Creating the New Worker: Work,

Consumption and Subordination

Jean-Pierre Durand
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/creating-the-new-worker-work-consumption-and-subo
rdination-jean-pierre-durand/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook Loucas

https://textbookfull.com/product/biota-grow-2c-gather-2c-cook-
loucas/

Adult Vaccinations Changing the Immunization Paradigm

Jean-Pierre Michel

https://textbookfull.com/product/adult-vaccinations-changing-the-
immunization-paradigm-jean-pierre-michel/

The Digital Era 1 Big Data Stakes 1st Edition Jean-

Pierre Chamoux

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-digital-era-1-big-data-
stakes-1st-edition-jean-pierre-chamoux/

Galois Theory of Algebraic Equations 2nd Edition Jean-

Pierre Tignol

https://textbookfull.com/product/galois-theory-of-algebraic-
equations-2nd-edition-jean-pierre-tignol/
One Hot Rumor Hot Brits 5 1st Edition Anna Durand
Durand Anna

https://textbookfull.com/product/one-hot-rumor-hot-brits-5-1st-
edition-anna-durand-durand-anna/

Traffic Networks as Information Systems: A Viability

Approach 1st Edition Jean-Pierre Aubin

https://textbookfull.com/product/traffic-networks-as-information-
systems-a-viability-approach-1st-edition-jean-pierre-aubin/

Leading a Surgical Revolution: The AO Foundation –

Social Entrepreneurs in the Treatment of Bone Trauma
Jean-Pierre Jeannet

https://textbookfull.com/product/leading-a-surgical-revolution-
the-ao-foundation-social-entrepreneurs-in-the-treatment-of-bone-
trauma-jean-pierre-jeannet/

From Coal to Biotech The Transformation of DSM with

Business School Support 1st Edition Jean-Pierre Jeannet

https://textbookfull.com/product/from-coal-to-biotech-the-
transformation-of-dsm-with-business-school-support-1st-edition-
jean-pierre-jeannet/

Pectus Excavatum and Poland Syndrome Surgery Custom

Made Silicone Implants by Computer Aided Design Jean-
Pierre Chavoin

https://textbookfull.com/product/pectus-excavatum-and-poland-
syndrome-surgery-custom-made-silicone-implants-by-computer-aided-
design-jean-pierre-chavoin/
 Jean-Pierre Durand

CREATING
THE NEW
WORKER
Work, Consumption
and Subordination
Creating the New Worker
 Jean-Pierre Durand

Creating the New

Worker
Work, Consumption
and Subordination
Jean-Pierre Durand
University of Évry Paris-Saclay
Évry, France

ISBN 978-3-319-93259-0 ISBN 978-3-319-93260-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93260-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018943278

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer International
Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein
or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover image: © enviromantic/Getty Images

Cover design: Akihiro Nakayama

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 No, I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine
things that can be done. I don’t like work - no man does - but I like what is
in the work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself not
for others - what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere
show, and never can tell what it really means.
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 1899.
 Foreword

Jean-Pierre Durand is one of France’s leading labour sociologists and

was amongst the first to introduce the Anglo Saxon labour process
debate, including the work of Michael Burawoy, to a Francophone audi-
ence. In this very refreshing new work, he offers a timely response to
the somewhat tired nature of the debate on management and employee
responses and social forms of labour control in the UK and the USA.
In this highly original work, Durand develops Gramsci’s notion of
the New Worker beyond the Fordian principle of the mass society and
the mass worker. The book’s focus then shifts to the fate of the new
worker in Late Capitalism. A Gramscian critique of contemporary pat-
terns of capitalist labour control and Lacanian psychoanalysis is used to
explore the development of new forms of social subordination as well as
the context for social emancipation. This departure offers an intriguing
background from which to proceed to an updating of Gramsci’s con-
cept for the contemporary world, which, depending on how we look
at it, is certainly a neoliberal one. Durand highlights the ways in which
management and the lighter literature fails to—or does not attempt—
situate the idea of the New Worker in the historical context of neolib-
eral reconstruction. The argument begins with the idea that the New

vii
viii   Foreword

Worker is an ambivalent construct which, though undermined by var-

iant patterns of subordination (reflected, inter alia, by workplace indi-
vidual dissent and suicide and extra workplace individual pathologies),
is nevertheless able to contest various neoliberal tropes. While these
tropes are challenged from within contemporary social and economic
cultures, at the same time they shroud worker—management engage-
ments defined, as they always are, by relations of conflict and consensus.
Thus, by accounting for variant patterns of sublimation Durand makes
concrete the changes in the relationships between the evolving nature of
capitalism and the creation of the new woman and the new man.
These changes embrace work and consumption and specifically in terms
of their influence on the ‘subject’. One of Durand’s concerns is to make
sense of the ways in which contemporary models of capitalism and the
‘subject’ have changed over the last three decades. Specifically, what might
be the links between production and consumption in this transformation?
How might we understand the consumption of (in)tangible goods against
the background neoliberal subordination within and beyond work?
In contrast to Boltanski and Chiapello, for example, who see the
1970s as time in which Fordism was reduced and replaced by network
organisations that offered a form of pseudo space for free action, or
actor-centred action, Durand argues quite the contrary. Rather, he sit-
uates subordination not in discursive management agenda trumpeting
a refashioning of (supposedly) oppositional discourses, but rather in
socio-economic, cultural and psychological traps which limit the scope
for oppositional action. These limits result directly from the instantia-
tion of material-organisational structures which act in particular ways
to constrain, by configuring, everyone’s behaviour. Even if one might
argue that the discourses of Fordist rigidity were giving way to flatter
hierarchies, or no hierarchies, the reality is that hierarchy, exclusion,
worker control and social subordination were, and are, being extended:
Fordism, in the sense of dominant class hierarchies, never went away.
This argument, centred on the reconstitution of class subordination,
is the leitmotif of the book. Thus, the notion of the social patterning
of contemporary subordinations is developed through an engagement
in highly pertinent debates on the evolution of management think-
ing, management practices and employee responses with compelling
 Foreword   ix

empirical examples drawn from a range of sectors including aerospace,

automotives, office work, job centres, rail transport (the SNCF) and
advertising. It is through an exploration of the fate of labour in these
sectors that Durand is able to interpret the increased incidence of work-
place stress in France and elsewhere together with the shocking rise in
work-related suicides. The latter in particular he attributes to new pro-
duction regimes. In the Anglo Saxon literature, the latter are described
typically, and at times uncritically, as forms of lean production. Durand
picks up on the idea he developed in a previous work on patterns of
labour subordination in capitalism using the concept of flux tendu.
What does he mean by flux tendu and in what ways does it vary from
the Japanese concept of just-in-time? Why does the concept of lean pro-
duction appear at the beginning of 1990s and how does it seemingly
resolve a number of problems associated with the crises of Taylorism
and Fordism? What are its main principles? The book addresses these
concepts in order to consider how work organisations and labour pro-
cesses have changed over several decades and the new ways in which
blue and white collar workers are mobilised. In this new organisation,
middle management and supervisors are—like other employees—
committed to other working modalities. They sometimes doubt their
new functions: they live rather insecurely in their new circumstances,
and it is by explaining the social and psychological nature of these inse-
curities that Durand grapples with the trauma of workplace exclusion
with all its social and psychological consequences.
The book concludes by offering us two scenarios: one is the continua-
tion of the current situation with the disasters of ecological destruction,
forced migration and inequality (with a return to urban violence) which
are entirely predictable; the second scenario suggests an enchanted future
when all these questions are resolved by social innovation and the super-
session of capitalism. The question of plausibility is central to his answer.

Edinburgh, Scotland Prof. Paul Stewart

Senior Research Professor,
Sociology of Employment,
Grenoble School of Management
(GEM)—Université Grenoble Alpes
 Contents

1 Introduction 1
Gramsci and the New Worker 3
The New Worker Today 7
References 11

2 Lean Management: The Invisible Revolution 13

Historical Reasons for Lean Production’s Emergence
and Diffusion 14
Systemic Efficiency and Lean Production 16
Managing Within an Enclave 34
References 42

3 The New Worker: Fractured Identities and Denied

Recognition 45
Lean Management’s Production of the New Worker 46
The Process of Constructing Identity at Work 69
Recognition at Work 77
References 99

xi
xii   Contents

4 The New Worker Dispossessed of Work 103

Logistics as an Example of Industrial Workers Operating
in a Service Activity 104
The Taylorisation of Industrial Design-Related
Intellectual Work 120
The Normalisation of Research and Development 140
References 156

5 The New Worker in Service Activities 159

Revisiting Theoretical Approaches to the Service Sector 161
The Possibility of Non-quality Work in the Service Sector 179
The Hidden Functions of Indicateurs and Personal Appraisals 205
References 228

6 The Impossible Rationalisation of Service Activities 231

Factors Preventing the Rationalisation of Service Activities 233
When Work Is Done by Users and Customers 244
Inventing Piece-Workers in the Service Sector 264
Service Quality’s Inevitable Deterioration 291
References 307

