S. Beaud and M. Pialoux: Back to the Worker’s Issue

The monograph by Beaud and Pialoux is the consequence of many years of qualitative and quantitative investigation conducted at the Peugeot factory, and grows out of the French tradition of sociological and ethnological research. The factory, where managers and workers meet all day, allowed authors to put together, face and show the discrimination between 2 different work ethos – managers, referring to modernity, mobility and creativity, and workers whose working conditions do not offer opportunities to scope for fresh cultural goods, specified as self-fulfillment or being innovative. Although the authors' diagnosis refers to the reality of France, most of the problems and paradoxes identified by them are undoubtedly universal.

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Introduction

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Government decisions, lobbying, deregulation designed by the legal environment, changes in the organisation of work, immigration regulations, weakening the control of capital by state institutions or legitimizing changes by calling for discipline are only any of the actions that have made globalisation a natural and essential process. The complexity of what is called globalisation, the sequences of government decisions and their immediate effects, as well as the temporary effects, uncover the intention to implement a certain social task aimed at creating a fresh society in which workers cease to be influential due to the fact that their protests or strikes can lead to paralysis of life in the country in a fewer days12.

Thus, systemic changes in the countries of Central and east Europe, promising to catch up with the West, were in parallel with neoliberal reforms carried out in the West.

All paradoxes and misunderstandings related to the definition and naming of the direction of the changes taking place in the 1980s and 1990s are thoroughly described by David Ost in The Disaster of Solidarity (Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe, 2005)1. In the official, dominant political narrative, the reforms were to bring the countries of Central and east Europe closer to the West, while the process of dismantling the state of prosperity was at the time in Western countries. Neoliberalism, as it is said, is like a Möbius ribbon: revolution and adaptation are synonymous in this program, so they origin disorientation of people about the essence and direction of the reforms being introduced. For this reason Ost writes that the first "Solidarity" could have been a model and an impulse to halt this process and form economical reasoning in another societies. The voice of this author is not isolated. Indeed, if we put aside what is frequently called besides hasty, hard reality, bare facts, political prosperity, etc., then, as many interpretations indicate, in the 1990 ’ s, there was a increasing belief in Europe that the enlightened flow of ideas dried up and needed any kind of power or variety. In another words, regardless of the alleged political realities of the West, and in any case the Western planet of ideas, expected not imitation or specified association after Central and east Europe, but to bring the difference and undermine the hegemony of neoliberal thought. It is possible that the dynamics of many current political disputes in Poland, especially discussions about the shame and pride of Polish identity, organizes this vague awareness or feeling that in those years things could have taken a different turn. erstwhile reading the book Beaud and Pialoux, it is hard to defy the impression that neoliberalism yet uniforms different societies and cultures. This can be seen, for example, in the inevitable evolution of political sentiments, resulting from the neoliberal agenda: to marketplace individualism sooner or later, the reaction of the protest is to include what previously was simply a margin of political attitudes — national collectiveism and fundamentalism14.

The neoliberal reforms carried out in France in the 1980s contributed to the increase in unemployment and Precarisation of workers. The erosion of union activities has caused both the creation of obstacles to activists, the appointment of loyal trade union directors, and the acceptance by any union and organization activists in dealing with middle-class management workers.

Left-wing politicians in their dealings with workers accepted a superior speech and spoke from the position of individual with cognition and the right to instruct. According to the interviews conducted by the authors, the left-wing workers were first inclined to vote for those politicians who were not haughty at meetings, at least greet and shake hands. Since the mid-1980s, France has seen the departure of folk classes from leftist parties. The leftist parties chose to search for a fresh large city electorate, voters and voters with promising careers for whom the catchy and as vague as possible "opening to the world" has become both a political programme and a "personal development" programme. In another words, the effects, but besides the importance of the ongoing relocation of production have been stifled by the fresh mediate class, which has taken on the function of revolutionaries and for which globalisation (which offers fresh jobs and expands employment opportunities in the fields of communication, advertising, fresh services, management, culture, tourism, global projects) has become not only advancement but besides a fresh historical necessity15. In media, but besides technological analyses, cognitive discipline has, in a sense, become a fresh proletariat — a forpost, progressive class, and subject of history. Since neoliberalism has changed its appeal either to the spirit of revolution or to the request for adaptation, the social issue could have become a substance of “growth” and the magic of “growing cakes”16.

