ABSTRACT
This chapter brings together some of the key themes outlined earlier in this book (especially critical realism, the powers of nature, the division of labour and the subordination of lay and tacit knowledges) around some more substantive concerns. It gives special attention to the role of industrial work in the conversion of nature’s powers. Clearly an emphasis on industrial production is not the only way in which societies convert nature into the things they want. We will later come to other forms of production such as those conducted in the informal economy. But this kind of labour process is certainly one of the most important ways of understanding how the powers of nature are used. It provides us with a core understanding of how human beings, through their own activities, regulate and control the properties of nature towards their own ends.