7 Two Scenarios for the Future 311

The Dark Scenario of Social Regression 312
The Bright Scenario of a Rosy Future 353
References 370

8 Conclusion: What Comes After Work 373

References 377

Bibliography 379

Index 395
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 Identity and recognising at work 75

Fig. 3.2 Dynamics of identity at work 91
Fig. 5.1 Defining a service activity (Source J. Gadrey, op. cit, p. 19) 166
Fig. 5.2 Systemic representation of service activities
(Source J. Gadrey, op. cit and J.-P. Durand) 176
Fig. 5.3 A deeply embedded service relationship 182

xiii
 List of Tables

Table 5.1 New classification of services 163

Table 6.1 Creation of extra surplus-value 261

xv
 1
Introduction

The global world has entered into a cycle of a systemic depression cycle
characterised by extremely weak growth, environmental degradation (for
which they bear enormous responsibility), the massive destruction of
skilled employment and a crisis of work. Acts of terrorism committed by
a few thousand religious fundamentalists and accelerating cross-border
migration have strengthened populist and demagogic right-wing voices.
Nonsensical ideas are being bandied about by all social classes.
Work, as the activity that structures capitalism both socially and psycho-
logically, is also being undermined, affecting first and foremost the young-
est and the oldest jobseekers but also many people who have been forced
in mid-career to seek refuge in atypical activities such as self-employment.
Questions raised by these developments include to what extent does
a clear perception exists of the radical transformations that humankind
faces at present. To what extent does the current situation correspond
to the advent of a new type of worker in Gramsci’s sense of the term.
More broadly, what kinds of specificities are associated with the new
type of worker today. One recurring theme is humankind’s adaptation
to whatever conditions of production and consumption prevail at a par-
ticular moment. That being the case—and given the portentous Fordian

© The Author(s) 2019 1

J.-P. Durand, Creating the New Worker,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93260-6_1
2   J.-P. Durand

transformations that Gramsci saw as shaping a “new kind of worker

and human being”—what remains to be determined are the condi-
tions shaping twenty-first century humankind, construed here as a force
capable of creating its own destiny. Above and beyond mere technical
innovation, it would also be useful to take a closer look at the anthropo-
logical transformations underpinning the dual phenomenon of globali-
sation and the neoliberal financialisation of the economy. This should
provide insight into what kinds of human beings are emerging in and
through modern work, or on its margins, where they are unemployed,
as embodied in (and transmitted through) the consumption of not only
industrial goods but of services as well.
The book starts by highlighting the primacy of human beings’ phys-
ical, moral and intellectual adaptation to the demands of work, against
a background defined by the ongoing search for greater productive effi-
ciency. This adaptation does not only materialise in people’s place of
work or in centres of education and training but also through a mul-
titude of channels active in the private and public spheres of consump-
tion. Understanding this anthropological transformation requires as
detailed an analysis as possible of the demands associated with the work
and production processes involved in making industrial goods and ser-
vices. This is because these demands themselves depend on the way new
types of workers are being modeled. The present book therefore analy-
ses, on the one hand, the changing needs of work in light of the qual-
ities and competencies that these adaptive employees are supposed to
possess, and on the other hand in light of the enthusiasm (or recalci-
trance) that men and women manifest when transforming into a new
kind of worker who has become a figurehead for a new century.
The book’s introduction returns to Gramsci’s writings, and specifically
to when he began scrutinising this topic during the decades following
the advent of Fordism. This will be complemented by more recent think-
ing formulated during the 1970s at a time when Fordism was undergo-
ing major crisis. This will explain also why the book’s reference to the
new type of worker excludes developments associated with totalitarian
real socialist or fascist regimes (Germany, Italy) that disappeared even as
American-style liberal democracies have continued to develop the capital-
ist order that Gramsci was already talking about nearly a century ago.
 1 Introduction    
3

Gramsci and the New Worker

Thrown into prison by Mussolini, Antonio Gramsci nevertheless kept
himself informed of political and social developments, building up in
this way the kind of overview that is a prerequisite for all philosophi-
cal thinking. In an article entitled “Americanism and Fordism” (1934),
he showed how the US automotive industry needed a workforce char-
acterised by its regularity, stability and discipline in order to satisfy
the assembly needs of the Rouge River automobile factory in Detroit.
Trying to reduce staff turnover that had reached nearly 300% per
annum, Henry Ford suggested a doubling of wages. This had an imme-
diate effect, with staff turnover plummeting to just a few percentage
points. Having said that (and as noted by Benjamin Coriat), not all
workers enjoyed the highly publicised new wage of $5 a day. Excluded
categories were comprised of:

– Workers with fewer than six months of service;

– Workers under the age of 21;
– Women, because Ford wanted them to get married.

Ford also required ‘good morals’, meaning key qualities such as clean-
liness and reserve, as well as abstention from tobacco and alcohol. In
addition, “gambling was forbidden as was going to bars, especially
gentlemen’s clubs” (Coriat 1979, 96). To ensure workers’ quality out-
put and discipline, Ford recruited university experts (sociologists, psy-
chologists, psycho-technicians) and created a sociology department1
replete with inspectors whose main mission was to “check on workers
by going into their homes and other places where they spent time to
monitor their general behaviour and more particularly how they spent
their wages” (Coriat 1979, 96).

1According to H. Beynon as quoted in B. Coriat. c.f. H. Beynon, Working for Ford, Penguin,
1973, it is worth reflecting upon the use of sociology and other human sciences (such as ethnol-
ogy) in English and French colonies. Note that when this discipline is used, it tends to happen
very ex post facto.
4   J.-P. Durand

Whereas in the early twenty-first century United States, “Assembly

line work required factory discipline superior to that characteris-
ing the mass of unskilled workers at the time” (Bleitrach and Chenu
1979, 50)—particularly immigrants coming from poor rural European
regions—Ford also advocated discipline in the spaces where his work-
force reproduced. The ‘high wages’ of $5 a day became

a state instrument used to both select a workforce adapted to the pro-

duction and labour systems, and also to maintain its stability. In actual
fact, high wages became a double edge sword. Workers were supposed to
spend then ‘rationally’ to maintain, renew and where possible increase
their physical and nervous effectiveness (and not destroy or undermine
this). All of which explains Ford’s fight against alcohol, which he viewed
as the factor most likely to destroy his workforce. He made this battle
into an affair of state. (Gramsci 1979, 700)

In addition to alcohol and its legal prohibition, Gramsci was also ques-
tioning here the treatment of sexuality, portrayed as the second enemy
of the nervous energy needed for good factory work.

Chasing after women took up too much leisure time. The reason is that
these new kinds of industrial workers were repeating, in another form,
what peasants were doing back in their villages. The relative stability of
peasants’ sexual unions was closely related to the kind of labour system
found in the countryside. Peasants would go home after a long tiring day
at work, seeking ‘love that was easy and always available’ in the words of
Horace, meaning that men had no desire to court any women met by
chance. Instead they would love their wife because it was certain that
she would be present and not disappear, i.e. not put on any airs and go
through the whole show of pretending to have to be seduced (but actu-
ally violated) in order for him to possess her. This was tantamount to a
mechanisation of the sexual function, although in reality it embodied
a new form of sexual union lacking the ‘brilliant colours’ and romantic
trappings associated with middle-class (and even ‘lazy Bohemian’) love.
Clearly the new industrialism preferred monogamy so workers would no
longer waste nervous energy in a disorderly but exciting search for occa-
sional sexual satisfaction. After all, anyone going to work after a night
 1 Introduction    
5

of ‘debauchery’ was unable to perform well. Passion came to be seen as

incompatible with the timed productive gestures that perfectly oiled sys-
tems needed to succeed.2 (Gramsci 1979, 701)

This new type of worker was largely being (re-)constructed in his

private lives under the watchful eye of employers surveilling their
morality. The discipline required for the workplace was merged with
workers’ domestic lives. Indeed, the family space is where this was
supposed to happen. Gramsci took the vision even further, with his
premonition that, “Psycho-physical balance is not only external and
mechanical but also internalised, with workers suggesting this them-
selves instead of having it imposed on them from the outside and por-
trayed as a new form of society characterised by specific and original
methods” (ibid., 699). With this early vision of the consumer soci-
ety (and of uni-dimensional human beings), Gramsci was question-
ing the harmony and balance between the space of production versus
the space of consumption, not in economic terms as the School of
Regulation would do four decades later (Aglietta 1977) but from a
moral and disciplinary perspective. What he then established was an
intrinsic relationship between the demands of production and work,
on one hand, and workers’ preparation for such demands through
their daily lives, on the other. Clearly this was very different from the
idea that workers were being shaped or socially moulded in such a way
as to respond to the needs of industry. This is especially so because
it was always possible for some individuals to escape the ‘system’ by
refusing to take part in it or by abandoning it (albeit at great opportu-
nity cost given the high wages that Ford paid).
At the same time, Gramscian analysis featured a modicum of func-
tionalism with its assertion that to in order further bolster its own devel-
opment prospects, capitalism produces rules governing workers’ lives.

