Labor Theory Research Articles

Emotional Labour in the Neoliberal University: The Standpoint of Female Academics in Norway with Experience of Sick Leave

ABSTRACT In this article, we show how female academics who have been on sick leave hide feelings of exhaustion, fear, and a lack of control and change these feelings into expressions of control and engagement when interacting with students and colleagues. We contend that these emotional efforts are a response to the emotional culture of the university in which vocation and commitment to teaching and research have become entangled with neoliberal management trends. Within this context, academic performance and student satisfaction are measured and evaluated. We use Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour and the literature on the emotional culture of universities under neoliberal management to illuminate how emotional labour takes place in neoliberal academia and argue that this type of work is gendered. Our findings contribute to the growing body of research on gendered emotional labour in the neoliberal academy and add to our understanding of how this form of management affects the emotional lives of those working there.

Ideology at Work? Rethinking Reproduction

The low value of reproductive labor, and the related “crisis of care,” are often attributed to gendered attitudes about work. This article traces this explanation to the attempted synthesis of Marxist and feminist theories of ideology in the 1970s and offers a sympathetic critique with implications for both contemporary theories of labor and the “new ideology critique.” It reconstructs the explanatory role of ideology in feminist analyses of unwaged housework and tracks its uptake in theories of “reproductive labor” more broadly, via what I call the “naturalization thesis.” While these analyses have been influential, I show that they do not provide a convincing account of either gender oppression or the low value of reproductive labor. I offer an alternative explanation for the latter rooted in labor processes and patterns of capital accumulation and argue for the reintegration of ideology critique with the critique of political economy.

ADAM SMITH’S THEORY OF VALUE AND THE FALLING RATE OF PROFIT: UNCOMMON CONCEPTIONS AND COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

Smith’s theory of value and distribution, which emphasizes labor time as the determinant of prices, has been widely misunderstood. Ricardo misinterpreted it as relevant only to primitive societies, while Marx inaccurately aligned it with his own labor theory of value. In reality, Smith’s perspective oscillates between a labor-based and a labor-commanded approach to relative prices, intended for modern economies. Neoclassical economists further distorted Smith’s views by incorporating utility theory. Moreover, while Smith is often linked to the theory of a falling rate of profit due to competition, he actually attributed it to rising capital intensity. Contrary to the belief that Smith was a staunch advocate of free markets, he supported reasonable government intervention.

THE ‘MATERIAL EXPENSES’ APPROACH TO THE THEORY OF VALUE AND DISTRIBUTION IN THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

The paper discusses the influence of physiocratic ideas on Adam Smith’s approach to the theory of value and distribution in The Wealth of Nations (WN). It is shown that Smith attempted to elaborate on the contributions of the Physiocrats by adopting elements of two different approaches to the theory of value and distribution which he found in their writings: A material-based approach and a labor-based one. While tentatively proposing a labor theory of value, Smith also retained elements of the material expenses approach which he had inherited from his precursors. The paper specifically draws attention to some tensions and inconsistencies that arise from the simultaneous presence of the two different approaches to the theory of value and distribution in the WN.

The Dark Side of Forced Positivity: Why Faking Positive Emotions Can Backfire at Work

Abstract: This article explores the potential costs of enforcing strict positivity norms and emotional display rules in organizational settings. It examines the concepts of emotional labor and surface acting through a review of the academic literature documenting the personal and interpersonal tolls of dissociating outward affect from inner feelings over prolonged periods. Two real-world examples are provided of companies where mandated positivity policies backfired by damaging employee well-being, engagement, and productivity. Drawing from emotional labor theory and research on compassionate cultures, guidelines are offered for leaders seeking healthier ways to cultivate optimism without compromising psychological safety or problem-solving capacity. Specifically, the brief recommends permitting genuine expression of a full range of emotions, focusing feedback on competence rather than smiles, fostering employee autonomy, and modeling self-care behaviors. Overall, the potential damage of forcing positivity at work is examined, with practical implications discussed for balancing positivity with safety and performance.

The Essence of Marxism and Anarchism from the Labour Theory of Value to the Critique of Political Economy

ABSTRACT The ills of global capitalism, the critical issues of climate change, global warming, and environmental justice, have all collectively continued to generate concerns, with the world itching for alternate ideological solutions. This article aims to provide a comprehensive critique of the amalgamation of Anarchism and Marxism as a theoretical framework for addressing contemporary world development challenges. While both ideologies share common ground in their critique of capitalism, this paper argues that their synthesis even though may fall short in adequately addressing the complexities of today's globalised and interconnected world might offer a realistic pathway to the contradictions of capitalism. To this end, this study interrogates the Marx-Proudhon debate on three major areas of differences or similarities, namely, (1) The Tyranny of Exchange Value; (2) Crisis in the Evolution of Capitalism and (3) Method of intervention; and their response to contemporary challenges. The method of analysis is essentially historical, providing an in-depth critique of the theoretical standpoint of both ideologies. We conclude that scholarly solutions to current global challenges should be approached with a view to adequately situate them within the ideological context. Thus a return to the Marx-Proudhon debate provides a path forward in our search for alternatives to capital.

