Neo-liberal structural powers within the workplace: Workers or slaves?

Neo-liberalism and economic globalisation affect different geographical and social areas in very heterogeneous way. In the third world countries and in particular in South Africa the implementation of neoliberal social policies and the emergent processes of flexibilisation in the workplace implied over-exploitation and cultural and psychological domination of the labour force; which day by day are living in threat and fear to lose the only way of subsistence due to the increase number of unemployment and exclusion from the formal labour market. 

Extreme ways of execution of power and domination over the worker’s mind and body are everyday more often and creates a sense of dehumanisation and a clear control of the labour force, affecting the ways in which they approach and perform their work and live their lives, showing a clear asymmetrical power relation between the bourgeoisie and the proletarians. This led us to the assumption that slavery could represent a new way to understand ‘working relations’ in some areas of the third world economies. In this paper, I will discuss theoretically the concept of power and domination and the repercussion on the very flexible labour force.