2Readers might refer to Jacques Frémontier’s book (1980) on the culture or morality of retention
in the French working class; “The strength of desire and even greater strength of the repression of
desire produce a discourse and behaviour sublimination that might be construed as the very foun-
dation of ‘working class culture’” (p. 16).
6   J.-P. Durand

The idea here was that the invisible hand of free competition (or indeed
a great Organiser) plan the ideological and moral production of capi-
talist society in such a way as to sustain efficient, smooth and seamless
production for as long as possible.
The reality is a succession of trial and error adjustments tanta-
mount to a kind of self-poïesis or self-organisation (Varela 1988, 61).
Recurring critical antinomical resolutions have failed to address fun-
damental contradictions, explaining in turn a slew of more or less seri-
ous crises that the present book will use to contextualise the world of
work. In other words, despite the imperfections of the functionalist
interpretation, it is still worth analysing to what extent the new type of
worker employed by Ford and his successors were being prepared for
production activities through their private lifestyles, including as afore-
mentioned through the prohibition of alcohol, a sexuality more or less
regulated by marriage, regular working schedules and controlled sleep
schedules.
Gramsci’s merit is to have already perceived nearly a century ago
the existence of a close relationship between one type of industry
(mass industry) and controls placed on workers’ morality and psyches.
Another excerpt from his aforementioned text highlighted, for instance,
Taylor’s brutal cynicism in trying to discount workers’ professional and
distinctively human qualities (the active engagement of their intelli-
gence, imagination and initiative) by reducing production operations
to their physical and machine-related aspects alone. Gramsci’s emphasis
here was on the close link between production conditions and domestic
and neighborhood routines that used a stringent supervisory structure
to get workers to adopt a certain behaviour, to wit, stability. The refer-
ence was to Fordian habitats, a term used to characterise the sometimes
very accelerated construction of dispositions needed to keep people in
a state where they could keep their jobs. Much later but under similar
conditions, D. Bleitrach and A. Chenu (1979, 45) showed that stability
is what makes it possible to capitalise on peoples’ experience or acquire
the dexterity needed to achieve expected outcomes. In this sense,
Fordian workers became the “trained gorillas” that Taylor had dreamt
about a few years before Ford created the conditions where this might
happen. Gramsci wrote that, “Hegemony is born in the factory”, with
 1 Introduction    
7

the advent of stable, sober, monogamous and disciplined workers soon

becoming a ‘fact of civilisation’. The relevant approach here is therefore
anthropological, involving different preparations that while varying
depending on the historical era all serve to adapt humans to different
modes of production and consumption, thereby transforming them
over time.

The New Worker Today

Almost all contemporary research into the sociological, economic or
psychological aspects of work highlights the increasing responsibili-
ties that employees are expected to assume as well as their expanding
areas of autonomy. These conclusions tend to be applied to all sectors
of activity but mainly refer to the qualifications and different func-
tions carried out on factory floors or in offices or warehouses, etc.
The vision here is that above and beyond certain very strict rules (that
still exist for safety and quality reasons), employees tend to prioritise
objectives rather than procedures. Certainly this is the main transfor-
mation that the author of the present book conceptualised more than
20 years ago as a “new productive model” or “new productive sys-
tem” (Boyer and Durand 1997). Clearly a more appropriate descrip-
tion can and should be found, if only because the transformations in
question cannot remain new forever. Talking about post-Fordism does
not work either, because despite the crisis of a Fordian type of mac-
roeconomic regulation, there is no doubt that productive flow prin-
ciples have not only spread throughout industry but also permeate
the production of goods and services in the form of flux tendu (tight
flow) concept that the book’s later chapters will interpret from a social
perspective. Nor does the term of post-Taylorism apply here. A few
observers may have mistakenly declared that Taylorism is dead but
the fact remains that most commentators and analysts (and manag-
ers) accept that the principle of a division of labour pitting organis-
ers vs. operatives will survive as an integral part of capitalist logic. At
best, “flexible Taylorism” might include feedback mechanisms mak-
ing it easier to respond to volatile demand. Yet Toyotism is also an
8   J.-P. Durand

insufficient concept, in particular because it is too closely tied to a

mobilisation regime that is very specific in both geographical (Japan)
and historical (post-World War II) terms, and relates to one particular
industry, namely the automobile. In short, there is at this level a kind
of taxonomical vacuum affecting understanding of an object that is
itself relatively well-defined, at least in production and work organi-
sation terms, and in terms of the employee mobilisation regime that
is so closely associated with it. This explains why the present book
intends to rely on the construct of a new productive model (or sys-
tem). In the absence of anything better, it might be referred to, albeit
imperfectly, as a neo-Fordian construct.
Returning to the debate about employees’ increased responsibili-
ties or extended autonomy, it is important to point out that this tends
nowadays to relate to the scope of the autonomy in question and to
the responsibilities that workers are being given. Most findings from
work in this field focus on the control and management of autonomy.
Questions at this level include what means managers use to ensure
work’s quantitative and qualitative outcomes using the reporting or
evaluation tools at their disposal; the secondary or unexpected effects of
these tools; and whether greater responsibility and autonomy are neces-
sary for production into a new mobilisation regime (or both at once).
The present book will seek to transcend these debates or formulate them
differently, mobilising the approach that Gramsci initiated and focusing
on the creation of the new types of workers required for a particular
production system (Fordian, in his studies). This starts with work situ-
ations in companies but also public authorities.3 The goal is to discover
which demands are associated with which productive systems (under-
stood here as ensembles comprised of physical and intellectual resources
and management paradigms) and their effects on employees. The idea
here is that employees:

3These are privately or state-owned sectors along with central and local public authorities. All

have more or less adopted the same efficiency principles. Some do this to satisfy shareholders,
others to cut operating costs—a priority for all governements seeking to reduce public deficits (an
example in France being the RGPP Révision générale of politiques publiques [“General revision of
public policy”] package and its effects on budgets and working conditions in the public sector).
 1 Introduction    
9

– Must be capable of showing initiative and assuming responsibility,

meaning coping with unforeseen events, usually with resources that
are insufficient for what the situation requires, i.e., they will work
through whatever happens. This vision is encompassed in the notion
of capabilities signifying aptitudes and skill sets but also people’s
desire to deal with events and their commitment to do so;
– Must also accept the limitations or frameworks that have been
imposed upon them and impede them doing their work. Such frame-
works are necessary to ensure a quality production of goods or ser-
vices. They are also specified in the nature of the capitalist production
relationship determining an activity’s objectives—without forgetting
the organisation of production and the work itself (including experts
and hierarchy), all of which serves to shape potential intervention
spaces.

To satisfy these contradictory demands, the wage-labour nexus (or more

concretely the company or administration) has invented the new worker
who is supposed to combine a desire to act and do things with a sense
of initiative adding to his own sense of enthusiasm—even as he is being
constantly impeded by an organisation or hierarchy that handcuffs
them yet to which he is supposed to remain entirely devoted. Hence
the first premise of the book, being that the new worker is constituted
through work (and by the way some work is organised today), some-
thing that moulds him in turn so that he can accommodate all the con-
tradictory requirements that he has to deal with when carrying out his
work. The new type of worker is divided individual, torn on one hand
between self-expression and a sense of fulfillment and, on the other,
by the way in which his activities is framed by a heteronomous organ-
isation he probably views as being less rigid than it really is. Given the
necessities of modern neo-Fordian productive organisation, this divided
person is also being invented through the very productive organisation
in which she finds herself. This constitutes the focus of the book’s first
section.
The second premise is congruent with Gramsci’s intuition that the
new worker is also being prepared in consumption spaces (or what
Marx described as spaces of the reproduction of labour), being the loci
10   J.-P. Durand

where value is realised. The idea here is not to construe this phenom-
enon as an example of subjects being tamed through consumption,
advertising or media—all conclusions found in a number of other stud-
ies. Instead, it is to see in what way the dislocation of the new worker
might also be produced in the way in which he use services more than
in his consumption of industrial goods. Subjects are being asked to real-
ise themselves (e.g. in cultural industries, through gaming, by going
online, etc.) yet all these promises remain unsatisfied. A similar struc-
ture appears in work activities and certain service activities, with calls
for self-realisation falling short for a number of reasons, starting with a
deterioration in service quality—something that clearly requires expla-
nation. Expressed differently, learning about the divisions afflicting the
new type of productive worker can be developed by analysing the dis-
connection between the promises that have been made to people when
consuming a service and the reality. In companies and public authorities
alike, actors are dealing with impersonal responses. They sense that they
must accept this as a fate, as embodied in the unfulfilled promise that
a service makes and in the limited (and sometimes closed) framework
shaping a given work activity.
The third premise relates to citizens, workers and consumers’ dif-
ferent reactions and behaviour when dealing with these situations.
What requires explanation at this level is why some individuals mud-
dle through whereas others fail when faced with the kind of disloca-
tion required for today’s work organisations. There is also the question
of how survivors experience this dislocation and how they cope with it.
Without rehearsing all the recent literature in these areas which empha-
size the malaise of work with respect to psychosocial risks (including
workplace suicides), the book looks at the close relationship between
the divides (dislocations) found amongst this new kind of worker
and these pathologies born out of work. The desire to do well and the
impossibility of achieving this certainly play a role in the personal crises
suffered by workers.
The book’s first chapters characterise working conditions ever since
the advent of lean production, imported from Japan around the last
decade of the twentieth century. The goal is to ascertain any revolution-
ary characteristics that break with a traditional “scientific organisation
 1 Introduction    
11

