It wasn't long before the employers begged them to work normally and granted the rise they had refused during the strike. From these beginnings there grew a whole armoury of weapons, from applying the rules with exaggerated care so that work to rule be comes sabotage in reverse, to 'soldiering', slowdown, 'goldbricking', voluntary restriction of output, and restrictive practices. Of course, all this looks quite irrational and wilfully stupid to capital. One of Brown's aims is to lay bare its good sense. For the managers sabotage is a social problem.
Sabotage is part of the solution.
Geoff Brown's argument ends with that quotation. I want the book to carry on from there and to deal with three more issues. His analysis is at the level of management, without addressing itself, even in passing, to the development and vicissitudes of the era of monopoly capital, the larger context of struggle. At the other extreme from these abstract issues, the exposition would have been improved by a more textured, evocative presentation of particular struggles and techniques. Finally, and most important, it would have been helpful if he had placed this account in the context of current debates on subversive strategies.