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Lecture 10
Work in the Post-Industrial Economy
Social Organization of Work
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As our society becomes more
interdependent, the ways in which we
organize the production and consumption of
goods become more complex
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The advent of industrialization brought about
a new type of economic organization that we
call capitalism
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Modern capitalism has both encouraged
globalization and has been intensified by
globalization
Modern Capitalism

Modern Capitalism is an economic system based on
private property where goods are bought and sold on
a market and prices are determined by supply and
demand
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Profit is an incentive
Free competition to buy goods, sell products, and buy cheap
labor
Drive to expand and accumulate capital ($)
Capitalism is driven by rational thinking &
organization with the goal of finding the most efficient
means to gain profit

What type of organizational form helps achieve this goal and
dominates in modern capitalism?
Corporations
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Corporations are the primary organizational
form utilized in capitalist system
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They are a legal form of public and capitalist organization in
which control passes to a managerial group and which
owners have limited liability
Organized rationally with the goal of maximizing profit
A corporation is a social and legal creation that
under US law is a legal person

They can own property, sign contracts, go bankrupt, pay
taxes, and enjoy some constitutional rights
Corporate Society
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Today we can consider our society a Corporate
Society, which is a society in which large scale
corporations organize and are involved in social,
political decision-making process
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Secondary groups that organize our lives
Globalization is bringing about a global corporate
society
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Multinational Corporations: operate and coordinate
production, distribution and consumption across national
borders
Working in a Corporate Society

As a global corporate society grows, we can
ask: How does it affect workers and the
social organization of work?
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To begin to answer this question we want to
examine how labor is socially reproduced
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The wages, working conditions, and social
relations of work are determined by economic,
social, and political contexts (social structure)
Selling Our Labor

To examine the social reproduction of labor in
the modern global economy we need to start at
the beginning and examine how capitalism
organizes labor

Capitalism creates an institution of wage labor
that forms the foundation of our social structure
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How many of you work?
Why do you work?
Work and Alienation

One sociologist, Karl Marx, spent his life
examining capitalism and its affect on workers
and society as a whole
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According to Marx, in an industrial society workers no
longer own the means to produce the things they need
and are therefore required to sell their labor
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In this regard, Marx argues that our labor is no longer
voluntary, but forced
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What do you think he means by this?
Modern Capitalism: Alienated Labor
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According to Marx, workers in Industrial
society (the many who do not own the means
of production) become alienated since they
are required to sell their labor
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They become alienated in three ways
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From themselves
From the labor process
From other people
Alienated from ourselves

Marx believed that work is the essence of humanity

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When workers must sell their labor they are
alienated from their own labor power, creativity, and
the products they make
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The ability to produce for ourselves is what makes us
human
“the worker cannot use the things he produces to keep
alive or to engage in further productive activity....”
The more productive workers are the cheaper they
become
Alienated from the labor process/products
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According to Marx, when we must sell our labor we
(in general) lose control over how we will labor
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We have no say over the conditions in which we
work and how our work is organized, and how it
affects us physically and mentally
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Through the rationalization of the labor process
(deskilling) workers become “a mere appendage of
flesh on a machine of iron”
Alienated from fellow humans

We are alienated from those that control our labor and those who
produce goods for us
 The commodities of each individual producer appears in
depersonalized form, regardless of who produced them, where,
or in what specific conditions
 Ask yourself: do you know where your shoes came from? The
food you ate for lunch? And who were the workers that
contributed to bringing them to you?
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Alienated form fellow workers

According to Marx, since we must sell our labor we
are forced to compete with other workers for jobs;
instead of having class consciousness and unity
among workers we become alienated from them
Alienation at Work
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(1) Explain your worst work experience.
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How were you alienated from yourself, your labor/
the product of your labor, and/or your fellow
workers?
(2) Explain your best work experience.
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How were you NOT alienated from yourself, your
labor/ the product of your labor, and/or your fellow
workers? (in other words, did you feel connected
to your own labor, what you were making, and/or
the people you were working with?)
Rational Organization of Labor
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Capitalist economies rationally organize production
to find the most efficient means to achieve profit
accumulation
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Therefore, corporations (the dominant organizations) look
to find the cheapest inputs possible for profit maximization
– including labor
However, the cost of labor is socially reproduced
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As companies seek out the cheapest labor on the market
they encounter social, political, and economic contexts
that determine the cost and conditions of labor/work
The Changing Context of Labor
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We can examine how labor is socially
reproduced by looking at how the
organization of rational production changes
when we move from an Industrial economy to
a Post-Industrial economy
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The Industrial economy = Fordist organization
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The Post-Industrial economy = Post-Fordist
organization
Fordist Organization of Production
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Fordism is defined as a system of mass production
tied to mass consumption; in others words workers
needed to be paid enough to buy the goods that are
being produced in the economy
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A Fordist style of economic organization requires:
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A stable workforce – workers generally worked for one
company their whole loves
Automation technology and deskilling – the creation of the
assembly line
High level of unionization – where workers were able to
bargain for high wages and benefits
Industrial Economic Growth
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The Fordist style of economic organization created
significant economic growth, a large middle class,
and the birth of the consumer economy in American
society
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With automation technology, workers become more
productive and earned high enough wages to consume the
goods produced
However, a capitalist system creates increasing
competition among corporations and therefore they
are looking for ways to cut the cost of their inputs
including labor
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One of these ways was to look for workers who did not
need to consume at the levels that American workers had
become accustomed to
Post-Fordism
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Post-Fordism is defined as the social organization of production
based on flexibility and innovation being maximized to meet
market demand
 The primary change from Fordism to post-Fordism is that those
who produce most of the goods around the world are no longer
the ones that consume most of these goods
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A Fordist style of economic organization requires:
 A contingent workforce – workers are generally hired for short
periods of time
 Automation technology and deskilling – the creation of the
assembly line, but around the world
 Information technology – allows corporations to make decisions
in one location and hire labor in other locations
 No unionization – workers are not able to bargain for high wages
and benefits or improved working conditions
Changing organization of labor; changing
cost of labor
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The cost of labor is socially reproduced by the
type of organization of production
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With Fordist organization, automation and the assembly
created a demand for deskilled labor and therefore reduced
the cost of labor, however workers still needed to earn high
enough wages to purchase the goods produced in this type
of economy
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With Post-Fordism this changes with information
technology which makes it possible to move around the
world and utilize automation technology to find workers
who do not need to earn wages to consume at the level of
American workers
Cheap people or Cheap Labor ?
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What we want to remember is no one’s labor is cheaper than
someone else’s labor – it is the social organization of a society
that makes ‘cheap labor’ possible
 There are no ‘cheap’ people, just ‘cheap’ wages
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When thinking about cheap labor, ask yourself: “How is my labor
socially reproduced in this society to be more expensive that the
labor of workers in Mexico, China, Jamaica, etc?”
 For example, some of the political policies that make American
labor more expensive are: minimum wage, unemployment
insurance, medical leave, workplace safety, etc.
Increasing Alienation?
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To conclude, we can think about how
globalization and Post-Fordist organization of
production affects the alienation of workers
that Marx discussed
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Do you think that globalization increases the
alienation of workers?
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From themselves?
From the labor process?
From other people?