of work” and use these attributes to explain how the new worker is pro-
duced. Ensuing chapters offer a detailed analysis of how professional
identities have been destroyed without any conditions emerging to
renew their recognition. This has led to the new type of worker being
deeply dispossessed of their work due to unprecedented rationalisation
trajectories. Nowadays, designers and other intellectual workers suffer
the same fate as operatives, industrial workers or office employees. In
a society where service activities have more or less replaced the factory
floor, rationalisation has devalued many if not most jobs. Of course, this
unhappy outcome is totally at odds with the optimism that had first
greeted the dawn of the information revolution. In those cases where
rationalisation has encountered resistance because certain functions
have preserved a modicum of intuitive creativity, profitability impera-
tives have spawned the invention of new forms of work similar to the
piece-work that was so ubiquitous in the last ago. Paving alternative
paths revealing the possibilities that technology and human inventive-
ness allow for, the book concludes with two scenarios; grey social regres-
sion; vs. a bright hopeful future. The question then becomes which of
these two outcomes is more likely.

References
Aglietta, M. (1977). Régulation et crises du capitalisme. Paris: Calmann-Lévy.
Bleitrach, D., & Chenu, A. (1979). L’usine et la vie. Luttes régionales: Marseille
et Fos. Paris: Editions François Maspéro.
Boyer, R., & Durand, J.-P. (1997). After Fordism. Basingstoke: MacMillan.
Coriat, B. (1979). L’atelier et le chronomètre. Paris: Christian Bourgois Éditeur.
Frémontier, J. (1980). La vie en bleu. Voyage en culture ouvrière. Paris: Editions
Fayard.
Gramsci, A. (1979 [1934]). Américanisme et fordisme. In Antonio Gramsci
dans le texte. Paris: Editions sociales.
Varela, F. J. (1988). Connaître les sciences cognitives. Tendances et perspectives.
Paris: Le Seuil.
 2
Lean Management:
The Invisible Revolution

Since the early 1990s, Western companies (followed later by public

authorities) have undergone a veritable organisational revolution, one
whose incrementalism has often prevented observers from noticing
how radically things have actually changed. The first part of this chap-
ter shows why lean production, later transformed into lean manage-
ment, was imported from Japan to the West at a particular moment in
the history of the production of goods and services. The timing is key
in terms of the questions to which lean production responds, as well
as the problems it seeks to address. The chapter’s second section then
uses this historical and organisational interpretation to devise an analyt-
ical grid accounting for these significant changes in work and of work,
something particularly useful when explaining technologically advanced
countries’ huge loss of jobs, mainly in the industrial sector. The analyti-
cal grid developed here will also help to clarify how productive workers
have changed and why this has become a revolution that cannot say its
name (because it does not accord with the interests of the vast majority
of either employed or ‘independent’ workers). Lastly, the chapter’s final
section shows how managers have also been affected by the perpetua-
tion of a command system whose ultimate purpose is being questioned

© The Author(s) 2019 13

J.-P. Durand, Creating the New Worker,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93260-6_2
14   J.-P. Durand

by more and more people, causing a sort of workplace malaise that is

increasingly convergent with workers’ experience. All of these analytical
possibilities pave the way for the next chapter’s discussions about the
invention of the new worker.

Historical Reasons for Lean Production’s

Emergence and Diffusion
Without exploring the history of lean production in detail (see Durand
2007), it is important to explain the global success of a university
text that had extraordinary resonance. Published in 1990 by Womack
et al. and written by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), the book tried to understand the Japanese produc-
tion model’s competitive advantages in comparison with the Fordist
system that characterised Western economies at the time. Japanese
automakers were making money by manufacturing in small series, an
approach that is very much at odds with Fordian principles based on
mass production and large series manufacturing. Between 1950 and
1960, nine Japanese automakers covered the full spectrum of vehicle
models, operating inside a very narrow domestic market that had been
damaged by the recent war. They needed to learn how to produce small
series of models profitably. The principles they developed as a result
emphasized resource savings, less waste and quality production the first
time around—all of which culminated in a concept that the Americans
would call lean production, replete with certain overtones of frugality.
When the MIT book came out in 1990, the crisis of capital accu-
mulation that had started in the West during the 1970s was in full flow
and wreaking havoc on the virtuous Fordian circles that were supposed
to accompany mass production and consumption (Aglietta 1977; Boyer
and Saillard 1995; Boyer and Durand 1997). To cope with diminishing
opportunities in their home markets, leading European and American
industrialists began diversifying their product offers. This kind of diver-
sification was very expensive, however, and could sometimes under-
mine quality. It is against this backdrop that the “Japanese model”, as
 2 Lean Management: The Invisible Revolution    
15

re-constructed and systematized by MIT, was seen by many as a remedy,

ostensibly because it was the solution that Japanese industry had found
for its own problems. Hence the model’s rapid adoption by the Western
automotive industry, with European and American interests undertak-
ing a number of missions to Japan to learn how to produce variety with
top quality and at low cost. These production principles soon general-
ised throughout Western industry and even started reaching the service
sector. This happened all the more quickly because above and beyond
economies of scope considerations, the model also had the advantage of
cutting production costs at the very time that Europe and the United
States were suffering from a crisis of capital accumulation.
The decision to adopt lean production would soon be reconfirmed
through two other accelerating trends: financialisation; and eco-
nomic globalisation. In the period from 1990 to 2000, financialisation
­(encapsulated in the heavy pressures that shareholders began exerting
on the real economy) spread throughout goods and service-producing
companies, forcing them to achieve double-figure annual productiv-
ity gains in order to accelerate the rise in shareholder value. The aim
here was to align industrial or service firms’ financial performances
with those achieved by hot capital speculators. Alongside of this, eco-
nomic globalisation—driven by a similar logic of short-term profit
maximisation—led to social and fiscal dumping that undercut wages
and social protections in Europe and the US. This happened despite
these economies’ much higher productivity than their emerging coun-
terparts. The dual (and de facto coordinated) trends of financialisa-
tion and globalisation culminated in corporate executives demanding
ever lower production costs, in part because they never experimented
with other competitiveness strategies such innovation, top-of-the-range
production or high quality. Lean production was mainly used here to
produce cheap varieties, before spreading to other kinds of productive
activities. In a sense, events came full circle, with managers falling in
love with the most radical form of lean production, to wit, i.e. ruthless
cost-cutting.
The gradual shift of vocabulary from lean production to lean man-
agement, after interim stages when it was described as re-engineering,
a term that did not survive—all served to highlight the universalisation
16   J.-P. Durand

of certain basic principles. Not only did lean production move beyond
the industrial sector to reach mass services (and indeed the public sec-
tor, which is studied below) but it also spread to all corporate functions,
including goods and service design, and then management itself. In
turn, this forced managers to implement the principles of lean produc-
tion even as they used it as an inspiration to justify cutting their own
management costs. Hence today’s almost ubiquitous use of the term
lean management. To understand the core of this concept, however, it is
worth revisiting how it started.

Systemic Efficiency and Lean Production

Lean production is based theorically on the perfectly coherent com-
bination of three main elements: just-in-time flow converted into flux
tendu1; organised work; and a specific mode for mobilising/controlling
employees based on personal appraisals.

Generalisation of Flux Tendu

Flux tendu is the direct consequence of the just-in-time systems that

Japanese automakers began practicing in the late 1950s (Ohno 1989).
The idea here was to eliminate buffers between workstations, workshops
and even subcontractors. The just-in-time policy not only improved
capital turnover but had other non-economic benefits, including the
immediate visibility and hence elimination of defects; rapid produc-
tion line switches capable of tracking (downstream-driven) demand

1Flux tendu (tight flow) removes buffers between job stations, workshops and so on. This method

transforms profoundly the conditions of production and work (see below) so as to reduce costs
in a number of ways. In this book we use flux tendu which could be narrowly interpreted as a
synonym for tight flow since both terms could be seen as referring to the same process. However
flux tendu is a much broader conception than the idea of ‘tight flow’. It both embraces, yet goes
beyond the anglo-saxon meaning of the term lean production in so far as the latter refers almost
excusively to production processes with organisational changes while flux tendu accounts for
wider social changes including changes to production.
 2 Lean Management: The Invisible Revolution    
17

instantaneously without incurring additional component management

costs. More generally, this also sought to ensure an immediately more
transparent material and human organisation of production, something
that management could then use to eliminate waste in raw materials
and above all in employee time. A scenario devised by T. Ohno in 1989
offered a perfect illustration of this process by demonstrating that two
workers occupied full-time were much better than three workers work-
ing two-thirds of full-time. “Kaizen” (or permanent improvement) was
also there to eliminate waste by minimising any porosity in employees’
working time.
With all these qualities, the just-in-time principle spread rapidly
across all industries everywhere within a few short decades, turning
logistics into one of the world’s fastest growing sectors. The end result
was that motorways became so congested with product deliveries in
certain countries that they had to be regulated, including by limiting
just-in-time principles to the manufacturing of just a few products. This
generalisation of a zero stock approach was accompanied by a transfor-
mation in vocabulary, leading to the conceptualisation of flux tendu as a
principle capable of being applied to all areas of activity, including the
service sector and public administration. One example from the bank-
ing and insurance industries was the disappearance of piles of files, with
customer demands being almost always processed now in real-time, an
evolution largely facilitated by the rise of ICT. Modern insurance com-
panies are expected to process healthcare claims in less than a week.
Loan requests are given in even less time, even where more than one
office is involved. Flux tendu also become the rule in hospitals, with the
expectation now that minimal time elapses between a patient’s test and
diagnosis. Airport employees managing flights concentrated over a few
short hours that are of greatest interest to commercial customers2 use

