Capítulo de livro
The Construction of Alienated Labour and the Alienation of Construction Labour
Autores
JOSÉ RODOLFO PACHECO THIESEN
Dados bibliográficos
Ano: 2025
Local de publicação: Routledge
ISSN/ISBN: 9781003490777
Livro: Building Sites
Resumo
The text examines the subordination of the construction sites to design and the process of labour alienation in 16th-century colonial Mexico. Using data from the construction site of the Mexico City Cathedral, it compares pre-colonial labour organisation, such as tequio or coatequitl , with the system imposed by the Spanish. The Spanish revived and modified pre-Conquest authority to impose coerced wage labour, making the colonial tequio the hegemonic form for unskilled labour and guaranteeing a supply of cheap indigenous labour. Workers under tequio received half the salary of voluntary workers. Indigenous peons’ wages were drastically lower than those of peons in Spain, while Master Builders in colonial America often earned significantly more than their Spanish equivalents, indicating greater inequality. Despite a large workforce, the Mexico City site showed a total absence of machinery common in Spain, suggesting a lower organic composition of capital. The study concludes that these colonial construction sites were fundamental in the transition towards capitalist forms of exploitation and alienation in Latin America, shifting building from a collective activity to one driven by individual survival and surplus value extraction.