THEO NICHOLS AND HUW BEYNON - Living With Capitalism. Class Relations and The Modern Factory

London England, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977. 1st Paperback Edition, Binding: Softcover, Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall 0710085958 Paperback This book is about 'ChemCo' - a giant multinational chemical producer. It is about the workers, the foremen and the managers employed to work on one of the company's many sites in the United Kingdom. On this site - 'Riverside' - some 300 of these men work with millions of ponds' worth of capital equipment; day in day out, around the clock, right throughout the year. Chemicals is big business: in the pages of this book these men talk about their jobs and their lives, about the conflicts they experience in producing chemicals for ChemCo. In this it questions many established notions about modern technology and 'affluent' workers. Set in the early 1970s, it examines the strategies of an extremely sophisticaed group of managers, outlining the ways in which they deal with the workers, the union and each other. Focusing on the new working arrangements established in the company in an attempt to increase profitability by involing people in their work, the authors highlight the managerial strategy and ;point to the nature and depth of the 'worker apathy' which gave rise to it. All this - moderness, sophistication, boredom - is examined as an enduring contradiction of advanced capitalism in its highly bureaucratised, impersonal and 'rationalised' form. Theoretically and in human terms the book is deeply concerned with the underlying maliase of modern class society and as a document it offers an important pointer to future developments - both in industry and society generally. Some light creases to cover. Previous owners name and address to inside back cover.