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For decades, all emerging social and economical problems could be attributed to the transitional character, as the slogan about the "growing cookie" was intended to give hope that everyone in the future would receive its larger piece.

As Gaël Giraud says, it was possible to maintain, for a decade, sometimes even two, at least any systemic safeguards against social Darwinism 17. In time, however, it becomes apparent that the process of disappearing after the war of social rights is irreversible and even accelerating. The force of receiving rights won by the erstwhile generation makes it harder to defy or simply uncover it, due to the fact that it takes the form of this moralizing beginning up to fresh possibilities, and if this argument is not adequate or failing, it immediately refers to rationality, a policy of numbers, numbers for which even unemployment can be healthy. However, the bitterness of economical medicine, as they say, was to prove its effectiveness. Healthy unemployment as well as modernisation of management contribute to more competition among workers. The teams formed, many meetings were to affect workers in work on improving production. However, in the experience of workers, as Beaud and Pialoux write, they besides become a strategy for probing moods, researching the availability and personality of the employed and their tendency to mix in "political matters". fresh forms of employment, increased supervision, new, little transparent pathways of promotion, pushing older workers into retirement, constant reforms and innovations that dispel workers' ways of coping with conflict situations, re-arrangement of rooms, and baning toolboxes, imposing and simulating democratic kind by forcing leadership on their behalf as part of the “scramping distance” are part of the activities that disintegrate part by part the full planet created by workers and workers — material and emotional. erstwhile reading interviews conducted by authors with workers and workers, Elisabeth Dunn’s book will surely come to head Privatizing Poland 18. The author shows that calling for innovation, creativity, improved competitiveness, flexibility, readiness to change is in fact part of the process of "mending" people. Managementism is not only the direction of employees, but the intention of reaching out to the deepest layers of personality, and in any case suggesting that modernisation of production and work requires modernisation of man and that it is besides a process based on discipline and the issue of morality. Today, any authors describe specified workshops and meetings as the latest manifestation of sectarianism. For example, during the courses described by Dunn, 1 could learn that it was not adequate to perceive and understand, but first 1 must evoke “want” to perceive and realize what is manifested in the position of the body, its relaxation, then its acceptance, etc.19. It would take a long time to consider what is different from listening to the untrained 1 and what is lost if knowing did not precede the awakening of this desire, but it can be easy shown from this example that it is not simply a reorganization of work, but a part of man for the purposes of ambition to contact and rebuild the core of personality. This is besides why reorganizing the work, as is evident in interviews, raises rage and a sense of powerlessness toward scientifically and morally established rhetoric. Its aim was to transfer the burden of responsibility, link it to individual resources and dispositions. Social rights secured by solidarity were opposed to a programme of individualised professional formation aimed at competition and career.

The large political resignation (the abandonment of the fight for a better planet or socialism) which defined the atmosphere of the 1990s came from the hope that agreeing to pre-crime, accepting losses and rejecting solidarity would increase chances for promotion, joining the world, which in the imagination of a working kid usually means office work20.

