ABSTRACT
The concept of a wage-labour nexus has been extremely successful. This success is due perhaps more to its broad, synthesising and overarching nature than to its specific content. According to Robert Boyer’s definition (1986a: 49, trans. 1990: 38), the wage-labour nexus refers to ‘the type of means of production; the social and technical division of labour; the ways in which workers are attracted and retained by the firm; the direct and indirect determinants of wage income; and lastly, the workers’ way of life’. The concept of a wage-labour nexus has a Marxian filiation in as much as it considers the wage-earning class as a political subject whose mode of social construction, exchange relations and submission to or conflicts with other social agents play a determining role in overall economic functioning. It also originates from macroeconomic modelling and an interpretation of key equations, particularly for wages and productivity.