Ditundukkan, Terasing, dan Imbalan Tak Setara: Praktik Pekerja Digital Media Sosial Suara.com

The use of social media in mainstream media has become commonplace in the digital age. This raises issues of copyright, quality, and exploitation of digital labour, such as low wages and high workloads. This research aims to reveal the practices of the digital labour in managing Suara.com's social media accounts based on Fuchs' digital labour theory. This research uses a qualitative approach with a case study method. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with digital labour managing Suara.com's social media accounts, non-participant observation, and analysis of internal documents and related publications. Through the study of the results associated with Christian Fuchs' digital labour theory, the results show that the digital labours are exploited in terms of workload, the absence of boundaries between personal life and work, and equal recognition of work results. This practice reflects the aspects of the digital labour exploitation, namely coercion, alienation, and appropriation.

Putting on an act: learning service behaviour in young women’s vocational education and training for hospitality work

ABSTRACT Young people training for work in the hospitality industry learn that the occupation involves taking on a role in order to handle the emotional demands of guests. This article, based on Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour, focuses on young women’s experiences in the Swedish vocational education and training for the hospitality industry. The aim of the study is to analyse and critically examine ideas about good service such as putting on an act and how this role-play is shaped by gender. The data are derived from focus group interviews with 52 young women in hospitality training programmes. In these programmes, service behaviour ideas about what constitutes good service in terms of subordination, femininity and heterosexuality are normalised. The young women do not unreflectively absorb the conditions that service work entails. However, the education gives them little opportunity to gain knowledge about societal gender order and the possibility of understanding their life with that insight. One conclusion is that service behaviour in the form of putting on an act that students learn in vocational education and training is problematic, as it reinforces power hierarchies and leaves young women to single-handedly manage problems that arise in service work.

Challenges for Anti-Trafficking NGOs in Indonesia

NGOs play a crucial role in safeguarding human dignity, especially in developing countries like Indonesia, where they strategically work to address pressing human rights issues. However, NGOs encounter various challenges that impede their efforts. This research specifically focuses on the challenges faced by NGOs working in human trafficking and exploitation in Indonesia. The analysis is based on data obtained from interviews conducted with four NGOs and an independent worker specializing in the exploitation and trafficking of underage individuals. Moreover, this study delves into the socio-economic problems underlying human trafficking in Indonesia. Drawing inspiration from Marxist theories of labor and poverty, it posits that the issue of human trafficking in Indonesia is closely intertwined with socio-economic instability�particularly affecting the most impoverished segment of the population. The research identifies poverty as a key factor fueling exploitation and trafficking in Indonesia. Furthermore, the study reveals implementation challenges and a lack of alignment with international conventions, such as the Palermo Protocols, in enforcing Indonesia's national law against human trafficking (Law No. 21/2007). These issues are particularly apparent in cases involving underage victims. Keywords: exploitation, human trafficking, NGO, Indonesia

George Grote’s manuscript essay on “Foreign trade”

This paper explains the origin, content and importance of a manuscript essay on “Foreign trade” which George Grote, the historian of Greece, submitted to David Ricardo in March 1819. By relating it to the contributions to foreign trade theory of Ricardo and of James and John Stuart Mill it is shown that Grote anticipated important elements of the “Sraffa-Yukizawa-Parrinello interpretation” of Ricardo’s cloth-and-wine example. By suggesting that comparative advantage-based trade is incompatible with the labour theory of value Grote also pointed to an apparent incongruity in Ricardo’s chapter “On Foreign Trade.” A transcription of Grote’s manuscript essay is provided in the appendix.

Impact of Migration on Time Use Pattern of Left-Behind Male and Female in Rural Bangladesh

This study uses neoclassical labour theory to examine the association between migration and the time-spending behaviour of left behind family members by gender and the female relationship with migrated members. Using two-year panel data, this study controls the individual-level time-invariant factors to correct potential self-selection. The study finds that migration of a family member is associated with decreasing off-farm labour of both working-age females and males. Additionally, it is observed that the leisure time of working-age females increases while their work burden on domestic labour decreases. Migration also increases off-farm labour of left-behind wives when only the husbands migrate and decreases off-farm and domestic labour, and increases the leisure of left-behind mothers when only sons/daughters migrate. Thus, migration reshapes the left behind family members’ time allocation between labour and leisure with a heterogeneous impact on the wives and mothers.

