...Essay Title: Pick two readings of your choice and critically discuss what they have to say about the structure and experience of work in contemporary industrialised societies. (1000 - 1250 Words) Readings Chosen (Bibliography): Grint, K. and Nixon, D. (2015) “Contemporary Work: The Service Sector and the Knowledge Economy” in Grint, K and Nixon, D., The Sociology of Work 4th Edition, Cambridge: Polity. Walby, S. (2011) “Is the Knowledge Society Gendered?”, Gender, Work and Organization, 18(1), 1 – 29. In this short treatise this author will initially discuss the research of Grint and Nixon (2015) followed by Walby (2011). This author will conclude the treatise with a brief evaluation of the theories presented. Grint and Nixon’s (2015) reading investigates the concept of the Post Industrial Society as espoused by Bell (1973) and explores its evolution through the end of the 20th Century and through the first decade of the 21st Century. In doing so it also highlights the decline in the active male workforce and the rise in the active female workforce. Bell’s argument that a post-industrial work environment would be characterised by knowledge-intensive work (the Knowledge Society) is counteracted by Braverman’s (1974) argument that a form of post-industrial Taylorism would serve to de-skill society rather than enhance knowledge. Braverman’s arguments are supported by Kumar (2005) who argues that information technology is more likely to proletarianize than professionalize...
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...Lecture 6: The Deskilling Thesis H. Braverman – Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974) • The central text in what has come to be called the labour process approach. • Context for Braverman: ❑ Braverman associated with Monthly Review journal – founded in 1949 by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman. An influential journal but little impact on American sociology. Best known product of this school is Baran and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital (1966). Indeed, Braverman’s analysis of work is predicated theoretically upon Baran and Sweezy’s analysis of ‘Monopoly Capital’ [ie oligopolistic, ‘organized’ capitalism. ❑ After mid-1960s increasing interest in neo-Marxism in the US – partly result of social conflicts evident in America in late 1960s which threw doubt of the utility of the structural-functionalist paradigm. ❑ In the 1970s – re-emergence of radical political economy in both the USA and Western Europe. Produced the Union of Radical Political Economists and the journal Insurgent Sociologist in USA and wide array of groups and journals in Western Europe – of which the most well known are: New Left Review, Capital and Class and Economy and Society. • In the late 1960s in the USA two sets of ideas had emerged within the social sciences which formed the concepts against which Braverman reacted: ❑ H. Marcuse, One Dimensional Man: a German social philosopher, member of the Frankfurt school, who argued that the affluence generated...
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...There is no honest answer to “who changes work organization”. The changes to work develop from the constant battle between employee and employer over workplace control. Additionally managers, unions and the state bring other variables to the mix, each collectively shaping our workplaces. Numerous types of changes can occur; all of which have an effect on the workers psychological feelings. Finding the balance between worker and employer goals is essential for maintaining business quota and respecting worker feelings. Sociologist perspectives can help us understand how and why these changes occur in the workforce. It’s very common in most employment relationships for the worker and the employer to have diverging interests. The employer favors the interest of the organization, typically with a capital or “business” goal in mind. On the contrary, employees conduct work on the basis that they need to provide a standard of living outside of work for themselves and possibly their families. With separate goals in mind, conflict is highly probable. Employers generally hold the position of control. Most employees don’t have the option of working; rather it is simply required for them to put food on the table. This idea is relative to that of a bureaucratic hierarchy, a work system based on authority and rules (Krahn et al. 2011, p 225). Bureaucracies typically cause employee submission, which a loss in control that employers are looking to gain. The idea that there would be little...
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...An examination of changes to the labour process of further education lecturers By Kim Mather & Roger Seifert Working Paper Series 2004 Number ISSN Number Kim Mather WP008/04 1363-6839 Senior Lecturer University of Wolverhampton, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1902 323750 Email: K.Mather@wlv.ac.uk An examiniation of changes to the labour process of further education lecturers Copyright © University of Wolverhampton 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, photocopied, recorded, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright holder. The Management Research Centre is the co-ordinating centre for research activity within the University of Wolverhampton Business School. This working paper series provides a forum for dissemination and discussion of research in progress within the School. For further information contact: Management Research Centre Wolverhampton University Business School Telford, Shropshire TF2 9NT 01902 321772 Fax 01902 321777 All Working Papers are published on the University of Wolverhampton Business School web site and can be accessed at www.wlv.ac.uk/uwbs choosing ‘Internal Publications’ from the Home page. 2 An examiniation of changes to the labour process of further education lecturers Abstract This paper examines changes in the labour process of Further Education (FE) lecturers in three colleges in the English Midlands. It provides evidence...
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...7 Corporations in the Modern Era The Commercial Transformation of Material Life and Culture I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. —Thomas Jefferson (letter to Tom Logan, 1816) J 1 ustice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court cited the third president of the United States in his strong dissent to the majority’s 2010 decision allowing corporations unlimited spending on behalf of political candidates.1 Quoting the court’s earlier McConnell decision, Stevens wrote, “We have repeatedly sustained legislation aimed at ‘the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with Jefferson’s animus may seem curious in light of the history of British corporations that financed the settling of the first North American colonies and, as discussed in this chapter, are often credited with providing the model for representative government adopted by the framers of the U.S. Constitution (Tuitt 2006). 280 Corporations in the Modern Era——281 the help of the corporate form.’” The court’s decision, Justice Stevens continued, “will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress and the States to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process.” The essence of Justice Steven’s dissent in the Citizens United v. Federal...
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...Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England www.penguin.com First published 2010 Copyright © Ha-Joon Chang, 2010 The moral right of the author has been asserted All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book ISBN: 978-0-141-95786-9 To Hee-Jeong, Yuna, and Jin-Gyu 7 Ways to Read 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism Way 1. If you are not even sure what capitalism is, read: Things 1, 2, 5, 8, 13, 16, 19, 20, and 22 Way 2. If you think politics is a waste of...
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