Economic Life Flashcards
Minimum wage worker
The current federal minimum—$7.25 per hour—hasn’t changed since 2009.
political movement to raise minimum wage
Government refers to the regular enactment of policies, decisions
workers who protested and walked off their jobs to seek influence
paid vs. unpaid work
Nonpaid labor (such as repairing one’s own car or doing one’s own housework) --domestic workers, the vast majority of whom are women
occupation
any form of paid employment in which an individual regularly works
technology
the application of knowledge of the material world to production
examples of informal economy
refers to transactions outside the sphere of regular employment
- “hidden” cash transactions; not recorded in official employment statistics
- self-provisioning that people carry on inside and outside the home
Do-it-yourself activities with household appliances and tools, for instance, provide goods and services that would otherwise have to be purchased
house work
housework
Unpaid work carried out in the home, usually by women; domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning, and shopping. Also called domestic labor.
usually unpaid
division of labor (Durkheim)
The specialization of work tasks, by means of which different occupations are combined within a production system. All societies have at least some rudimentary form of division of labor, especially between the tasks allocated to men and those performed by women.
Division of Labor–> Economic interdependence–> Social Solidarity
economic interdependence
The fact that with a division of labor, individuals depend on others to produce many or most of the goods they need to sustain their lives.
industrial work
advantages that the division of labor provides in terms of increasing productivity
break down into simple operations that could be precisely timed and organized
Alienation
Karl Marx: development of modern industry would reduce many people’s work to dull
The sense that our own abilities as human beings are taken over by others. Karl Marx used the term to refer to the loss of workers’ control over both the process and products of their labor
peasant farmers sometimes toiled from dawn to dusk. Yet peasants had control over their work, which required much knowledge and skill.
strike
A temporary stoppage of work by a group of employees in order to express a grievance or enforce a demand.
union
Organizations that advance and protect the interests of workers with respect to working conditions, wages, and benefits.
reasons for decline in unions in U.S.
the outsourcing of once-unionized U.S. manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries around the world where independent unions are illegal
- weakened the bargaining power of unions in the manufacturing sector
The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) has proven ineffective at protecting workers’ efforts to unionize their workplaces, often failing to take aggressive action when businesses harass or fire union organizers
collective bargaining
The rights of employees and workers to negotiate with their employers for basic rights and benefits.
Marx’s perspectives on work and alienation
Exploitation & Alienation–> Conflict–>Unionization
Karl Marx was one of the first writers to grasp that the development of modern industry would reduce many people’s work to dull, uninteresting tasks
work was often exhausting; peasant farmers sometimes toiled from dawn to dusk. Yet peasants had control over their work, which required much knowledge and skill. Many industrial workers, by contrast, have little control over their jobs, only contribute a fraction to the creation of the overall product, and have no influence over how or to whom it is eventually sold. Work thus appears as something alien, a task that the worker must carry out to earn an income but that is intrinsically unsatisfying.
Capitalism and its subtypes (family, managerial, welfare, institutional, global)
Capitalism (Marx) : private ownership of the means of production; profit as incentive; competition for markets in which to sell goods, acquire cheap materials, and use cheap labor; and expansion and investment to accumulate capital; most widespread form of economic organization in the world.
- Family Capitalism: Capitalistic enterprises owned and administered by entrepreneurial families.
- Managerial capitalism: Capitalistic enterprises administered by managerial executives rather than by owners.
- Welfare capitalism: Practice in which large corporations protect their employees from the fluctuations of the economy.
- Institutional capitalism: Consolidated networks of business leadership in which corporations hold stock shares in one another, resulting in increased concentration of corporate power.
- Global capitalism: The current transnational phase of capitalism, characterized by global markets, production, and finances; a transnational capitalist class whose business concerns are global rather than national; and transnational systems of governance (such as the World Trade Organization) that promote global business interests.
corporations
Business firms or companies.
entrepreneur
The owner or founder of a business firm.
monopoly vs. oligopoly
Monopoly: A situation in which a single firm dominates in a given industry.
Oligopoly: A situation in which a small number of firms dominates a given industry.
transnational corporations
Business corporations located in two or more countries.
automation
Production processes monitored and controlled by machines with only minimal supervision from people.
knowledge economy
A society no longer based primarily on the production of material goods but based instead on the production of knowledge. Its emergence has been linked to the development of a broad base of consumers who are technologically literate and have made new advances in
computing, entertainment, and telecommunications part of their lives.
an economy in which ideas, information, and forms of knowledge underpin innovation and economic growth
contingent workforce
Rise in contractual, unstable employment
- Uber, Lyft, etc.
- Adjunct faculty
- Seasonal amazon labor, etc.
