Ana Dinerstein and Michael Neary (eds) The Labour Debate: an investigation into the theory & reality of capitalist work.(Book Review)

Ashgate, Aldershot, 2002. pp 245 + ix ISBN : 0-7546-1779-3 (hbk) 42.50 [pounds sterling]

Rejecting the fashionable notions that capitalism is no longer based upon labouring but upon consuming, and that Marxist political economy is redundant, this book deploys Marxist political economy to demonstrate the continuing centrality of labour in capitalism.

The introduction demonstrates the centrality of the category 'labour' in political economic theory via the work of Thomas More, Locke, Petty, Smith and Ricardo and the revolutionary ideas of the Levellers and Diggers. A retreat from the centrality of labour is charted from the post-Ricardian period, culminating in the 20th century where it became a sociological category. In this form it loses its critical capacity as it is 'overwhelmed by the complexities of diverse social movements' (p. 16) Marxism is affected by this retreat. Traditional Marxism treats labour too concretely when it lapses into 'workerism' and post modern Marxism treats labour too abstractly in its turn from the real. The aim of the collection is, then, to re-assert the centrality of labour and to do so by examining it as a real abstraction.

In the opening chapter John Holloway …