How Much Decent Work

Lately, questions have arisen about the true meaning of work. Work has been a significance to humans since the time around the middle 1600’s. Although work began at this time, it evolved into something more powerful and advanced a couple more centuries later. During the late 18th century, the work force began to boom during the industrial period. The world was heavily influenced by the work field and managed to establish one’s sense of character. If one worked their determination and values were clearly sought out by others. The importance of work begins with women becoming involved, wanting to make a difference in society and show the men they could do it too. Consequently, leaving the world to wonder if work is even a necessity to the civilian

Work and its role in society has become the subject of considerable public commentary and debate in recent years. Work, for many Americans, has changed significantly over the past 25 years. Some people believe that the world of work is changing so thoroughly and quickly that we should consider ourselves pioneers of a new historical era. Some say that the idea of a job has become antiquated.

Document 2 introduces the idea of social darwinism in the workplace. It says that the workplace now isn't about who is the best at doing the work, now it's about who can do it for the longest and cheapest price. It definitely incorporates the idea of social darwinism because now there is a competition, among the workers, for who can do the job cheaper and quicker (survival of the fittest). This ultimately reveals how the divisiveness of the classes emerged: there is now competition among the working class and quarrels between the rich owners of the factories, and their middle class workers for a better work life. The purpose of this document is to show how social darwinism worked, firsthand, among the working class, in the factory.

Chambliss (1979) argued that working class would try to increase wages and working conditions over a period of time. And the ruling class passed a law to limit wages paid to labourers. A more reason example is the government legislation enforcing benefit fraud. This is more of a working class crime. However, Functionalists challenge the concept of status frustration and argue that the laws are made for the good of everyone and that for society to work well it is to avoid anomie. This analysis shows that Marxism is useful to a large extent as it can be shown that there is seen to be a level of status frustration.

During the class, the professor provided plenty of information and assignments for us. Because of this, I believe that I improve my English skills not only on the critical reading but also on the critical writing; by means of these two abilities, this week, I can utilize them on the paper included the content of analyzing the article “Against Work”. Consequently, in this paper, there are plenty of definitions of the article “Against Work” will be described as follows.

The five major revolutionary changes that the bourgeoisie brings about through capitalism are market economy, private property, wages, imperialism, and financial institutions. Marx and Engles say these changes are bad because they widen the gap according to income making mobility between classes inaccessible and ultimately making equality unattainable. Marx believed that the market economy worked in a capitalist society to direct repression of movements to keep the elite as elites and the lower class in the lower class. The fluidity of money in capitalism is okay, for the first few years there is no change, and people are almost equally spread. But, as time moves forward the distance between the first class and the middle class widens The same goes for the middle class to the poor and an even larger gap between the poor and the elite as I am sure you can imagine.

Karl Marx witnessed first hand the rise of the industrial revolution and the beginning of capitalism. He also became one of capitalisms biggest critics. Marx believed that society needed a better way of distrusting wealth but also a better way a finding people’s full human potential or what he called “species-essence”. Marx believed that what we do connects to who we are, for example, work is what makes us human. It fulfills our species essence, as he puts it. Work allows us to be creative and flourish. However, in the 19th century Europe work did the quit opposite, it destroyed workers, particularly those who had nothing to sell but their labor. To the mill and factory owners a worker was simply an abstract idea with a stomach that needed to be filled. The workers had no choice but to work for long hours for a pathetic wage. Even worse, their labor alienated them. Alienation is a disorienting sense of exclusion and separation. Factory labor, under capitalism, alienated the workers from the product of their labor. They made stuff they couldn’t afford to buy themselves. The products they made were shipped out to other places far way to make money

In the era when capitalism was booming workers faced very harsh working conditions and little job security. The workers were the very last ones to benefit from their own work, “the products of capitalism invariably benefit[ed] the ‘wealthy’ first”(DiLorenzo, pg.96). Workers worked long hours sometimes even a 24 hour shift and maybe got a day off every two weeks, with a typical work week of 50-54 hours, where today it is only 40 hours. Due to this era being big on industrialism that meant machines were constantly replacing workers, that is “new machine techniques replacing old human skills

Karl Marx’s critique of political economy provides a scientific understanding of the history of capitalism. Through Marx’s critique, the history of society is revealed. Capitalism is not just an economic system in Marx’s analysis. It’s a “specific social form of labor” that is strongly related to society. Marx’s critique of capitalism provides us a deep

