Travail, « projets-héritages », alternatives

Abstract

Yves Schwartz examines the question of the substance and reach of a theory of work that is geared to changes in the contemporary world. He contends that a degree of indetermination is always an essential component in any work activity. The latter thus implies possibilities of improvement, which implicitly call upon the intelligence of the agents involved in the tasks they are carrying out. It is always possible for the task to be better performed (in terms of efficiency, though not only). In particular, it is always possible to proceed in a manner differing from the anticipations of the so-called « experts », who show themselves to be cut off from the actual experience or process and who remain confined within a set of frameworks cut off from both the needs and potentialities of workers. It is thus through the reflexivity inherent in the accomplishment of any productive act, or which, at the very least, it makes possible, that we can identify the principal resource to be tapped into in the search for social alternatives, which today are in danger of drying up as a result of the transformations of the economic world as a whole, and of the transformations in the legal, political, and cultural frameworks going along with it.