Youth and hospitality work: Skills, subjectivity and affective labour

Hospitality is popularly regarded as unskilled work and the industry relies on a young labour force. This paper examines the role of youth in the way that the ‘unskilled’ status of hospitality labour is defined and contested by workers. Drawing on qualitative data collected with hospitality workers, the paper creates new connections between theories of affective labour, the politics of skills, and conceptions of youth in relation to work. The paper shows that the capacity to be ‘fun’ and produce affects of enjoyment in hospitality venues is essentialised as an attribute of youth, who are regarded as essentially unskilled. Youth is enacted in the social relations of affective labour, including the requirement to produce affects of enjoyment. The paper shows how theories of affective labour can be developed to consider the materialities of low-wage service employment and demonstrates the significance of youthful subjectivities to social relations of hospitality work.

Commerce, labour and happiness: An Existential reading of Adam Smith’s ‘The poor man’s son’

This article highlights the philosophical contribution of an existential reading of Adam Smith’s narrative of ‘The poor man’s son’ that opens transdisciplinary research themes. The narrative in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1759] deals with the issue of labour and happiness in commercial society, an important contemporary topic in meaningful labour research. This field is dominated by research on labour’s personal or moral value, which may lead to personal and workplace conflicts in case of ethical dilemmas. Recent research advocates existentialism, underscoring authenticity in workplace meaningful labour. The problem is that some of these studies limit meaning of employees’ reception of workplace policies and other events, resulting in a dualism between surface and deep existentialism. I will argue that an existential reading of the narrative ‘The poor man’s son’ contributes to transdisciplinary research by advancing research in commerce, specifically existential meaningful labour, by advocating an integrative theory of labour and happiness. The insights from Jean-Paul Sartre concerning anguish, authenticity, freedom, and facticity challenge the assumption that the son’s labour was meaningless because of the misery he experienced during old age, supporting a view that his choices were an expression of his freedom of choice and authenticity, and not determined by circumstances that provide important insights for an integrative theory of meaningful labour that prioritises the anguish of ontological freedom, consciousness as the source of freedom and facticity as hurdles to be surmounted on the path to fulfilment.Transdisciplinary contribution: The article is an intersection between philosophy and commerce by promoting insights from existentialism to read ‘The poor man’s son’ in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, providing insights for an integrative theory of meaningful labour and happiness.

Human Labor and Natural Labor in Henry David Thoreau's Works

This article argues that Thoreau's concept of “labor” presented as a defense of poiesis—any generative, world-altering activity. Thoreau understood Nature's labor as the ultimate creation for humans to imitate. Human labor best approached this ideal in the absence of market-based divisions of labor, particularly when mental and physical labor were united (even undifferentiated beyond their contemporary, reified distinction, a distinction which deeply troubled Thoreau). Thoreau's epistemology undergirds my discussion of his theory of labor. As I argue, his attempts to transcend divisions between subject and object, between ideal and material—divisions pertinent to his intellectual influences and interlocutors—were isomorphic to his attempts to transcend divisions of mental and physical labor, insofar as sensuous knowing itself was laborious. As Thoreau sought to know Nature and bring human labor closer to it, he expressed a consistent, dialectically complex philosophy, in which political economy and aesthetics, science and poetry, ran in parallel.

Knowledge-Production, Digitalization and the Appropriation of Surplus-Knowledge

ABSTRACT According to some commentators, the introduction of digital technologies into the sphere of knowledge-production and the consequent digitalization and computerization of this field have radically changed the nature of knowledge-producing activity and the produced knowledge. At the social level, such a change has allegedly caused the irrelevance of grand narratives and emergence of paralogies or the obsolescence of the labour theory of value, which in its turn signifies the end of capitalism. It is argued that such accounts simply disregard the social form of production of knowledge. The real revolutionary effect of digitalization, in resemblance to the introduction of machinery in large-scale industrial production, is intensification of knowledge-producing labour, which in its turn signifies the various forms of subsumption of knowledge-producing activity under capital and the appropriation of the commonly produced surplus-knowledge by it.