2To be profitable, flights must have an occupancy of more than 85% (98% for low-cost carri-
ers). To reach these levels, companies use small planes to carry passengers from small and medi-
um-sized towns to their hubs, where travellers are packed into much bigger long-haul planes.
Most short or long-haul flights are therefore almost always full. Complex statistical and commer-
cial techniques are used to fill planes by maximising the price that each customer pays. This is
called yield management. All these requirements mean that companies organise plane transfers to
make them as quick as possible, especially during evening and morning rush hours.
18   J.-P. Durand

just-in-time principles to ensure that the arriving aircraft is cleaned and

refuelled, meals brought on board, security checks made and luggage
and passenger flows managed. Much less the management of stocks,
they do not even have the option here of creating any!
Supermarkets are one well-known example of this. Stocks are increas-
ingly minimised and often a mere reflection of the size of the lorries
transporting fresh items directly to the major retail outlets from slaugh-
terhouses, factories or fields. Fast food epitomises this lean production
flow with stocks of hamburgers or fries being reduced to just a few units
that only last a few minutes or even seconds on the shelves between the
kitchen and sales counter. In a manner similar to supermarkets, these
are environments where observers might focus on flux tendu of con-
sumables but just as easily draw attention to the highly effective way
in which customer queues are managed using an optimised calculation
of the minimal necessary workforce, which depends on the hour of the
day, the day of the week but also the weather. This means that custom-
ers are always pushing employees to intensify their work rate. Unlike
pulled production (often described as Japanese methods) flux tendu in
industry or merchandise in supermarkets, customer queues are a way
of organising a pressed3 flux tendu (Tiffon 2013) that largely defines
the working conditions affecting checkout staff in large retail outlets
or sales counter staff in fast food restaurants. It is the same concept of
pressed flux tendu that characterises work in mass call centers (different
from approaches emphasizing technical value added activity). Because
customers should not have to wait too long on the phone, employees
(whose output is calculated precisely as above) must respond as quickly
as possible. The goal is not to allow a stock of customers to build up
since delays make them unhappy. At the same time, X number of peo-
ple must be in the queue to keep pressure on employees and ensure that
no one sits there with nothing to do.

3By pressed flux tendu, Tiffon is seekitng to highlight the context in which customers in super-