Since the 1990s, riots have erupted in the French suburbs, after which, however, “everything is coming back to normal”. In the work already cited Violences urbaines, force socialewhich Beaud and Pialoux specify as a continuation Return of the Worker’s Issue, it can already be read in the introduction that in 2000 after 2 decades of crisis the social war was in the air and the gloomy atmosphere no future It yet led to a riot21. This is simply a time erstwhile precarriage is no longer just about employment, but extends to all areas and poisons without a tiny life — neighborhood, apartment, school, street. natural surviving conditions in a pre-criminal planet do not spare bodies and turn them to “wildness”. Walking around the city with “bands”, hooded faces, aggressive language, bursts of desperate laughter, and massive gestures of the people affected by the crisis become dangerous, harassed, terrorizing passersby and causing panic among peaceful citizens, but they are like a public repost and the only possible form of adaptation to a planet in which 1 must “fight for one’s own” in which there is no future time, but there is no past, due to the fact that nothing good has happened in it22. The gloomy, intimidating aesthetics of “urban warriors” is the only representation of their moods and becomes the form of their policies — the distribution of fear.

Disindustrialisation and its effects, as the authors say, should not be investigated without taking into account what happened at the time in the education system, as it contributed to the creation of aspirations of children and youth from working families. Although this constatus may not seem very revealing, it is worth noting that most frequently the assimilation of mediate class culture by the folk classes utilized to affect mass culture. Reorganizations and endless reforms of jobs and education are issues which the authors managed to examine and connect in detail, and the Polish reader will surely see many typical phenomena in these analyses besides for Polish reality after 1989. The improvement of education from the 1980s, due to the time of neoliberal politics, not only did it not make the school a "saviour" institution (this concept is utilized in the context of the school by the authors behind Pierre Bourdieu), but caused the final collapse of the social elevator. The school became a “clean” for the children of workers causing guilt and teaching shame for the culture of parents. With disindustrialisation, the school began sending them straight to the hell of unemployment, benefits, precarnation, humiliation, public shame, neglected neighborhoods, tiny housing and rivalry killing solidarity. Although it is already officially acknowledged that there has been a "social elevator failure" (and you gotta usage stairs), the reforming process of the school for marketplace needs has not stopped. However, after years of unstoppable reformism, the school truly needs reform, it is not much to think about what it is actually to do in the system. Improving the atmosphere, tolerance, taking into account abilities and personalities, teaching empathy, love for nature, raising conscious citizens — it is conventional without a tiny set of recommendations for the school’s repair, although this registry seems to be about any kind of occupational therapy. It is besides not known whether all these noble objectives stay in any connection with the overarching objective, which is officially "preparing for the needs and challenges of the labour market". No 1 takes into account, nor calls for, the apparent essential reform, which would take into account the inequality of cultural capital — the simplification in class size by half2 — due to the fact that the attacks on the school are more profitable and the vague promises of "increased support", the implementation of the "social skills development" programme or "improved atmosphere". specified promises may appeal to the mediate class due to the fact that they overlap with her ethos. How can these 2 demands — a good atmosphere and preparation for the labour marketplace be reconciled? After all, no 1 has any uncertainty that it is simply a brutal labour marketplace on which to compete fiercely, utilizing all its assets.

The mediate class (at least any of its factions) does not push for improvement to reconstruct the school's functions, for example to reduce the number of students in the classroom, as improving the school's functioning would increase the pool of those who will compete first in college and then for the best jobs.

In France, "alignment" is not a popular or apparent ideal. Many researchers believe that it is simply a task that is misleading, affirming absolute competition and yet legitimizing a meritocratic hierarchy, which rigidity can match the feudal hierarchy. On the another hand, the mediocre school paradoxically serves the mediate class and acts in its well-understood interest, as it reduces the chances of children from folk-class families, and, to put it brutally, eliminates these children at the early stages of school competition, thus expanding the importance of cultural, social and financial capital of dominant classes. The weakening of the school so strengthens the importance and value of all the advantages that let to apply and make individual strategies in school competition and then in the labour market.

The school so does not operate in accordance with the social agreement on the anticipation of "save" for all, due to the fact that the education strategy is geared towards screening and selection and gives final sentences determining who "goes further" and who lands on "healthy" unemployment. Her judgments coincide with the size of household capital, which has been shown for years by statistic on social reproduction.

