soc of work 1 Flashcards
work
The mundane task through which individuals create value and sustain themselves
Wage labor
exchange of effort for monetary compensation
Proletarianization
Process by which people go from being pre modern (slave , peasant) to a proletariat
Proletariat
a social class of people who need a job
Smithian
- thought wage labor was natural
- Propensity to truck and barter
- Accelerated division of labor based on natural skills
- Replacing wages for barter
Wage labor derived from human nature
Marxian
-thought wage labor was forced
-There is no labor market in feudal society
- One must be created by force
“Primitive accumulation” of capital
- Wage labor was coercive
- Came about from state policies
wage labor and freedom
creating freedom : Unshackling individuals from tradition-bound work
restricting freedom: Relations of authority within the workplace, Structures class inequality in society
Doubly free labor-
Two conditions:
Legally free to form a contract
“Free” from means of production
MARX exploitation
Appropriation of the unpaid labor of workers
outcomes: class system, exploiting capitalists exploited proletariats
M surplus labor
On a work day, make 100 dollars worth. Only get paid 40 dollars→ this is what is necessary to live and sustain yourself. The 60 is what Marx calls ____
M labor
the process of conscious transformation of the material (and/or symbolic) world
the actual work people do + extra baked in
M labor power
the capacity to work e.g. strength, education
potential to work
WEBER rational discipline
consistently rationalized, received orders, depersonalized, methods of measurement, no dissapearing punishment
substantive rationality
- a discussion over the ends of action
- “What are we going to do?”
instrumental rationality
- “How are we going to do it?”
- Increasing the adequacy of means for achieving a certain end
- Ways to achieve the end
W outcomes of rational discipline
class domination: class systems arise between giving and receiving orders,
Relationship of domination rather than exploitation
stuff gets done
W discipline
a rational way of organizing human action
W Depersonalized
rules and procedures are applied consistently towards everyone
if not: results in discrimination, employee dissatisfaction, disruptions to productivity
FOUCAULT panopticon
surveillance —> compliance and self discipline
F features of panopticon
Visibility, individuation, surveillance is continuously visible, but unverifiable
F workers response to systems of surveillance
Self-discipline (see how this is opposed to Weber’s idea that discipline comes through being overtly told what to do)
DELFANTI Machinic dispossession
the act of Amazon taking the valuable data about what the workers were doing, but that he felt belonged to the worker
Algorithmic control
Advanced machines surveilling and giving out orders (and dehumanizing the workers?)
exploitation in AMAZON
Amazon is squeezing every drop of extra value from workers using advanced technology and control/discipline
rational discipline in AMAZOn
“Orders” are being given out according to algorithms
concept of panopticon and surveillance in AMAZON
Workers are being watched and FEEL it
racial capitalism
Capitalism and resulting economic Inequalities/class systems are intertwined with race
DUBOIS divisions in the labor force
In some cities, emancipated Black workers went to the north and worked for wages that White immigrants would not accept
* Therefore White immigrants blamed Black workers for the cheap price of labor
* Race wars ensued rather than
Black and White workers uniting together for better working conditions)
Bourdieu social capital
membership in societies, relations, networks and alliances
Bourdieu cultural capital
Ways of speech
The kinds of music and art they are interested in
skills
Bourdieu how is capital transferred
Families, intergenerational, through networks
B how is capital related to workplace
As Gibbons pointed out, “good” jobs and workplace treatment can depend on the social and cultural capital held by the worker
Showed that economic capital (e.g. money), wasn’t the only factor -› because he was in an unpaid setting (prisons)
Race vs. religion
- The former is biological and therefore permanent
race is a justification for marginalization
“color line”
economic exploitation is structured with
European and American city-dwelling wealthy Whites as the exploiters,
and other racialized groups as the exploited
racialization in work force
Apple - able to get a large amount of value by centering manufacturing in geographies (that are comprised of racialized
workers) with low wages and poor working con[litions
