Transformations in Work and Leisure

Question 1

What does Lafargue, 1883 say about work?

Answer 1

“A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civilization holds its sway. This delusion drags in its train the individual and social woes which for two centuries have tortured sad humanity. This delusion is the love of work, the furious passion for work, pushed even to the exhaustion of the vital force of the individual and his progeny. Instead of opposing this mental aberration, the priests, the economists and the moralists have cast a sacred halo over work.”

Question 2

When do Marxist/Socisalist feminists believe gendered division began?

Answer 2

Industrialization

Question 3

When does the ONS, 2016 class you as unemployed?

Answer 3

Have been looking for work within the last 4 weeks and are able to start work within the next 2 weeks

Question 4

What does it mean to be economically inactive?

Answer 4

Have not been looking for work within the last 4 weeks or who are unable to start work within the next 2 weeks are classed as economically

Question 5

What did Fredrick Taylor do?

Answer 5

mastered industrial production through a scientific methodology =
Extreme division of labour, measuring the minute movements of workers.
Social division

Question 6

What did Henry Ford do?

Answer 6

the moving assembly line continues Taylor’s scientific methodology into expanding industries and markets
Strong separation between ‘work’ and ‘non-work

Question 7

What is Post-Fordism & Post-Industrial Society like? (3)

Answer 7

1. Shift from manufacturing to ‘White-Collar’ work in administration, finance and service provision.
2. Movement from physical to mental forms of working.
3. Crucially, the physical and social division of labour remains intact.

Question 8

What did Mills, 1951, say?

Answer 8

The one thing they do not do is earn their living by making things; rather, they live off the social machineries that organize and coordinate the people who do make things.“
“As a proportion of the labor force, fewer individuals manipulate things, more handle people and symbols

Question 9

What is Post-Industrial Society and the Knowledge Economy like? (4)

Answer 9

1. Smartphones and laptops allow for work to move outside of the office.
2. Dominance of service-sector industries means prioritisation of mental and cognitive labour over manual labour.
3. Proliferation of ‘knowledge workers’ – Franco Berardi (The Soul at Work) and Yann Moulier-Boutang (Cognitive Capitalism)
4. Individualisation of work.

Question 10

What did Cederström & Fleming, 2012, say?

Answer 10

“If you are not doing so well, feeling a little down or stressed, having trouble enduring the boss, then a business coach or team councillor is there to tell us: It’s not the workplace that’s the problem. It’s you”

Question 11

What did Braverman, 1974, say?

Answer 11

“The practitioners of ‘human relations’ and ‘industrial psychology’ are the maintenance crew for the human machinery”

Question 12

What did Peters & Waterman, [1982] say?

Answer 12

“We will surrender a great deal to institutions that give us a sense of meaning and, through it, a sense of security”

Question 13

How did Thornstein Veblen suggest that you could distinguish between the leisure class and the working class?

Answer 13

The leisure class have more time to spend on the pursuit of leisure.

Question 14

What is Conspicuous Consumption?

Answer 14

the ability to overtly demonstrate one’s ability to buy/enjoy expensive things

Question 15

What is Vicarious Consumption?

Answer 15

the ability to demonstrate wealth through the control of other people e.g. Servants, a workforce

Question 16

What did Veblen, 1899) say about manual labour?

Answer 16

Manual labour, industry, whatever has to do directly with the everyday work of getting a livelihood, is the exclusive occupation of the inferior class

Question 17

What does Adorno & Horkheimer say?

Answer 17

‘leisure’ experienced by the masses as consumption, contributing only to the renewal of capitalism
Amusement under late capitalism is the prolongation of work. It is sought after as an escape from the mechanized work process, and to recruit strength in order to be able to cope with it again. But at the same time mechanization has such power over a man’s leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work process itself

Question 18

What are Stanley Parker’s (1976) three different work-leisure patterns?

Answer 18

The segmentalist pattern
The extension pattern
The neutrality pattern

Question 19

What does Cederström & Fleming, 2012, say about neo-leisure?

Answer 19

Increasingly, workplaces promote cultures of ‘fun’ in an attempt to increase productivity, blurring the lines between work and play

Question 20

What does Dalla Costa & James (1975) say about the liberation of working class women?

Answer 20

Those who advocate that the liberation of the working class woman lies in her getting a job outside the home are part of the problem, not the solution. Slavery to an assembly line is not liberation from slavery to a kitchen sink. To deny this is to deny the slavery of the assembly line itself, proving again that if you don’t know how women are exploited, you can never really know how men are

Question 21

How does the Feminist perspectives on work challenge the idea of ‘leisure’?

Answer 21

leisure’ is only that which is not classed as ‘work’ – therefore, ‘work’ is socially constructed