Chiapello, 2009, p.49-50)
It is in the period of the first spirit of capitalism that Karl Marx published the "Capital" book I, which dedicates a specific section to the research of the working-day in English factories that time and exposes his view about the limits of labour-power exploitation. According to him, the magnitude of the working-day is the sum of the time required to produce the average livelihood diaries and surplus time, which determines the amount of surplus-value that will be appropriate for the employer. (Marx, 2013 p. 305-306)
Marx argues for a double determination of the maximum of the working-day, primarily by physical limitations of the labour power, which during a day must satisfy physical needs, such as feeding and resting; and secondly, by moral/social limits of working-time, considering that workers also need time to their intellectual and social needs, whose levels were determined by the general level of culture by the time. (Marx, 2013 p. 306)
Another important issue pointed out in Marx's research is that there is a hunger for more work, which intensifies in the capitalist mode of production, but is not exclusive of this system, as:
Wherever a part of society possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the labourer, free or not free, must add to the working-time necessary for his own maintenance an extra working-time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owners of the means of production. (Marx, 2013 p. 309) (6) The German thinker presents the English Factory Acts as the first rules to curb capital impulse for unlimited suction of the labour-power, as these laws established a compulsory limitation of working-day, which should be observed by the British bourgeoisie. Beside the daily activities limited by Factory Acts, Marx also presents the forms of work that were not subject to any government regulation. In order to do that, uses the reports of the Child Employment Commission, that was in charge to visit the factories and report the working conditions of English children, and also of other workers.
The reports analyzed by Marx were related to different categories of workers involved in different activities, and indicates the predominant labor-power (male, female or child), and their working-day as well.
The children's working-day draws attention to its strenuous duration in the activities described by Marx. In the manufacture of lace, there were children working uninterrupted 18 to 20 hours; in the potteries, girls and boys worked 15-20 hours a day; in the manufacture of matchsticks, half of whose employees was comprised of children, the working-day ranged from 12 to 15 hours, also uninterruptedly; and in the manufacture of wallpapers, women and children worked about 16 hours a day, without a break for food, there were reports of mothers who fed and cared for their children under the machines in their jobs.
The male workers had more extensive working-day than what was reported by the Child Employment Commission, as stated in the examples brought by Marx of the Bakers officers category, rail and farmers, who had working-days ranging between 16:18 hours in low season, reaching up to 20 hours during the high season in London. The rail category had especially long working-day, which during normal movement of trains varied between 13 to 20 hours, but during the London Season could last for 40 to 50 hours continuously, which is why many fatal accidents were occurring in the British railway lines.
The appropriation of women's work was particularly seen in manufacturing activities related to textile production. Marx reports an emblematic example of death from overwork by the English dressmaker Mary Walkley, who died after working for uninterrupted 30 hours in making dresses for the ladies of high society. The German thinker pointed out that during the high season the women employed in these activities spent up to 30 hours of straight working to meet the demand for clothing, without having breaks for rest or feeding.
Dealing with the distinction between day and night work, and working in relay system, Marx insists that "appropriating 24 hours of the working-day is the immanent drive of the capitalist production", so in order to overcome the physical limitations of the labor-power, it is necessary to establish a...
Para continuar a ler
PEÇA SUA AVALIAÇÃOCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
