Workers in petty production, Accra, Ghana: towards proletarianization?

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Periodical article

Title:	Workers in petty production, Accra, Ghana: towards proletarianization?
Author:	Kennedy, Paul
Year:	1983
Periodical:	Labour, Capital and Society
Volume:	16
Issue:	1
Pages:	64-93
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Ghana
Subjects:	industrial workers small enterprises
Abstract:	Data collected in a survey conducted in 1977 among 113 employees working in 66 small enterprises in Accra, Ghana, was used to examine three central issues: (1) what is the objective class situation of these workers? (2) to what extent are the workers encapsulated within a social milieu which is heterogeneous in terms of occupation and income and typically based on particularistic ties and loyalties? (3) what are the employees' perceptions concerning their own immediate and long-term situation with respect to their employers and to Ghana's changing economy? The data suggest, tentatively, that most of the employees who were studied were locked into a proletarian class situation not unlike that faced by their modern-sector counterparts. The differences between those who work in the informal sector and those in capitalist enterprises are not as marked as is generally supposed. Notes, tab., French sum.