The ultimate condition of production is the reproduction of the conditions of production, brought about through 1.) the reproduction of the productive forces, and 2.) the reproduction of the existing relations of production.
1.) The reproduction of productive forces is essentially the reproduction of labor power. This is ensured by giving labor power the material means with which to reproduce itself: by wages. The quantity of value (wages) necessary for the reproduction of labor power is determined not by the needs of a 'biological' guaranteed minimum wage alone, but also by the needs of a historical minimum. This is not defined by the historical needs of the working class 'recognized' by the capitalist class, but by the historical needs imposed by the proletarian class struggle. In addition, the reproduction of labor power requires not only a reproduction of its skills, but also a reproduction of its submission to the rules of the established order. The school teaches this 'know-how' and ensures the subjection to the ruling ideology. It is in the forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labor power.
2.) The reproduction of the relations of production is carried out through Ideological State Apparatuses. Althusser reaches this conclusion through a long critique of Marx's theory of the state, which follows.
Marx divided society into an economic base and a superstructure (consisting of a politico-legal level and an ideological level). The relationship between the two is characterized as the 'determination in the last instance' by the economic base. Marx argues that there is a 'relative autonomy' of the superstructure with respect to the base, and there is a 'reciprocal action' of the base and superstructure. The problem with this formulation for understanding reproduction is that it is largely descriptive rather than theoretical. This can be seen in Marx's discussion of the state.
Marx believed that the state was a 'machine' of repression, which enabled the ruling classes to ensure their domination over the working class, thus enabling the former to subject the latter to the process of surplus-value extortion. This repressive element of the state is what Althusser calls the State Apparatus and consists of the government, the administration, the army, the police, the courts, the prisons, etc. In addition to this, the state also consists of Ideological State Apparatuses which are a number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialized institutions, such as religion, education, the family, media, culture, etc.
What is the difference between the State Apparatus (SA) and the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA)? First, there is only one SA, but a plurality of ISAs. Secondly, the SA belongs to the public domain and the ISA to the private. And most importantly, the SA functions by violence, whereas the ISA functions by ideology. The ISAs are often the site of class struggle because the class in power cannot lay down the law in the ISAs as easily as it can in the SA, not only because the former ruling classes are able to retain strong positions there for a long time, but also because the resistance of the exploited classes is able to find means and occasions to express itself there, either by the utilization of their contradictions, or by conquering combat positions in them in struggle.
Back to the question of the reproduction of the relations of production.... The reproduction of the relations of production is secured by the legal-political and ideological superstructure. It is secured by the exercise of state power in the SA and the ISAs. The role of the repressive SA consists essentially in securing by force the political conditions of the reproduction of relations of production which are in the last resort relations of exploitation. The SA also secures by repression the political conditions for the action of the ISAs. The ISAs largely secure the reproduction specifically of the relations of production, behind a 'shield' provided by the repressive SA. The ISA which has been installed in the dominant position in mature capitalist social formations as a result of a violent political and ideological class struggle against the old dominant ISA (the Church) is the educational ideological apparatus. The mechanisms which reproduce the exploitative relations of production are concealed by a universally reigning ideology of the school.
Two more theses regarding ideology:
1.) Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of
individuals to their real conditions of existence.
2.) Ideology has a material existence.
How has Althusser changed the concept of 'ideology'? The term ideas has disappeared. The terms subject, consciousness, belief, actions have survived. The terms practices, rituals, ideological apparatuses have appeared.
There is no practice except by and in an ideology. There is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects. The category of the subject is only constitutive of all ideology insofar as all ideology has the function of 'constituting' concrete individuals as subjects. Ideology interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects.
FLOYA ANTHIAS
''Connecting Race and Ethnic Phenomena''
Ethnicity and racism are different but connected discourses for articulating collectivity and belongingness and serve diverse political projects including those of class and nation building. Race categories belong to the more encompassing category of ethnic collectivity. They are mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion based on common origin and destiny. Racism cannot be located exclusively within constructs of race. They use the ethnic category more generally as their essential building block. The fight against racism cannot focus primarily on culturalist concerns because racisms are ideologies and practices which produce political and economic subordination.
The Concept of Ethnos:
Ethos is the Greek work for 'nation.' It is the social
construction of an origin as a basis for community and
collectivity (Anthias draws on Anderson's Imagined Communities).
