ABSTRACT
Pushing beyond the ‘hidden abode’ of production, this chapter introduces autonomist Marxism, principally through the prism of the reception within studies of management and organisation of Italian theoretical traditions of workerism and post-workerism. The chapter first outlines the history of the development of workerist thought focused on class struggle mainly residing in the factory into post-workerist thought fully engaged with struggles in the wider ‘social factory’ afforded by changes in the organisation of capitalist production. It then surveys the uptake within management and organisation studies of ideas around ‘immaterial labour’ and the crisis of measurement and value this is said to spark in contemporary capitalism. It then considers, and critiques, a series of autonomist approaches within MOS that remain closer to original ‘workerism’ insofar as they maintain the relevance of scientific management methods in an age of ‘digital Taylorism’ and emphasise how processes of class composition continue to mediate between the workplace and wider society.