market checkouts press those in front of them to move speedily to complete their various transac-
tions. Broadly, what is occuring is that the customer becomes part of the management process of
intensification of working in the supermarket ‘asssembly line’.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
the great bible in the church. Mr Darnley was not at all displeased to
see the eyes of his humble parishioners, when they made their
appearance in that apartment, wandering curiously and modestly
round the room, and leering at the great glass bookcases and the
eighteen-inch globes with as much wonderment as the gulls of two
centuries back used to look at the dried alligators in a conjuror’s
garret. How delicious is the sensation of superiority.
When the name of Primrose was mentioned, Mr Darnley thought
for a moment only of Penelope, and he screwed up his lips and
looked wondrously wise. Mr Primrose entered the room with a light
and lively step, and with a bright and cheerful countenance, taking it
for granted that everybody in England must be as glad to see him as
he was to see his native land again. Mr Darnley rose with great
stateliness, and advanced a step or two towards the door.
“Ah! Mr Darnley, your most humble servant; my name is Primrose,
I received a letter from you about six weeks ago, which you did me
the honor to write to me concerning the death of my poor brother
Greendale.”
At the end of the sentence Mr Primrose spoke in a more subdued
tone, as became him when speaking of the death of a dear friend.
But as he spoke he offered his hand to the rector of Neverden, who
in return offered his, but it was by no means an equivalent; for the
reverend divine gave his hand so formally and indifferently, that it
was to Mr Primrose as cold and flabby as a duck’s foot. And he said,
“Mr Primrose, I am happy to see you. You are welcome to England.”
But though he said he was happy, he did not look so, unless it be
true, as some philosophers have averred, that happiness is the most
serious thing in the world. The rector of Neverden also said, “I beg
you will be seated, sir.” He had learned that from the Right
Honorable the Earl of Smatterton; for no man is so great a simpleton
that nothing can be learned from him.
There was nothing uncivil or rude in this reception, what could be
more proper or polite than to welcome Mr Primrose to England, and
ask him to be seated? But Mr Primrose felt a chill at this reception.
However, he sat down; and then the polite rector, when his visitor
was seated, sat down also. Then he snuffed the candles, and
carefully closed the book that he had been reading, and pushed it
some distance from him, even so far as his arm could reach, and
then he turned himself in his chair from the table, and towards Mr
Primrose, and looked at him as much as to say, “What do you want
with me?”
Mr Primrose interpreted the look, and said “I have never had the
pleasure of seeing you before Mr Darnley, except for a very few
minutes, and at some distance of time; but as you wrote to me an
account of my dear brother’s death, and as I have now returned to
England, and am expecting presently the happiness of a meeting
with my dear child, I thought it might be advisable to call first on you,
that some message may be sent to Penelope, that the surprise may
not be too much for her.”
“Miss Primrose,” said the imperturbable rector of Neverden, “is not
at present in this part of the country.”
The effect of the composing draught was completely gone off, and
Mr Primrose started up from the chair to which he had been so
politely invited, and exclaimed with great impetuosity, “Good God! Mr
Darnley, you don’t say so.”
Mr Darnley was not so much agitated as Mr Primrose, and
therefore he compressed his lips and knitted his brows, and then
opened his mouth and said very composedly: “Mr Primrose, I beg
that you would recollect that I am a clergyman, and therefore that it
is not becoming and correct, that in my presence, you should take
the name of the Lord in vain.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr Primrose, with tears in his eyes, “but
consider, sir, I am a father, and—”
“I also am a father,” interrupted the rector, “and have more children
than you have.”
“Oh, but tell me, tell me, sir, is my child living?”
“To the best of my knowledge Miss Primrose is living.”
“But where is she? Why has she left Smatterton?”
 “I believe, sir, that Miss Primrose is in London, that is all that I
know of her, except—” Here the rector hesitated, as if reluctant and
fearful to say all that he knew. If composure of manner be at all
contagious, Mr Primrose was the last person in the world to catch
the contagion; for at this dry hesitation he became more violent, and
exclaimed with great earnestness:
“Mr Darnley, you are a man, and must have the feelings of
humanity. I implore and conjure you by all that is sacred to put me
out of this dreadful state of suspense, and tell me at once all you
know of my poor child; something you must know and you ought to
know.”
There was an energy of utterance and a heart-reaching tone in
this last sentence, which staggered Mr Darnley’s cold formality and
discomposed his stateliness. The almost awful emphasis which Mr
Primrose gave to the expression, “you ought to know,” reminded Mr
Darnley that he had but imperfectly performed his duty to the niece
of his old friend Dr Greendale; and the strong feeling thus expressed
compelled the pompous man to something of more kindly thought
and language. He rose from his seat, and took Mr Primrose by the
hand, and said to him:
“My good sir, pray compose yourself, be seated, and I will give you
all the information in my power. Your daughter is living, and is, I
believe, in health. You know, I presume, that there formerly was
something of an acquaintance between Miss Primrose and my son,
and you also know, as I learn by a letter from my son, who had the
honor of meeting you at St Helena, that this acquaintance has
ceased.”
“I know it, Mr Darnley, and I am sorry for it, very sorry for it indeed,
especially from what I have since heard of that young gentleman
who is said to be paying attention to her.”
Mr Darnley here shook his head, and then proceeded.
“After the decease of my good friend and neighbour Dr Greendale,
before I knew that the correspondence had ceased between the
young folks, I offered Miss Primrose an asylum in my house.”
 Here Mr Darnley paused for a compliment; he had learned that of
the Right Honorable the Earl of Smatterton. Mr Primrose paid him
the proper compliment on his liberality, and the worthy rector
continued his narrative.
“Miss Primrose was pleased to decline the offer on the ground that
the Countess of Smatterton had taken upon herself to provide for
her. And it is not many days since Miss Primrose left Smatterton for
London, where she now is, in the house of Lord Smatterton, and she
honored us with a call before her departure, and I took the liberty of
giving her the best advice in my power, to guard her against the
snares and dangers to which she might be exposed in that
profession which she is about to adopt.”
“Profession she is about to adopt! Mr Darnley. And may I ask what
that profession is?”
“The musical profession, Mr Primrose.”
The father of Penelope was indignant, and he replied
contemptuously: “Impossible! Can the patronage of the Countess do
nothing better for my child than make her a teacher of music. But
there will be no necessity now—”
Before Mr Primrose could finish the sentence, Mr Darnley
corrected the misapprehension and said: “Not a teacher of music, sir,
but a public singer.”
This made the matter worse, and the poor man was just ready to
burst out into violent exclamations again, but recollecting that it was
in his power now to place his child in a situation of independence,
and considering that the time of her departure from Smatterton had
been too recent to render it likely that she had yet appeared in
public, he contented himself with saying, “I am astonished that the
Countess should think of such a profession for a young woman
brought up as my child has been. If my poor brother-in-law had lived
he would never have suffered it.”
“I was also astonished,” said Mr Darnley, “that Miss Primrose
should give her consent to such a proposal; for my friend Dr
Greendale used to express himself very strongly on that subject, and
endeavour to dissuade Miss Primrose from adopting such a
profession. It has long been the wish of the Countess of Smatterton,
but her ladyship did not succeed in the proposal during the lifetime of
Dr Greendale.”
Much more to the same purpose did Mr Darnley say on the
subject, not much to the satisfaction of Mr Primrose. It is not
pleasant for a father to hear anything to the discredit of a child, but
fortunately parents do not always believe such stories, or they find
excuses which nobody else can. So Mr Primrose did not, could not,
and would not believe the insinuation that Mr Darnley threw out
against Penelope, as if she had waited only for Dr Greendale’s
decease to adopt a profession against which he had serious
objections; and Mr Primrose thought it most probable that the
Countess of Smatterton had used great importunity, or that Penelope
had complied, to relieve Mrs Greendale of a burden. There was
indeed some difficulty in his mind to reconcile this story of Mr
Darnley with the insinuation thrown out in his letter, and corroborated
by the poor woman at the turnpike-gate, concerning the son of the
Earl of Smatterton having withdrawn the affections of Penelope from
Robert Darnley to himself. But Mr Primrose had been out of England
many years; and fashions had changed since he left his native land.
It was perhaps now quite elegant and fashionable to appear on the
stage. He recollected that when he was at school, he had read of
Nero, the Roman emperor, appearing on the stage as a public
performer, and for aught that could be known to Mr Primrose, the
progress of refinement in England might have pointed out dramatic
or musical exhibition as a fit introduction to the honor of an alliance
with nobility.
At all events, whatever were his notions or apprehensions he was
by this time considerably more calm and composed. He had the
satisfaction of knowing that his daughter was alive and well, and he
had the pleasing prospect of speedily seeing her again. Of her moral
and mental qualities, and of her intellectual improvement, he had
been in the constant habit of receiving flattering and agreeable
accounts, and he was not unwilling to believe them. There was some
little mortification, that he had travelled so far and all to no purpose.
But he had no other means of ascertaining where his daughter was.
It was a conceit of his own, (though partly aided by his late
brother-in-law,) not to keep any direct correspondence with his
daughter. His motive was, that as there was a possibility that he
might never return to England, and that he might not ever have it in
his power to provide for her according to his former means, therefore
he thought it best not to excite any expectations which might be
frustrated, or to excite in her mind any interest concerning himself,
which might ultimately be productive of only pain and uneasiness.
He wished his poor child to consider herself an orphan, thinking it
better to surprise her with a living parent than to inflict grief on her
mind at the thoughts of one deceased.
This scheme did not entirely succeed. The worthy and benevolent
rector of Smatterton could not help now and then saying a
favourable word or two concerning his poor brother Primrose; and as
Dr Greendale’s was the charity that hopeth all things and believeth
all things, he was not distrustful of his brother’s promises, but was
nearly, if not altogether, as sanguine as Mr Primrose himself. By
degrees Penelope came to have an interest in her absent parent;
and well it was for her that Dr Greendale had thus accustomed her to
think of her father: for when the good rector departed this life he did
not leave his niece quite so orphaned as if she had had no
knowledge or thought of her absent father. But to proceed with our
story.
We have said that it was late in the evening when Mr Primrose
arrived at Neverden. It was no great distance indeed to Smatterton;
but why should he go there in any hurry, seeing that his daughter
was not there? This consideration induced Mr Darnley to offer to the
traveller the accommodation of a bed: for Mr Darnley was not a
churlish man; he was only very cold, and very formal, and very
pompous. The offer was readily accepted, and the rector of
Neverden then conducted Mr Primrose from the study to the
apartment in which the family was sitting. Great curiosity was excited
as soon as Mr Darnley announced the name of his late arrived
guest. The young ladies felt particularly interested in looking at the
father of Penelope; but they did not make themselves, as they
thought, quite so agreeable as they should have done had matters
been proceeding in proper order with respect to their brother and
Penelope. The absence of that species of agreeableness to which
we allude, was no great inconvenience to Mr Primrose; for he was
weary with travelling, and exhausted by manifold agitations, and it
