Revision summary
Capitalist work organises time for surplus. Marx: necessary versus surplus labour; absolute and relative surplus value. The working day’s legal limit is a class outcome, then offset by intensity. Weber, Taylor, and Braverman describe office and deskilling. Indian informal and unpaid care days remain weakly limited.
Model answer
Introduction
Capitalist work is socially organised to command labour time for surplus. Karl Marx’s chapter on the working day shows that this command meets a political and bodily limit. The organisation of work is therefore a struggle over hours, intensity, and who counts as a worker.
Body
Capital’s drive
- The working day has a necessary part that reproduces labour power and a surplus part that capital seeks to extend.
- Absolute surplus value lengthens the day; relative surplus value intensifies it through machines and cooperation.
Social organisation
- The factory clock, fines, and later Taylor’s split of conception and execution organise time.
- Max Weber’s office adds career time and files. Harry Braverman tied scientific management to deskilling.
- Gender organises a second unpaid day of care, which Ann Oakley made visible. Capital depends on that limit being unpaid.
The limit of the working day
- Marx treated the Factory Acts as a class victory that capital then answers with intensity.
- Law, union, and inspectorate are social organisations of the limit, not gifts of technique.
- Informal and gig work in India often sit outside that legal day: log-in hours, piece rates, and contractors, as Jan Breman showed for circulation.
Present form of the same struggle
- Overtime culture in offices, warehouse scans, and platform incentives recreate an unbounded day.
- PLFS informality means most Indian workers never had a Fordist legal day to lose.
Nature of the organisation
- It is simultaneous technical cooperation and domination.
- The working day’s limit is the political skin of that organisation.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD CAP[Capital] --> WD[Working day] WD --> ABS[Length] WD --> REL[Intensity machines] LAW[Factory Acts unions] --> LIM[Political limit] INF[Informal gig care] --> OPEN[Day still unbounded]
Conclusion
Capitalist work organisation is command of time for surplus, through mill, office, and platform. Marx’s working day is the key limit, always reopened by intensity and informality. Gendered unpaid hours and Indian contractors show whose day is legally bounded.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Trace the changing nature of organisation of work in capitalist society over the years
Next question on this syllabus topic (2017 · Q6(a)). View answer →
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Does a laptop job abolish the working day?
It often blurs the limit. Marx’s issue was command of time, not the mill wall.
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Is unpaid housework part of the working day?
It is socially necessary labour that capital does not clock. Feminist work adds that limit.
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