THE NEW PRODUCTIVE RESTRUCTURING: Industry 4.0, real subsumption and algorithmic management

Abstract

This article investigates how Industry 4.0 transforms and impacts the world of work, understanding it not only as technological advancement (artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems), but as the basis for new forms of algorithmic management that go beyond the manufacturing environment. The objective is to analyze how these technologies reconfigure control, surveillance, and the intensification of work, deepening the process of the real subsumption of labor under capital. Methodologically, studies on Fordism and Toyotism are revisited to identify continuities, ruptures, and limits of Industry 4.0 as an expression of productive restructuring on a global scale, and empirical analyses are conducted both internationally and in the Brazilian cases of Mercedes-Benz (SP) and Jeep (PE). It is concluded that the diffusion of these technologies consolidates more complex mechanisms of labor exploitation, mediated by algorithms and data.

KEYWORDS
Industry 4; 0; Work; Algorithmic control; Real subsumption; Productive restructuring