would not have been very agreeable to him with all this exhaustion to
undergo a cheerful volley of everlasting interrogations; and Miss
Mary Darnley would to a certainty have extorted from him a civil,
ecclesiastical, statistical, botanical, and zoological, history of British
India, to say nothing of Persia, China, Japan, and the million isles of
the Eastern ocean.
But though the young ladies were not disposed to apply the
question to Mr Primrose, their mother, who was as ready to forgive
as she was apt to forget, talked to him as cordially and cheerfully as
if the day had been fixed for the marriage of Robert Darnley and
Penelope Primrose. Her talk, however, was not wearying, because
there was no affectation in it, and because there was much good
feeling in it. Her talk was concerning her dear boy; and Mr Primrose,
who had a parent’s heart, enjoyed such talk.
“And so, Mr Primrose, you have seen my dear Robert? And how
did he look? He is dying to return to Neverden. We expect him next
week, for the ship is now in the Downs. Did you think, sir, he seemed
in good health?”
“In perfect health, madam: in fact I never saw a young man who
had been so long in India look so well as your son.”
“There was no yellowness in his look?” asked Mrs Darnley.
“Not the slightest, I can assure Mrs Darnley.”
“And was he not much sun-burnt?”
Mr Primrose smiled, and said, “Not any more, madam, than a
young man ought to be; and though I never had the pleasure of
seeing the young gentleman before, I do really believe that whatever
darkness may have been added to his complexion is rather an
improvement to his appearance than otherwise.”
 “I am ashamed, Mr Primrose, to be so troublesome; but did you go
aboard his ship when you were at St Helena? Do you know what sort
of accommodations he had?”
“I certainly did not, madam, but I have every reason to suppose
that he had every comfort that could be expected.”
“Why, yes, no doubt. But still it must be a great confinement. It is a
very long voyage. Had you any storms, sir, as you came home?”
“Upon my word, Mrs Darnley, I really forget what kind of weather
we had; but we had nothing very serious, or I should have
remembered it.”
With many such-like questions and answers was the evening
beguiled, and it was late before Mr Primrose retired to rest.
The young ladies took some part in the conversation, though but
little; and Mr Darnley himself also now and then joined in the
discourse, especially when Mrs Darnley, in the simplicity of her heart,
asked questions which indicated a sinful ignorance of geography or
history. In such cases Mr Darnley took especial care to manifest how
much wiser he was than his wife. Positively it is a great shame, and
altogether unreasonable to expect that people who have been from
school thirty years or more should be as wise and learned as those
who have just finished their education, or as those who have a study
where they can sit and read and grow learned every hour in the day.
When the young ladies were alone they made amends for their
previous silence. They all talked together to one another concerning
Mr Primrose, and all three gave their opinions of him. By the way, it
is great nonsense to talk about giving an opinion. It is almost as bad
as giving advice; for neither one nor the other is ever taken, and how
can any one give that which nobody takes? There was, however, this
unanimity among the Miss Darnleys; they all concurred in saying and
thinking that he was a very agreeable and interesting man, and a
very lively man. They would indeed have thought him lively had they
witnessed the energy of his manner in the study with Mr Darnley. But
before the discussion closed, Miss Mary Darnley could not help
saying: “What strange questions mamma did ask! I wonder what Mr
Primrose thought of her?”
 CHAPTER XVII.
Without the assistance of a composing draught Mr Primrose slept
soundly and woke calmly. But, being naturally impetuous and hasty,
he could not help uttering a few monosyllables of impatience at the
thought that he had travelled two hundred miles from his daughter,
and had incurred the risk of breaking his neck in making a journey to
the place where his daughter was not.
As, however, he was so near Smatterton, he would not of course
return to London without seeing Mrs Greendale, and thanking her for
the kind attention which she had paid to Penelope. He was not
aware that the good lady had plagued and worried the poor girl
almost out of her life. Dr Greendale had never, in his
communications to Mr Primrose, said anything about the annoying
fidgettiness of Mrs Greendale; and he himself, by virtue of his close
and constant application to study, had not felt much inconvenience
from her temper, excepting so far as an occasional interruption,
which was soon forgotten. But poor Penelope did not study
controversial theology, and therefore she had felt all the
inconvenience of Mrs Greendale’s humours and caprices. Of all this
Mr Primrose knew nothing; he therefore resolved to call and pay his
respects to the widow.
Having learned a lesson of forethought from his long fruitless
journey, he did not proceed to Smatterton before he had enquired of
Mr Darnley if Mrs Greendale yet resided there. By this enquiry he
learned that the living had been disposed of, and that as the new
rector was a young and single man, and though he had taken
possession of the rectory-house, he had been kind enough to
accommodate Mrs Greendale with a residence there till it might suit
her to change the place of her abode. “That is very kind of the young
man,” said Mr Primrose; “I like him for it: and pray what is his name
and where does he come from?”
 Mr Darnley at these questions put on one of his stately
professional looks, and said: “His name, sir, is Pringle, he comes
from the university of Oxford, he is a son of Lord Smatterton’s
steward. At present I have but little acquaintance with him.”
There seemed, from Mr Darnley’s manner of speaking, to be on
his part no great desire to increase the acquaintance. Of this,
however, Mr Primrose took no notice; in fact, he hardly understood it,
for his own manner was straitforward and downright, he did not
accustom himself to innuendos and insinuations. Thanking the rector
of Neverden for his attention and hospitality, Mr Primrose proceeded
immediately after breakfast to the village of Smatterton. Mrs
Greendale was within, and she received Mr Primrose with the utmost
cordiality and cheerfulness: but when she began to allude to her
poor dear husband then the tears came into her eyes. Mr Primrose
sympathized with her, and they both talked of old times; and as the
subject was changed the tears were dried up. It was very right that
Mrs Greendale should most cordially receive Mr Primrose, for all
persons who come home from the East Indies in good spirits are
supposed to come home rich, and there is to some minds something
very agreeable in the sight of a rich man. Let sentimentality-people
prose as much as they please about the homage that is paid to
wealth; it would be much worse if that homage were paid to poverty.
The conversation then turned to Penelope, and many and sincere
were the thanks that Mr Primrose returned to Mrs Greendale for her
very kind attentions to the poor girl; and then Mrs Greendale, in spite
of all the severe and sneering rebukes, which in former days she had
lavished upon her niece, began to launch out into commendations of
the young lady’s beauty, wit, and accomplishments.
“But what a pity it is, Mr Primrose, that you did not know that
Penelope was in London. Well, you will have such a treat in seeing
her again, she is so grown and so improved. She is a favorite with
everybody. A day or two before my poor dear husband died, we had
a party, and Lord Spoonbill, and Colonel Crop, and Miss Spoonbill
were all here; and Lord Spoonbill was so attentive, you can’t think.
Then my Lady Smatterton has taken such a fancy to her, that she
insists upon having her in London.”
 “Ay, but Mrs Greendale, I don’t understand the condition on which
my child is thus taken up to London; and to tell you the truth, I do not
altogether approve the plan which Mr Darnley informed me was in
contemplation. It is not very agreeable to my feelings that my
daughter should be made a public performer.”
“Oh dear no, certainly; but I dare say the Countess of Smatterton
would not recommend anything improper.”
“I don’t know what may be Lady Smatterton’s notions of propriety,
but I shall take care that my daughter does not adopt that or any
other profession.”
While they were talking, the arrival of Nick Muggins with the letter-
bag reminded Mr Primrose that it might be desirable to apprize
Penelope of his being in England and of his intention of immediately
seeing her. He therefore dispatched a note to his daughter, under
cover to the Right Honorable the Earl of Smatterton, and thus he
made wise provision against further accidents preventing their
meeting.
As Mr Primrose had experienced the inconvenience of one
overturn by the stage-coach, he determined not to trust himself again
so soon to the same mode of conveyance; and as he intended to
travel post, and as he was not about to set out immediately, he
amused himself with strolling about the village to admire its beauties;
for everybody said that Smatterton was a very pretty village. In the
month of December English scenery seldom appears to great
advantage; and while Mr Primrose was looking for, rather than at, the
beauties of Smatterton, who should he meet but the very identical Mr
Kipperson with whom he had travelled in the stage-coach? The
parties recognized each other immediately, and they presently
entered into chat. Mr Kipperson expressed great concern for the
accident, but was exceedingly rejoiced to find that his fellow-traveller
was not seriously hurt. “For indeed, sir,” said he, “I almost thought
that you were killed.”
“So did I,” replied Mr Primrose: “but what can be the use of
travelling at that unreasonably rapid rate? When I was in England,
sixteen years ago, the stage-coaches used to go at a very
reasonable and moderate pace.”
“Yes, yes, I remember it,” said Mr Kipperson; “but we should never
be able to get on with business were it not for this quick travelling. I
will tell you, sir, an instance of its utility: the other day I received a
letter from my friend the Earl of Smatterton, informing me of an
important debate which was just coming on, and it was a matter of
infinite moment that I should be in town in order to attend some
meetings that were to be held, and to give my opinion concerning
some clauses which were likely to be introduced greatly affecting the
agricultural interest. I received the letter just in time to take
advantage of the coach, and, by means of quick travelling, I arrived
in town time enough to give my views of the subject, and to prevent
the passing of some most destructive measures.”
“You are a member of parliament, I presume?” said Mr Primrose.
“No, sir,” said Mr Kipperson, with that sort of air that seemed to
indicate that he did not at all desire that honor, and that he was a
person of greater importance; “but now and then parliament is
pleased to do me the honor of consulting me on some topics
connected with the interests of agriculture.”
Though Mr Primrose was what in ordinary language is called an
independent man, yet he could not but feel reverence for greatness;
and finding that the gentleman with whom he was conversing was a
person of some consequence, he was desirous of knowing who it
was. This desire was but slightly hinted, and immediately the great
agricultural luminary gratified Mr Primrose’s laudable thirst after
knowledge by saying: “My name, sir, is Kipperson. Kipperson, sir, of
Smatterton.”
It was very excusable that Mr Primrose, who had been so many
years out of England, should not be familiar with the name, and
should not be aware that he was addressing the celebrated
agriculturist, Kipperson of Smatterton. Mr Kipperson himself was so
modest a man that he did not choose to say that he was the
celebrated one of that name, but he took especial care to let it be
understood indirectly and circuitously that he was a person of some
importance in the world.
And now it was very natural that the great agriculturist should be
desirous of knowing the name and designation of his fellow traveller,
and to ascertain that was also no great difficulty. As soon as he
found that he was conversing with the father of Penelope Primrose,
he broke out into the most eloquent panegyrics on the character,
moral, intellectual, and professional, of the late rector of the parish,
and congratulated Mr Primrose in having had the good fortune to
confide his daughter to the care of so superlatively excellent a man.
“But, sir,” as suddenly recollecting himself, “perhaps you will do me
the honor to walk in and sit down under my humble roof; for I can
give you the latest information concerning Miss Primrose. It is very
singular that I should have travelled up to London with the daughter
and down from London with the father.”
At that singularity, or at his own penetration in discovering the
curious coincidence, Mr Kipperson smiled. Mr Primrose accepted the
invitation and walked into Mr Kipperson’s house, which was near the
