(Self-)seduction in the manufacturing of consent: exploring emotional exploitation in the service sector

This article uncovers an underexplored phenomenon observed in managerial – employee exchanges within the service sector: emotional exploitation. Drawing on ethnographic insights from the public house industry, it explores how managers deploy emotion-inducing tactics to seduce lower-echelon workers into accepting unfavourable working conditions. Crucially, such consent is not always manufactured by management; processes of self-seduction - where workers consent through self-persuasion – also play a central role. Emotional exploitation, this paper argues, is a routine feature of pub work, shaped by fluctuating emotional intensities, surplus or shortages of staff, and the affective pull of collegial relationships. It further examines how low-paid workers both heed and resist the mechanisms of (self-)seduction. In doing so, it extends analysis of emotional labour within labour control strategies, adds to the theory of manufacturing consent, and deepens the understanding of the commodification of emotion under capitalism – highlighting how (self-)seduction further alienates workers from aspects of the self.