Formal and real subordination and the contemporary proletariat: Re-coupling Marxist class theory and labour-process analysis

Abstract

Having seemed to offer so much in the 1970s, neo-Marxist class theory went into significant decline in the decades that followed. This paper begins with a critique of E.O. Wright’s 1980s detour via a reworking of central aspects of Marx’s class theory. Specifically, Marx’s concepts of formal and real subordination provide the basis for a re-coupling of labour-process themes with a class analysis of contemporary capitalism.