ABSTRACT
The choice of that co-production model – for example Taylorist mass production, some version of high volume flexible production or flexible specialisation – will be determined by the characteristics of the labour market. Capitalist firms routinely face two related issues in their search for a viable form of co-production: firstly, how to recruit ‘right’ sort of labour to maximise the chances of profitable production; secondly, how to organise it in the workplace so that it then produces as much profit as possible. For capital the point is always to secure the conditions of co-production that will yield the production of profits, not of goods and services per se: capital is driven by the structural imperative to produce exchange values rather than use values. In tight labour markets in which there are shortages of labour, companies may modify the form of co-production and alter working patterns to facilitate recruitment and ensure continuing production or service delivery.
