Lecture 22? Flashcards
What values are north america based on?
Protestant work ethic
● Hard work, self-denial, and the avoidance of idleness
What is the big pushed idea in North America?
Productivity gives people meaning
What has shifted in emphasis in North America?
Shift of emphasis from industry and achievement to personal growth
● The concern for work had been superseded by the concern for leisure
Lottery question: Would you continue to work if you inherited enough money to
live comfortably without working?
Important findings?
Less people saying they would still work
Women were more likely to state that they would discontinue working if it became financially unnecessary
Rationalization as a way of solving problems is thinking based on four factors, explain them:
Predictability
Calculability
Efficiency
Control
● Predictability: things that can be repeated with the expectation of the same result.
● Calculability: things that can be quantified and counted.
● Efficiency: the best means to a given end.
● Control: the enhanced certainty of some outcome
What are the benefits of a rationalized world?
we tend to live longer and happier lives.
What are the downsides of a rationalized world?
disenchantment of the world also entailed people becoming more disillusioned with it due to its meaninglessness.
What is the McDonaldization of Society?
Efficiency above all
Quantifying everything (rating / ranking everything)
What does George Ritzer mean by Irrationality of rationality? (McDonaldization of society)
“Efficiency” creates waste and poor health
outcomes
● Transfer of burden to costumers and cuts on labour
What are Commodities and commodification?
Commodities: products that have some monetary value
● E.g., standardized, mass-produced by many different producers
● Commodification: the transformation of what is normally a non-commodity
Who/what holds society together?
(Durkheim)
Organic / Mechanical
Durkheim: mechanical solidarity in earlier human societies and organic in modern human societies.
Durkheim felt a society’s division of labour determined whether it was built on mechanical or organic solidarity.
What is Division of labour?
the degree by which labour is specialized according to specific and distinct tasks.
● A complex division of labour is an efficient and cheap way of making products
What is Scientific Management / Taylorism
● Applies scientific principles and methods to managing workers.
● Dedicated to rationalizing work and making it more efficient by dividing it into increasingly smaller and smaller tasks.
● These principles have been applied in a wide variety of manufacturing contexts.
Henry Ford practiced two main principles of Taylorism, what are they?
● The standardization of products using moulds that unskilled labour could use to make the same product over and over again.
● The use of specialized equipment that any worker can use to make the products.
What are the benefits & drawbacks of Scientific Management / Taylorism?
Benefits:
● Increased efficiency
● Increased productivity
Drawbacks:
● Worker dissatisfaction with the work
● Worker dissatisfaction with the management
What is Automation in Taylorism?
when operating equipment is run with
minimal or reduced human activity.
Benefits:
● Saves labour and helps improve the quality and precision of the labour process.
● Can also lead to job loss and changes the nature of the work for those on the assembly line.
Why are we replacing ppl with robots?
People stubbornly refuse to be 100%
predictable and controllable..
In the name of efficiency replacement by
actual robots or routines that dictate a
robot like behaviour
Which jobs are more at risk to automation?
Food services (grocery, fast food)
What is Outsourcing in work?
Because labour is divided into smaller and smaller parts, companies can separate the various production processes.
– This often involves moving operations to a different, more low-cost country
(Karl Marx
The Alienation of Labour)
The distortion of the process of work happened in four main ways:
- Capitalism turned work from a collective activity into one based on pursuing one’s own interests.
- Workers only keep a portion of the profit they make for their employer.
- Working faster and more efficiently reduces the enjoyment of the work for
the workers. - Workers were alienated from the products they make, the production process, and other workers
What today is associated with Karl Marx
The Alienation of Labour? (And stress)
More Stress today
Different types of stress between white collar and blue collar workers
Blue collar: more TYPES of stress at higher degree
Which group is the most stressed?
Women, low education and low income
What are Common work stressors?
repetitive tasks, hectic environment, lack of
control over work process, low work place social support
What are the three primary sectors in Canadian work?
Primary, Secondary, & Tertiary
- Primary sector: the work of harvesting or extracting resources
* Mining, forestry, farming, fishing - Secondary sector: the work of manufacturing finished goods
* Automobile production, textile manufacturing, construction - Tertiary sector: the service industry, including services to
businesses and individuals.
* Retail sales, transportation, distribution, entertainment, hospitality, tourism,
banking, health care, the law.
How had the distribution of workers in sectors changed over time?
More tertiary (shift)
(other two decreasing)
What is Precarious Employment?
“McJobs”
“work for remuneration characterized by uncertainty, low income, and limited social benefits and statutory entitlements”
- “Three Ds”—dirty, dangerous, and demeaning
Who is overrepresented in Precarious Employment?
Racialized Canadians, women, Indigenous people, older adults, people with disabilities and immigrants
Even if work multiple, still close to poverty line
What are the health impacts of precarious employment?
workplace injuries, depression, chronic pain, diabetes, and heart disease
Lack of health benefits, including extended health coverage or sick leave
What is Emotional labour?
emotional management done by
workers and as a process of commodifying emotional displays at work.
- A result of work that involves direct contact with the public.
- The employee is expected to provide the public with a product or service but also to make the customer feel a certain way.
Ex. Nurses have to smile and comfort patients
What does emotional labour lead to?
Alienation of own emotions
Taught by managers how to act
- Must control emotions leading to alienation
What is Power?
Power as the ability of individuals or groups to get what they want, even against the resistance of others who are participating in the same action (Weber 1946)
What is The power of state?
Exclusive control over the legitimate use of
physical force within a given territory
Max Weber
What is the State?
● States are attached to a geographic territory and maintain a monopoly and autonomy on rule-making, coercion, and
violence within that territory.
● Arguably the most powerful institution in contemporary society.
● The state can set policies and laws governing your behaviour and, in exchange, provides citizens with schools, roads and health care
Coercive power vs Persuasive power?
Coercive power
System of punishments and rewards to try to force people to act in a particular way
Persuasive power
Attempt to convince others that they actually want to act in a particular way
An important place of media and social movements (particularly in democratic societies)
How does social change happen?
- Through the state
can happen through institutional channels,
particularly through the state.
● The state provides an important arena for creating social change through elections, laws and social policy. - Outside the state
cultural change or social movements
The state: a set of institutions that includes four components…
● Elected or appointed political decision-makers
● Administrative units or bureaucracies
● A judiciary or legal system
● Security services
What is the Managerial perspective of the state?
territories grew, the state was needed to better manage and control larger areas and groups of people
- recruitment, training, and employment of administrators
Bureaucrats in these offices convince the
population that a central state can fulfill
the needs and interests of the people
Militaristic perspective of the rise of the state?
Security in return for taxes
states with better bureaucracies were more
financially equipped to wage war because they had a more efficient tax system.
● To possess military might, states must engage in four things: war-making, state-making, protection, and extraction
What is the Economic perspective (Karl Marx) on the rise of the state?
The state is the result of class struggle in capitalism and works to regulate economic relations.
● The state is needed to regulate contradictory economic interests in a capitalist society
Why did people create states?
One of the main reasons why humans created states is because states offer many benefits, such as health care, education and clean water.
● These benefits are part of the welfare state
What is The Welfare state? (three functions)
- It attempts to provide a minimum income for individuals.
- It attempts to reduce the potential economic insecurity that could come from events such as illness, old age, and unemployment.
- It attempts to provide the public with a range of social services
