Living labor, subjectivity and cooperation: institutional and philosophical aspects

Abstract

Based on the analysis of the Marxian concepts of living labor and cooperation, designed in connection with the issue of subjectivity, we attempt to define the forms’ of injuring life at the heart of the work activity, according to historical and economic configurations. This research lead us to differentiate the stages of a process from the exploitation of life to the organization of its depletion in the contemporary world of work, through his contention in the Taylorist production system. The genealogy here established is based on approaches conceptually distinguished from phenomenology of the life of Michel Henry (1922-2002) and institutional and anthropological analysis developed by Sidi Mohammed Barkat. The first emphasizes the idea of “ruin of life” to characterize the present time. The second see in at work an enterprise of denial of life, closely linked with the stimulation of the vitality of individuals to enhance the performance of the economic system.