The notion of where and how the boundary is constructed is
diverse, contextual, and relational. It involves processes of
relabelling and redesignation. The boundary is a space for
struggle and negotiation. Dominant groups exercise cultural
hegemony and naturalize their notions of 'community' with their
control of the means of communication and cultural production.
Although ethnic boundaries are ideological, they have material origins and effects. Ethnic process are centrally linked to other social divisions such as class and gender and are often implicated in the pursuit of diverse political ends.
Characteristics of ethnic phenomenon:
1.) relational: there is an attribution of difference from the
'other' and identification from within>br>
2.) political: this may be defensive or offensive,
exclusionary or usurpatory; its character is given by the
context
3.) exclusionary: ethnos specifies boundaries which involve
mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion of individuals
The Concept of Ethnicity:
Ethnicity is more than individual identification or collective
sentiment, it is the partaking of the social conditions of a
group, which is positioned in a particular way, in terms of the
social allocation of resources. Ethnicity cross-cuts gender and
class divisions but at the same time involves the positing of a
similarity and a difference that seeks to transcend these
divisions. Ethnicity may be a basis for the pursuit of
political projects which may militate against those of class.
The difference between ethnic and nationalist discourse is that national identities involve the postulate of a necessary political or territorial separation. Nationalist projects often articulate the interests of oppressed classes and it is difficult to see them as emanating from an ethnic essence . The flaw of the concept of 'institutional racism' is that racist practices can exist without these being imputed to the racist intentionality of structures.
Race and Racism:
The literature on racism tends to tie it to the postulate of
'race,' restrict it to ideology or color, or define it as
attitudes or practices exercised by white people over black
people. Anthias criticizes these positions and defines racism
as a set of postulates, images, and practices which serve to
differentiate and dominate (definition based on work by Cohen).
It is the ability to impose world views as hegemonic and is the
basis for a denial or rights or equality.
Race categorization divides populations in terms of stock or the
collective heredity of traits. Racialization is a process by
which groups become socially constructed as races.
It is important to connect the concepts of race and ethnicity.
Racism occurs when race or ethnic categorization is accompanied
by discourses and practices of inferiorization and
subordination. Racism converts culture into a static and
reified expression of the collective or national identity.
GARY BECKER
from Human Capital (Chapter 2 - 'On-the-job Training')
Human Capital: deals with activities that influence future monetary and psychic income by increasing the resources in people (obviously not news to us, but I just thought it had to be said).
One way that workers increase their productivity is by learning new skills and improving on old ones while on the job. However, future productivity (like everything in economics) can only be improved at a cost.
In the most general of conditions, a profit-maximizing (are there any other kinds for economists?) reaches equilibrium when marginal products for a given time period (MPt) equals wages for that same period (Wt). Or:
MPt = Wt
Training represents a link between present and future receipts and expenditures. In a more complex system, where training is given only during the initial period, a state of equilibrium would be reached where:
(initial MP) + (future receipts in excess of outlays) =
(initial and future wages) + (initial and future outlays on
training) +
(opportunity cost of training)
Most on-the-job training presumably increases the future marginal productivity of workers in the firms providing it (and consequently a higher rate of profit for the firm, I would suppose).
General training: increases the future marginal productivity of a worker in the firm but also in many other firms.
As far as economics goes, the big question is why a rational competitive labor market provide general training if it doesn't bring any (or at least not much) return? Answer: firms wouldn't provide general training unless they didn't have to pay any of the costs. The trainee , therefore, bears the cost of general training and the profit from the return. Employees pay for generalized training by receiving wages below their current (opportunity) productivity during the period of training. The depreciation of human capital takes the form of diminishing rates of economic return (earnings) with increasing age of the trained worker. Untrained workers, on the other hand, display a 'flat' curve.
Firms have an incentive to shift training cost to workers to avoid loosing human capital invested in a worker who moves to another firm. Conversely, the property right of the workers in their skills is the source of their incentive to invest in training and accept a temporarily reduced wage in anticipation of greater future returns.