The school “does not work” due to the fact that the sentences fall much earlier and elsewhere. The school only seals the sentences resulting from class inequalities. Children from the folk and lower mediate classes do not put hope in a school that, “does not prepare for the labour market” and “does not prepare for life” (which is 1 thing today), so being in it is like a long sentence. Of course, you could let go of education and promotion. And decide to work and live like parents. First, however, there is no longer a mill job. Secondly, the work and life of the workers' parents are ruthlessly branded and mocked in the media. The fiction and senselessness of the years spent in school in turn make state institutions the enemy and oppressor. For years you gotta go to school and pretend that the conviction is unknown or that you can appeal. However, from the first day without a tiny schoolday it is known that there are students who will even compose a good paper, but they will receive a hint that they are to improve the “style” and “composition”. And it is known that they will never correct them as the teacher wishes, due to the fact that they do not know what this "style" is and why the "composition" is so important. Soft, descriptive ways of judging students and students are officially intended to “do not cut wings”. However, this way of assessing school accomplishment protects students from losing their dreams and aspirations, it turns out to be fatal due to the fact that it confuses both children and parents of the working class. In the end, parents do not know whether their children are “fit for college” and whether to save money to support them during college, or alternatively to say goodbye to the dreams of a child's promotion and to buy a home to escape the demolished territory year by year. Thus, what was called the democracy of education in the 1980 ’ s had to be a disaster, as the authors show.

For respective decades, public policies have been geared not to systemic actions, but to regulating the moods of the public, recommending and modeling various "social competences", namely ways of being and speaking euphemizing feelings of desperation, anger, hatred and fear of increasing competition. Civilised citizens should, no substance what future they have, control their emotions, show empathy and respect for those they absolutely compete with, and do not scold if they lose. The declared taste for multiculturalism, as shown by research, does not translate into the desire to live on a multiethnic settlement. Training, workshops, exercises, media-wide advice simply shift to the level of regular contacts the strategy problems that arise at any occasion24.

Strong trade unions provided solidarity in the opposition to exploitation, but besides softened conflicts, restrained aggression and protected the weaker. Common protests or solidarity strikes were possible due to the fact that fraternity was besides the norm in regular relations.

One must remember that there is no 1 racism or sexism. They be in many varieties and forms — ostentatious and camouflaged, regular and institutional, retaliatory, permanent and situational, linguistic and circumstantial decisions. It is so peculiarly hard to build all kinds of programs to repair relations at school or at work based on the results of polls, due to the fact that they usually ask questions that people do not ask themselves all day, and in addition, many people give strategical answers, i.e. those that are expected or provocative25. Even empathy or respect can become communication strategies and rivalry strategies, as Eva Illouz writes, as they let others to control and neutralize the moods of others, encourage others to quit their interests or avoid conflicting conflicts. Guides or training supply any cultural patterns that tell individuals how to behave on the “stairs”, how to plan performanceto adapt to compete at work with others26. The desired forms of civilization have besides become a cultural business, as shown by the banalization of various forms of “participation”, “interactivity” and “dialogue”. Claire Bishop27's observations on this issue show, in addition, that the modern education mission aims at different categories of recipients. A better visible direction is the mission of influencing attitudes towards the excluded. At the same time, Bishop notes that the hidden object of this policy is besides excluded. Educational and artistic messages say that dignity belongs to everyone. In fact, the author writes, from the content of these messages, that a sense of dignity cannot be lost, and regardless of the conditions under which people live and whether they have access to public services, this does not diminish human dignity. So ultimately, all reality is acceptable due to the fact that it does not violate anyone's dignity. It would be good if another people wanted to show disfellowshiped respect, and that is what the mission is aimed at. Nothing, then, needs to be changed in reality, which causes many calamities, just to change attitudes toward those who are excluded. Thus, indirectly, it is besides called upon to put up with their misery with dignity, no substance how distraught and desperate they are.

The excluded learn that they have absolute respect, but they cannot anticipate dental dentures, proceeding aids, or glasses to benefit from wellness insurance.

