ARTMARGINS VOLUME 8 | ISSUE 1 | FEBRUARY 2019

Authors: Robert Schlicht, Romana Schmalisch

Publisher: The MIT Press Journals

Year: 2019

Pages: 128pp. per issue (p.56-72)

Language: English

Cover: Paperback

Size: 6 x 9, illustrated

Type: Journal

Status: New

ISBN: ISSN: 2162-2574 and E-ISSN: 2162-2582

Link: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/artm_a_00227?af=R

Labor Power Plant

In those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, labour power is tradable as a commodity and, as such, not a natural good or human capacity, but rather a socially mediated and constituted relation. The project “Labour Power Plant” operates on the fictitious assumption that the everyday, all-pervasive, seemingly natural and therefore invisible micro-politics present in society do in fact not exist. In other words, that society is by itself unable to provide for the human capital on which it depends. Instead, the production of abstract workers is outsourced into a dedicated “labour power plant” – an institution that equips people with the general capacities that make them fit for the demands of the labour market. Labour Power Plant – a success story of the past, the present and the future describes the story of the institution from industrialization to today, its reaction to the labour movement, and new trends in corporate governance.

Labor Power Plant (download)
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/artm_a_00227