place where they had met. It was a piece of affectation in Mr
Kipperson to call his place of abode a humble roof. True, it was not
so magnificent as Smatterton castle, but its owner had been at great
pains and expense to make it look quite the reverse of humble. That
which had been a productive little garden was converted into a lawn.
Those barns, piggeries, and outhouses, in which was deposited no
small part of the owner’s wealth, had been gracefully, but
ungratefully, planted out. French windows supplied the place of old-
fashioned casements, and green verandahs gave Peter Kipperson’s
farm-house as much as possible the air of an Oriental palace.
Mr Primrose was surprised, as Peter hoped and designed, at the
very learned air of the library, to say nothing of the numerous busts
and casts which in the narrow entrance occupied that room which
would have been much more usefully devoted to cloak-pegs. When
they were seated in the library Mr Kipperson commenced his
narrative, telling Mr Primrose what the reader is already acquainted
with. But still the father of Penelope was not reconciled even to the
attempt or proposal to make his daughter a public singer. Mr
Kipperson however assured him, that nothing could be more
respectable than the manner in which the Countess of Smatterton
designed to bring out Miss Primrose.
“I was present at an evening party,” said the agriculturist, “given by
my friend the Countess of Smatterton, for the express purpose of
introducing Miss Primrose to some of the best society in town. There
were several persons of rank there, and among the rest the
celebrated Duchess of Steeple Bumstead; and her Grace was quite
enraptured with Miss Primrose.”
“Well,” said the father of Penelope with some shortness and
dryness of manner, “I don’t understand these matters. I have been
so long out of England that I almost forget the customs of my native
land; but I do not approve of this kind of association with persons of
so much higher rank and fortune. The Countess of Smatterton
cannot consider my daughter as an equal, and therefore she is
tolerated for the amusement she can afford. I don’t like it, sir, I don’t
like it. But, Mr Kipperson, can you tell me what kind of a man is Lord
Spoonbill?”
Mr Kipperson promptly replied: “A man of no intellect whatever.”
“A fig for intellect,” replied Mr Primrose; “but is he a man of good
character?”
“Indeed sir,” responded the great agriculturist of Smatterton, “I am
sorry to say he is not. The Earl himself is a very respectable man, so
far as moral conduct is concerned, though he is a man of no mind;
and he is a proud man, very distant and pompous, and quite an
exclusive.”
“An exclusive!” echoed Mr Primrose; “what is meant by an
exclusive?”
“By exclusive, sir, I mean that the Earl is not easily led to associate
with those whom he considers of an inferior rank to himself; he is
one of a set, as it were.”
“Oh, is that all!” exclaimed Mr Primrose; “why at that rate all the
world is exclusive. This is no new character though it may be a new
name.”
 “Very true, indeed, very true, there has always been too much
pride among persons of high rank.”
“And not too little among persons of low rank, I presume,” replied
Mr Primrose; “and I suppose as you have a set of people in England,
called exclusives, you have most likely another set called intrusives.
For my part I like a little pride, or at least what the world calls pride; I
have so much myself, that I dislike the situation in which I find my
daughter is placed, and I shall make all haste to remove her from it. I
am most happy that I have arrived in England time enough to
prevent her from making a public display of her musical talents.”
The wise and scientific Mr Kipperson was not sorry to hear that the
father of Penelope Primrose could talk thus boldly and definitely
concerning his daughter’s independence. It was also not unpleasant
to him to hear that it was the intention of the young lady’s father to
remove her from the house and patronage of the Earl of Smatterton.
It has been already hinted that Mr Kipperson was an admirer of the
young lady, and it was not likely that his admiration should be less
when he found that her father had returned to England in
possession, most probably, of ample means of securing his
daughter’s independence. This consideration inspired the
agriculturist with an earnest desire of making himself more agreeable
than usual; and as there was a great deal of freedom of manner and
candour of feeling about Mr Primrose, he very readily and sociably
conversed with Mr Kipperson on any and every topic that could be
started. In the fullness of his heart the admirer of Penelope urged the
young lady’s father to partake of a humble dinner, quite in a social
friendly way. This invitation however was of necessity declined, it
being the intention of Mr Primrose to pass the remainder of the day
at the rectory.
The mention of the rectory led Mr Kipperson to speak of the new
rector, the Rev. Charles Pringle. “You will of course meet this
gentleman at dinner. He is a very different man from our late rector;
as yet we know little of him. I have conversed with him occasionally;
he seems to have very just notions on the subject of the interests of
agriculture; but his mind does not appear to be comprehensive and
philosophical; he does not read much, I think; indeed, he has
scarcely any books of his own, and though I have offered him the
use of my library he does not avail himself of it. But you will see him
at the rectory at dinner, and then you may form your own opinion of
him.”
It was very kind and liberal of Mr Kipperson to give Mr Primrose
leave to form his own opinion of the new rector. What opinion Mr
Primrose did form of the new rector we cannot say, for he was not
very free in expressing his opinion of those with whom he had no
common interest or sympathies, nor was he particularly and
curiously observant to ascertain whether those with whom he
conversed occasionally were persons of comprehensive and
philosophical minds or not. He was not quite sure that he knew what
was meant by the term comprehensive, as applied to the mind; and
as to philosophical, if that meant loving wisdom, he himself was
philosophical enough in all conscience, for he liked wise men much
better than fools. In a word, the father of Penelope had quite as good
an understanding as multitudes who make a great deal of prating
about intellect, but he was not a man of much reading, and did not
value pedantry of any kind, whether literary, scientific, fashionable or
philosophical.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
Even as Mr Kipperson predicted so it came to pass; Mr Primrose
met at dinner the new rector of Smatterton.
The great difference which there is between an old man and a
young one, is one cause of the general common-place notion of the
deterioration of the human species. It seemed a very great transition
from Dr Greendale to Mr Pringle. The doctor used to be grave,
sedate, yet cheerful, very placid and gentle in his manner, and
towards his parishioners he wore the aspect of a father. His dress
too was so venerable. He used to wear a long single-breasted coat,
and he had such fine broad old-fashioned silver buckles at his knees
and on his shoes; his hat too was just such a hat as a clergyman
ought to wear. And when he walked out into the village he always
carried under his arm an old gold-headed walking cane; for he
seldom leant upon it. He walked slowly and demurely, and when the
little boys and girls who met him planted themselves, according to
their clumsy but sincere politeness, directly before him to make their
bow or curtesy, he patted them on the head, and they felt
themselves as much honoured and pleased as the alderman of
some provincial borough when the king places the sword on his
shoulder. And when the old people met him he talked to them, and,
even more than that, he listened to their talk; he could not always
understand it, but he paid attention to it and it pleased them.
Sometimes he would be in a gayer and livelier mood than usual,
especially if in his morning studies he had been successful in
detecting, or eloquent in pointing, some irrefragable argument
against the sectarians. And then, if he met any young woman of
pretty and smiling looks, for there were many such in Smatterton, he
would ask her when she was going to be married, and then she
would laugh and try to blush, and she would go home and tell her
mother what a funny man Dr Greendale was.
 Now whatever might be the virtues, moral or professional, of the
Rev. Charles Pringle, it is very clear that he could not find the way to
the hearts of his parishioners by the same means as his
predecessor. A slightly built youth of five-and-twenty would look
anything but venerable, if dressed in attire of the same form, cut and
complexion as that which Dr Greendale wore. The gold-headed
cane, the looped hat, the slow and stately walk, would not at all
answer with a young man; and had he asked any young woman
when she was going to be married, it would have been thought quite
indecorous. The old women too would not think of telling a young
man round-about stories concerning their sufferings with the
rheumatiz, or other ills that “flesh,” or more properly skin and bone,
may be “heir to.”
It was therefore essential and unavoidable that there should be a
difference between the old and the new rector. It will however be
supposed by our readers, who remember that we have described the
Earl of Smatterton as boasting that he always bestowed his livings
according to merit,—it will be supposed, that the Rev. Charles
Pringle had merit, though not precisely of the same nature as the
merit of Dr Greendale. The merit for which his lordship bestowed the
living of Smatterton on Mr Pringle, was not his own merit but that of
his father. For the young rector was, as already noticed, the son of
Lord Smatterton’s house-steward. This steward had been faithful in
his office, and was a great favorite with his lordship; but though he
was faithful he had saved a little money, and was desirous of setting
his son forward in life. The father was of opinion that the legal
profession would suit the young man very well, seeing he was so
very clever. The son also was perfectly well aware of his own
cleverness; but as the confinement of an attorney’s office did not suit
his inclinations, he excused himself from that pursuit. On the same
or similar ground he declined the medical profession, inasmuch as it
was contrary to his notions of comfort to be called from his bed at
midnight, or to be interrupted at his meals. The church seemed to be
the only comfortable profession, and on that the young gentleman
fixed his choice. Moreover it gratified his vanity to go to college. He
might have had ambition, but he did not like trouble; and being, as
we have said, a clever young man, he shewed his cleverness by
studying only just so much as might save him from being plucked.
He obtained his degree and that was all. With equal dexterity and
cleverness did he manage that reading which was necessary
preparatory to taking orders. The examining chaplain who passed
him, observed that he was a clever man, for he had most ingeniously
hit upon the exact minimum of information which would enable him
to pass. There is a proverb, which says that lazy folks take the most
pains; and in many cases Mr Pringle illustrated this proverb, for
nobody could take more pains than he did to avoid labour.
We cannot see how the Earl of Smatterton was to blame for
appointing this young gentleman to the living of Smatterton. It is not
to be supposed that his lordship should take the trouble to examine
the youth; and as the father was a faithful servant the Earl was
rewarding merit by providing for the son.
More remains to be said concerning the new rector. He was a man
of good temper and very harmless disposition. He was not at all
given to quarrelling, for he did not like the trouble; and he was very
easy to deal with in fixing the composition for his tithes. The farmers
thought him rather proud; for he took very little notice of any of them
except Mr Kipperson, who kept an excellent table. He paid great
attention to Miss Spoonbill, though his only recompense for that
attention was an occasional cup of tea, and that by no means strong:
but it was handed to him on a large silver waiter, and presented by a
servant who wore a very splendid livery. There was much courtesy of
manner in Mr Pringle; he was, according to the best of his ability, a
perfect gentleman, and whenever he observed any article of dress,
or mode of expression or pronunciation, or any species of action
peculiar to persons in high life, he copied it most faithfully as far as
his profession would allow. His courtesy was very great, for he had
the sagacity to know that, if he was too lazy to provide for himself, he
must persuade some one else to provide for him.
One word more, and that concerning the young man’s politics. The
world does not much care about Mr Pringle’s politics, but still the
politics of a clergyman looking for preferment are to himself matters
of great moment. Before Mr Charles Pringle went to Oxford, he was
what is called liberal in his politics; at Oxford he found it more