In another words, it is education and art, which are to convince the excluded to accept all that causes suffering and humiliation. Education or — possibly little apparent — art is not by definition progressive. And 1 and the another can be regressive, due to the fact that the message on the distribution of roles or political will is frequently practiced in the framework of the uplifted mission of the hierarchy, as shown in the paradoxical expression “we will teach you democracy” (this comes from the well-known old belief “first education, then democracy”). [...]

Margaret Jacino

photo of Oficin Scientific

Stéphane Beaud, Michel Pialoux, Back to Worker's Issue, technological Editor: Margaret Jacino, Oficin Scientific, 2022

Footnotes:

11. Jacques Rancière, Et royal pis pour les gens fatigués. Entretiens, Éditions Amsterdam, Paris 2009, pp. 201–206.

12. Gérard Noiriel, Les Ouvriers...Scott Lash, Celia Lury, Global cultural industry. Mediating Things, crowd. Jakub Majmurek, Robert Mitoraj, Wydawnictwo UJ, Kraków 2011; Jacques Rancière, En quel temps vivons-nous? Conversation avec Éric Hazan, La Fabrique, Paris 2012; Barbara Stiegler, "Il faut s’adapter". Sur un nouvel impératif politique, Gallimard, Paris 2019; Gaël Giraud, Felwine Sarr, L’Économie à venirĖditions Les Liens qui Libèrent, Paris 2021.

13. David Ost, The defeat of Solidarity. Anger and Politics in Post-communist Europe, crowd. Hanna Jankowska, Warsaw Publishing home Literary Muza S.A., Warsaw 2007; see besides the same, Solidarity and anti-politics policy, crowd. Sergius Kowalski, European Solidarity Centre, Gdańsk 2014.

14. Lt. David Ost, Solidarity and anti-politics policies..., pp. 7–13.

15. Lieutenant Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction. Social Criticism of Judgement, crowd. Piotr Biłos, Scholar, Warsaw 2005, pp. 435–457.

16. Éric Alliez, Maurizio Lazzarato, Guerres et Capital , Éditions Amsterdam, Paris 2016, p. 177.

17. Gaël Giraud, Felwine Sarr, L’Économie, p. 125.

18. Elisabeth Dunn, Privatizing Poland. About bobofruts, large business and occupation restructuring, crowd. Przemysław Sadura, Publishing home of Political Critics, Warsaw 2008.

19. Ibid., pp. 135–141.

20. Stéphane Beaud, Michel Pialoux, Violances urbaines, force sociale. Génèse des nouvelles classes dangereuses, Fayard, Paris 2003, p. 315.

21. Ibid. p. 16.

22. Ibid. p. 25.

23. François Dubet, Marie Duru-Bellat, L’École peut-elle sauver la démocratie? Éditions du Seuil, Paris 2020.

24. Cf.: Stéphane Beaud, Michel Pialoux, Violences urbaines; duh, "Je ne suis pas Le Pen, je vous rassure tout de suite". Un couple d’ouvriers face à l’anomie du quartier et l’impunité des jeunes, in: Gérard Mauger, Willy Pelletier, Les Classes populaires et le FN. Explorations de votes,ditions du Croquant, Vulaines-sur-Seine 2017, pp. 149–170; Les ouvriers et le FN. L’exacerbation des lutes de competitors, in: Gérard Mauger, Willy Pelletier, Les Classes populaires, pp. 133–148; Eva Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul. Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help, University of California Press, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London 2008; Stéphane Beaud, Gérard Noiriel, Race et Sciences sociales

25. Stéphane Beaud, Gérard Noiriel, Race et Sciences sociales, pp. 192–195.

26. Eva Illouz, Saving the Modern Soul, pp. 88–104.27. Claire Bishop, Artificial hell. Participating art and public policy, crowd. Jacek Staniszewski, Bęc Change, Warsaw 2015, pp. 37–38, 57–58