One of the things that struck me working in a factory in the early seventies was how keen the management was to own you completely in the hours for which they were paying you. Seriously, the one thing everyone on the factory floor knew was that under no circumstances could you be seen not to be doing anything if a manager walked by - even if there was nothing worth doing. This need to turn the individual into a kind of commodity is very deep rooted, and I see nothing in the notions of the 'free market' that affords any real protection from it. Indeed, it seems to me integral to that world.
Dickens knew this. He'd been there.
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