Theorizing Struggle in the Social Factory

This essay explores possibilities for expanding how critical organization scholars theorize and examine processes of struggle in the capital–labor relationship. Arguing for a more expansive conception of the typical sphere of struggle, I explore the intersections of branding, communicative capitalism, and the entrepreneurial self as a way to theorize struggle in the “social factory.” I suggest that the focus of critical scholars on the “indeterminacy of labor” at the point of production as the key to struggle in the capital–labor relationship should be expanded to encompass an exploration of the “politics of indeterminacy” within the broader cycle of value in motion in the capital accumulation process. A politics of indeterminacy attempts to capture the struggles (around meaning, value, affect, identity, etc.) that unfold throughout the sites and stages of the capital accumulation process. Moreover, conceiving of the capital accumulation process as a dialectical movement of the “unity in contradiction” between value and anti-value provides critical scholars with additional conceptual resources to explore struggle in the organizing process.