ABSTRACT
Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital was clear and timely. This chapter focuses on a selection of work associated with the International Labor Process Conference, which has been meeting in one form or another since 1982, and the work of Michael Burawoy, especially his book The Politics of Production. The "core theory" starts from the indeterminacy at the heart of the labor process. The contrast between market despotisms and hegemonic regimes is of most interest. Labor process research did provide a position from which to criticize theories of flexible specialization and lean management. In the 1990s a "mutual gains enterprise" was thought to be emerging from new strategies of teamwork, flexibility and responsibility. The end of the post-World War II boom in the 1970s led to increasing international competition, threatening both the social state and the internal rules governing the hegemonic factory regime.
