Revisiting <i>Manufacturing Consent</i> with Paul Thompson

Few texts have done more to shape how sociologists and social theorists think about workplace politics, labour agency, the everyday production of cooperation and even the sociology of work than Michael Burawoy’s Manufacturing Consent . As a result, discussing it poses a two-fold challenge – of scope and of depth. The first requires a profound understanding of the theoretical foundation of industrial sociology on which Burawoy built. The second, in-depth expertise of the organisation-level issues Burawoy puts forward. Paul Thompson, Emeritus Professor of Employment Studies at the University of Stirling, is a scholar equal to this challenge. Paul’s influential work has been central to shaping labour process analysis and debates, which Manufacturing Consent opened. Having extensively engaged with Burawoy’s work, Paul is uniquely placed to comment on the book’s legacy, over 40 years on. In the conversation which follows he reflects on how Burawoy is being taken up today, how Manufacturing Consent and its successor, The Politics of Production , changed the discipline, which of its insights have endured, and what still requires reflection and critical conversation.