Specific training: training that increases productivity more in the firms which provide it - having no effect on productivity or little use in other firms. Examples would be very narrow on-the-job training or firm expenditures to acquire knowledge about employee talents (provided this knowledge is not shared with other firms). Unlike general training, the cost of specific training is shouldered by rational firms, which are able to secure a rate of return on the increased productivity of its employees in excess of the training costs. In light of the threat of turnover and consequent loss of invested human capital, two general remedies are available to the firm: it may attempt to extract a sufficiently large return from increased productivity to counterbalance loss through turnover; or it may seek to stem the tide of trained workers leaving the firm by offering higher wages (than they could get elsewhere) as an incentive to stay put. In addition, there is also an incentive for a firm to avoid laying off highly (esp. specifically) trained employees - an action that would also represent a lost investment. Long-term contracts, for example, are an important tool used by employers to insure large-scale investments in human capital.
Schooling can be defined as an institution specializing in the production of training - in fact, schooling represents perhaps the most general form of training in modern society. The implications and equlibria surrounding schooling closely parallel the dynamics of general (on-the-job) training outlined above.
Investments made in information about employment opportunities would, likewise, have the same implications as generalized training and schooling (when paid for by workers) and specialized training (where the firms bear the cost and collect the returns).
DANIEL BERTAUX AND ISABELLE BERTAUX-WAIME
''Artisinal Bakery in France: How it Lives and Why it
Survives'' 1981
B&B begin by noting that Franc is unique among industrialized countries b/c it still retains a large sector of small, pre-capitalist production. This sector accounts for roughly 20% of France's population. B&B portray French bread as not just bread, but as a mode of production. French bread is a product of small, local bakeries which tend to be very small operations, usually family owned and operated. B&B claim that local bakeries have had a long, arduous struggle for existence in modern France against the large agro-industrial companies and their 'capitalist bread.'
How have bakeries been able to survive when other artisinal shops and their goods have long since lost out to capitalism? B&B argue that they survive for several reasons, the most important reason being the sheer determination of the bakers themselves, who endure unspeakably long hours with little economic reward. But it also goes beyond the daily toil. B&B describe a historical process in which bakers changed the way the French thought of bread in order to assure greater sales volume and instill a daily need for fresh-baked bread. B&B also describe the recruitment and training of the bakers.
Today, bakers are not born into baking families as they once were. Today's bakers are self-made men who are trained in the large commercial bread factories. They choose to leave jobs which are much easier in comparison to have their own shop, which only adds to their determination to survive. Another reason is the way in which the bakery is organized. The bakery , and the bread which it produces, centers around a married couple. Indeed, without marriage, B&B imply that there would be no more bakeries! The husband serves as baker, while the wife functions as shop-keeper and business manager. Many bakers are able to open their own shop only when they marry. The able, trustworthy, hard working wife is essential to the artisinal bakery. Also a factor in bakery survival is the French attitude towards bread and 'their' local baker. B&B assert that the French are able assert their independence under a capitalist regime by choosing a local baker, and that one's relations with one'sr is extremely personal. Indeed, one of the largest resources of a bakery is the goodwill and loyalty of its customers.
But now that bakeries have survived, what is their future? It does not look good. B&B claim that they do not wish to be functionalist, but, alas, they are. Bakers accept little economic reward for their labors. Fewer young men are willing to accept this as part of their occupation. Also, bakers have automated most of their process to reduce the need for manual labor. This in turn reduces the need for apprentices. Thus there are fewer apprentices and bakers in training, so the pool of potential bakers is drying up. So, essentially, the bakeries will die out b/c there will not be enough replacement bakers in the future.
This outcome disappoints B&B who argue that the by making bread, the bakers make politics. The bakers do this by embodying the values of hard work and pre-capitalist modes of production in their product. When they purchase artisinal bread, French people also buy into the symbolic value of the product, supporting the bakers and denying capitalism. Bread means more than just bread. The bakers have been successful in holding their market share against huge, capitalist corporate giants, and thus preserving an old way of life and work. When the bakeries are gone, capitalism essentially advances another step.
The last part of the article is spent in defense of B&B's research techniques and the validity and generalizability of their findings. Their data consists of 40 open, free-flowing interviews with bakers, and most of their wives. There was no survey or any statistical analysis, which would have been impractical given the data set.