Emotional labour while working with families: Potential affordances for supporting early childhood educators’ wellbeing

Partnering with families is an explicit regulatory and role requirement for early childhood educators, yet the emotional labour involved is implicit and relatively unacknowledged. While research has found that complex work demands jeopardise educator wellbeing – resulting in unprecedented turnover and attrition in Australia and internationally – little research has investigated emotional labour and associated educator wellbeing in relation to partnering with families. This article argues that the limited research on educators’ emotional labour with families and its ensuing invisibility may pertain to both its positioning within social constructivist and interpretivist paradigms that render such work as naturally inherent and to conceptualisations of emotional labour theory that entrench this work in maternalistic discourses. The article positions emotional labour theory within a critical feminist lens and as a worthwhile line of inquiry to extend this body of research and disrupt maternalistic discourses that diminish educators’ skilful labour. The potential affordances pertaining to the illumination of this work as skilful for early childhood workforce policy are considered.

О равновесных ценах и законах спроса и предложения

As a result of the equalization of the profitability of capitals (which is associated with the formation of a surplus of commodities and production), with the constancy of the volume of circulating money (which maintains the constancy of the price level), as a result of the selective inclusion of consumption requests in the market, in a certain interval of the ratio of satisfied demand to total supply, there is observed, due to a number of reasons that prevent the reduction of prices, the stabilization of the prices of final commodities in relation to their value, their maintenance in equilibrium even with some redistribution of satisfied demand between goods. Continuing the logic of marginalism, we must conclude that the partial marginal utilities of less rare commodities, through the limitation of their consumption, are necessarily equated with the marginal utility of the rarer commodity, which has unaccounted consequences. The «laws of supply and demand» (where price is not defined as a concept [1, p.24]) are incompatible with the theory of marginal utility, which means that price is a function of the amount of consumption, but not vice versa. The law of demand, in essence, asserts the tendency of the partial rarity of a commodity, due to the growth of purchases, to its market rarity without observing marginal ratios. The assertion that when the price rises, it is advantageous to increase production, is inconsistent with the marginal position that the price rises with an increase in the scarcity of the commodity, which corresponds to a decrease in the amount of utilities that go into income. The dependence of demand on price is consistent with the labor theory of value.

‘They don’t waste money on women’: gendered entrepreneurial household dynamics and the total social organization of labour

ABSTRACT This article examines gendered household dynamics and the organization of labour in Entrepreneurial Households (EHs), using Glucksumann’s Total Social Organization of Labour theory (TSOL). It challenges the perception of EHs as neutral spaces and argues that analysing households provides a more nuanced understanding of the gendered dynamics in households where a member is formally self-employed or owns a business. While women may work for these businesses and contribute to household income through other employment, their labour is often unpaid, intertwined with gendered roles and viewed as a readily available household resource rather than formal employment subject to contracts. This leaves women vulnerable to coercion and exploitation, limiting their opportunities for formal employment and education outside the household. Even after years of significant informal work, they may remain without recognized careers or experience. Such gender dynamics and organization of labour also differ, depending on whether the registered business owner is a man or woman. The article subsequently highlights ongoing inequalities in household labour division, often obscured by the prioritization of ‘men’s work’, while emphasizing the crucial role of the broader household in business survival.

What Comes After the Critique of the Corporate University? Toward a Syndicalist University

For the past three decades, university faculty have produced a cascade of contemporary protest literature that routinely criticizes the knowledge factory, academic capitalism, managed professionals, college for sale, the university in ruins, the corporate corruption of higher education, and University, Inc. University faculty are regularly warned about the fall of the faculty, the last professors, and the last intellectuals. This article reviews the historical development of the corporate and neoliberal university, but it takes the next step of asking what is to be done after the critique of the corporate university. It calls on faculty to engage in a variety of direct actions that circumvent established faculty institutions and proposes a new type of syndicalist university that is owned and managed by faculty. The legitimating principle of this revolution in university control is a principle that has long been accepted in classical liberal, Marxist, and anarcho-syndicalist theory - the right of first generation and the labor theory of value.

Ibn Khaldun’s Labor Theory of Value and the Question of Race

In the first volume of Capital, Marx argued that the labor theory of value could only be discovered in capitalist societies. Building on Marx’s premise, this article examines Ibn Khaldun’s (1377) The Muqaddimah, which presents one of the first labor theories of value in world history. After explaining different elements of Ibn Khaldun’s labor theory of value, the article revisits what Giovanni Arrighi referred to as the “nondebates of the 1970s” and proposes that North Africa was already incorporated into an Italian centered capitalist world-economy in the fourteenth century. Since a key element of Marx’s argument was the impossibility of the emergence of abstract labor in societies (e.g. ancient Greece) which do not have the idea of equality of human beings and human labor, in the latter part, the article analyzes Ibn Khaldun’s theory of race and human equality. We show that Ibn Khaldun, through his comparative and historical observations, acknowledged the equality of all humans and the constructed nature of race, influenced by geography, history, and political economy. The world-historical analysis and theoretical interventions of the article helps us rethink capitalism and racism as two major pillars of modernity.