Rethinking Value, Labour and Class in critical OS through the New Reading of Marx and Open Marxism

Abstract

This article addresses the growing interest in value as a topic of inquiry in critically oriented organisation studies by generating new key resources for its understanding, analysis and investigation derived from the New Reading of Marx and Open Marxism’s reinterpretations of Marx’s critique of political economy. After reviewing the three most influential Marxist traditions in critical organisation studies – Labour Process Theory, postoperaismo and paleo-Marxism – with particular attention to the relation between value and labour, we advance the New Reading of Marx and Open Marxism as offering an alternative conceptualization of such relation that overcomes key critiques to these three traditions. This conceptualization is distinguished by its focus on how the classed relations of production specific to capitalist society assume market-mediated social forms in the sphere of circulation. We conclude by suggesting a number of areas across which this strand of Marxist theorising can help grant new analytical and political resources to existing and future research on contemporary work and economic life as well as its alternatives.