Another concept that brought about inequality among the bourgeoisie and proletariat is the labour theory of value. As stated in the textbook Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, “One of the basic truths of capitalism is that it takes money to make money, and the more money a business owner has at his or her disposal, the more ability the business owner has to generate profit-making schemes” (Appelrouth and Edles: 25). In this case, the bourgeoisies are at a benefit as they own the means of production, while the proletariat are at a disadvantage as they don’t have capital to make money. Marx’s ‘general formula for capital’ explains the class and power relations that predominate in modern capitalist society through the formula M-C-M. Marx describes this law of value to be beneficial to the bourgeoisies as they increase profits and capital. Bourgeoisies are able to do this because they have the money (M) to buy capital, which converts their money into commonality (C), which they then use to produce other commodities that are sold for money (M). Bourgeoisies predominate the proletariats through power relations as the formula is inversed for the working class, C-M-C. The working class sells their labour through commodity (C), which then is exchanged for money (M) and used to buy commodities (C) necessary for survival. The C-M-C

There is deep substance and many common themes that arose throughout Marx’s career as a philosopher and political thinker. A common expressed notion throughout his and Fredrick Engels work consists of contempt for the industrial capitalist society that was growing around him during the industrial revolution. Capitalism according to Marx is a “social system with inherent exploitation and injustice”. (Pappenheim, p. 81) It is a social system, which intrinsically hinders all of its participants and specifically debilitates the working class. Though some within the capitalist system may benefit with greater monetary gain and general acquisition of wealth, the structure of the system is bound to alienate all its

The philosophy of Karl Marx begins with the belief that humans are inherently cooperative with common characteristics and shared ends. To human beings, life is considered an object and therefore, humans make their “life-activity itself the object of his will and of his consciousness” (Tucker 76). In other words, humans are able to think, imagine, and “produce even when he is free from physical need and only truly produces in freedom therefrom” (p. 76). It exemplifies that idea that humans not only have the capability to create things for survival but express themselves in what they produce, within the standards of the human race or universally. When capitalist wage-labor enters the picture, it forces these shared ends and the freedom of expression in human production to cease, causing a rise of competitiveness among

The specialised critique of capitalism found in the Communist Manifesto (written by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels), provides a basis for the analysis and critique of the capitalist system. Marx and Engels wrote about economical in relation to the means or mode of production, ideology, alienation and most fundamentally, class relations (particularly between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat). Collectively, these two men created the theory of Marxism. There are multiple critiques of Marxism that attack the fundamental tenants of their argument. Several historical events have fueled such criticisms, such as the fall of the Soviet Union, where Marxism was significantly invalidated and condemned. On the flip side, Marxism has been widely supported in times of capitalist hardships. What viewpoint a person will hold towards Marxism is largely dependable on the economical environment in which they live. Further, it is also important to remember that Marx and Engels lived in a very different era than today’s society, and the concept of capitalism may have arguably changed quite a lot over time. Therefore, the principles found in the Manifesto may often have to be refurnished and reapplied to fit different economic environments.

In Christian Fuchs’ (2014) Digital Labor and Karl Marx, the second chapter, “An Introduction to Karl Marx’s Theory,” focuses on the meaning of digital work and labor from the perspective of what Marx defines work and labor are in the first place, while the fourth chapter, “Dallas Smythe and Audience Labor Today,” argues the importance of Dallas Smythe for his influence on commercialization and commodification through Marxist theory. In “An Introduction to Karl Marx’s Theory,” Fuchs’ (2014) main argument stems from The German Ideology by Marx and Engels which states that, “work is a conscious productive activity that transforms and organizes nature so that humans produce their means of subsistence in order to satisfy human needs, which constitutes the production of material life itself” (p. 25). Labor is

Marxism and Labour Theory - The Conflicts between Employee and Employer 1. Introduction 1.1 Overview on the essay topic To organisations, employees (labours) are wonderful resources, because they are compact and multi-purpose, capable of simple manual tasks or dealing with complicated machines, most importantly, they are the profit maker for their employers. However, there is always a problem between employees and employer. Any attempt to manager in a humane way, by consensus, is doomed to failure because of the irresolvable conflict between employees and their employers.