Abandoned spaces and technology displacement by labour: the case of hand car washes

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Ian Clark
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12123

234 New Technology, Work and Employment © 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and

John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

New Technology, Work and Employment 33:3

ISSN 1468-005X

Abandoned spaces and technology

displacement by labour: the case of hand car

washes

Ian Clark

The diffusion of hand car washes is in contradistinction to

vogue arguments about automation and new technology. How-

ever, what is absent from the literature is a focus on abandoned

spaces as a capitalist commodity and the displacement of tech-

nology by labour which is particularly associated with the

emergence of low- cost informalised areas of work that occupy

and self- regulate these spaces. The contribution of this research

to new knowledge is a theoretically informed empirical deriva-

tion of abandoned spaces which low- cost businesses such as

hand car washes occupy to inform two research propositions;

one, the spatial dimension to abandoned spaces derives from

economic restructuring from above; this restructuring informs

restructuring from below rather than as an independent devel-

opment of migrant- dominated sectors of work and employ-

ment such as hand car washes. Two, that the application of

new technology can be displaced by, operates in conjunction

with or relies on low-cost labour-intensive providers where la-

bour practices tend towards informalisation.

Keywords: abandoned spaces, automation, displacement of

technology, economic restructuring, hand car washes, informal

work, migrant and low-cost labour.

Introduction

An abandoned space represents a capitalist commodity which at its most crude gener-

ates rent as a return to landlords and premises owners. Recent public policy docu-

ments (Independent Commission on the Future of Work, 2017 and Taylor, 2017)

suggest that the provision of new services within and beyond the gig economy appear

economically feasible, are cost competitive for customers at least, reflect recent labour

market trends and appear (superficially) to be social acceptable. More critically fo-

cussed academic research suggests that these services do, although never the less, cre-

ate significant labour market exploitation, actively encourage the engagement of

vulnerable (often migrant) workers and thrive because precarious cheap labour ena-

bles employers to dispense with higher cost equipment and associated technologies in

the workplace. For example, food preparation and ‘fruit potting’ in particular, takes

Ian Clark (ian.clark@ntu.ac.uk), Nottingham Trent University. Professor of work and employment at

Nottingham Business School. Ian Clark is a member of the Nottingham Civic Exchange and is current-

ly working on a range of research projects on the informalization of work and employment where he

works in collaboration with the Director of Labour Market Enforcement and the Gangmasters Labour

Abuse Authority.

© 2018 Brian Towers (BRITOW) and Technology displacement and car washes 235

John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

place in warehouses or small business spaces which house extremely labour- intensive

food processing (Bagwell, 2008; Hopkins, 2017). Similarly, Lawthorn and Kagan (2016)

report how in ethnic restaurants costly food preparation and food clean- up technology

is displaced by female migrant labour engaged under the auspices of community and

family roles which structure their attitudes to accepting such work. In both of these

examples landlords are able to extract revenue from their assets which reside in the

formal economy by leasing them to organisations where some of the labour force is

engaged under informalised business and employment practices.

The diffusion of hand car washes and the areas of job creation cited above appear in

contradistinction to vogue arguments about automation and new technology.

Theoretically innovations in work and employment derived from automation and new

technology can bring about the permanent elimination of huge swathes of boring and

demeaning work and make obsolete established social relations at work which centre

on long hours, a development which the advocates of automation and post- capitalism

encourage (Mason, 2014; Srnicek and Williams, 2015). However, as Howcroft and

Taylor (2014) demonstrate, successive waves of new technology are always accompa-

nied by widespread speculation about their economic and social impacts most of

which have proved to be wide of the original claims. The diffusion of hand car washes

demonstrates this argument: the displacement of capital- intensive mechanised car

washes by intensive labour at hand car washes. This displacement demonstrates la-

bour deepening at hand car washes which reverses capital deepening in mechanised

car washes. Capital deepening sees output increase through better technology and

higher output per worker, for example, new technology which makes capital more

productive. Capital deepening will lead to rising labour productivity as workers be-

come more productive when they combine with new technology. Labour deepening is

the reverse of this process whereby labour substitutes for capital and operates inten-

sively; there may be significant labour productivity at hand car washes but the point is

intensive labour is operating at a lower scale of overall efficiency because cheap labour

replaces technology. This raises two research questions. Firstly, are material spaces

constituted through every day practices which may or may not relate to new technol-

ogy or technological advances? (see de Vaujany and Mitev, 2013). If so it is necessary

to develop theory to inform evaluation of the processes which have created the spaces

occupied by hand car washes as enablers and facilitators of technology displacement

by low- cost labour. A second question centres on what does the diffusion of hand car

washes reveal about the regulation of work and employment in the United Kingdom

in the broader context of formalised and informalised business practice? In both con-

texts it is appropriate to view technology displacement by labour as a development

which reflects ‘other’ priorities held by socio- economic power holders in the state.

Moreover, (paraphrasing Howcroft and Taylor, 2014) the precise manner of the diffu-

sion of hand car washes, the sectoral effects they create and the consequences of them

for labour is the product of human agency derived from and enabled by strategic

choices enacted by employers, regulators and consumers.

What is absent from the literature is a specific focus on the relationship between

abandoned spaces as a capitalist commodity and the displacement of technology by

low- cost informalised labour which is particularly associated with the emergence of

hand car washes in the United Kingdom. Accordingly, this article deploys a theoreti-

cally informed empirical derivation of the abandoned spaces which hand car washes

now occupy and self- regulate. In turn, at an enterprise level, this occupation and regu-

lation ground the wider parameters of socio- economic restructuring in the United

Kingdom. Therein the lives of those who own these businesses and those who work at

hand car washes are embedded within ‘spaces’ which are the domain of capital. These

spaces inform social relations for labour in capitalist society that reflect both formal-

ised or sometimes informalised business and employment practice. To deliver this der-

ivation, the article proceeds through four parts. Part one further elaborates on

abandoned spaces as a capitalist commodity and labour- displacing technology therein.

By drawing on the literature on space and technology, part two develops two research

propositions which inform an analytical framework. In turn, this framework