Criticism: While qualitative research is not empirically undesirable, something about this study seems a little cheesy. There is no discernible method as to how respondents were picked. There is no general interview form which was carried throughout the work. Its methodology is too haphazard
MARK BLAUG
''The Empirical Status of Human Capital Theory: A Slightly
Jaundiced Survey''
Blaug does a review of work done in the Human Capital research program, which concludes that 1) human capital researchers have often failed to test their own hypotheses properly and 2) the results they have produced are often weak, or equally well justified by the theoretical explanations of other research programs. However, he thinks HC hasn't done too badly.
Some highlights:
The design of many studies fails to differentiate between
on-the-job training which is responsible for workers' increasing
earnings and their decision to take a job of lower initial pay
(that is, workers rationally choose, taking the long view, to
take jobs with lower starting salaries, where they will forgoe
present earnings while undergoing training which will increase
future earnings) and on-the-job training workers just pick up in
a learn-by-doing way, which nevertheless also increases their
future earnings? For instance, I did not rationally choose,
taking the long view, to work for Charles so that I could learn
SAS, a marketable skill. I learned SAS as an unintended
consequence of making a different kind of decision; however, I
still have a marketable skill, which could increase my earnings
(this remains to be seen...).
If it's education that makes such a big difference, why do we still find such strong effects of 'native ability' (which is linked to family background, and father's education), and what the hell is native ability anyway? (the whole iq/achievement motivation/cultural capital controversy). Human capital theory fails to address in a serious way the DEMAND by employers for certain types of employees -- it assumes it, and assumes variations in earnings are due to decisions of employees. An earnings function is a reduced function, that is, it includes effects of both supply and demand.
If it's 'human capital' accumulated in years of schooling that's important, why do we find such strong credential effect (that is, the return of 16 years of schooling (ie, a BA) is not equal to the return of 15 years of school plus the average return of one more year -- there's an effect of having a degree).
What about the fact that returns to schooling are not uniform across the market (this goes back to that demand question)? And what about the fact that quality of schooling may affect returns -- if we just measure years of schooling, we miss these effects.
Blaug sees the 'screening hypothesis,' as he calls it, as a serious threat and/or complement to human capital theory.
Self-regulating labor markets may or may not work smoothly, in the sense of keeping the demand for educated manpower continuously in line with its supply, but they will not work at all unless employers prefer more to less educated workers, ceteris paribus. The human capital research program does not provide an explanation for why employers should have this preference (it could be because of actual school-taught skills, or it could be habits and dispositions picked up in schooling).
Whatever the reason for this postulated preference on the part of employers, the fact remains that all of these desirable attributes cannot be known with certainty at the time of hiring. The employer is therefore faced with a selection problem: given the difficulties of accurately predicting the future performance of job applicants, s/he is tempted to treat educational qualifications as a screening device to distinguish new workers in terms of ability, achievement orientation, trainability, etc.
If this is the case, the observed correlation b/t earnings and length of schooling that human capital folks get so excited about is actually a correlation between schooling and the attributes that characterize trainability. The contribution of education to economic growth, therefore, is simply that of providing a selection device for employers. This leads us to the screening hypothesis, or theory of credentialism.
Credentialism predicts: Educational expansion is unlikely to have much impact on earnings differentials (that is, as more people get more education, their pay won't go up), because an increased flow of college graduates will simply promote upgrading of hiring standards. College graduates will be worse off in absolute terms, but so will high school graduates, and hence earnings differentials by education will remain more or less the same.
However, there is nothing in this argument that is incompatible with human capital theory. The question at issue is whether upgrading can be carried on indefinitely, implying that college graduates are perfect substitutes for high school graduates, and high school graduations for drop outs, and therefore that the educational system is merely an arbitrary sorting mechanism. In this version, the demand for schooling is the same as in human capital theory: screening by employers in terms of educational credentials creates an incentive on the part of employees to get what maximizes the probability of being selected, namely, an educational credential, and this signaling incentive is in fact conveyed by the private rate of return to educational investment.
If college graduates are not perfect substitutes for high school graduates, and so on down the line, it may well be that the true 'social' rate of return to educational investment is positive. In that case, credentialism amounts to a charge that HC is measuring the wrong thing: the social rate of return to educational investment is a rate of return to a particular occupational selection mechanism, and not the yield on resources invested in improving the quality of the labor force. If the difference b/t HC and cred. is discovering whether schools produce or merely identify those attributes that employers value, then the empirical evidence for distinguishing between the two would be what goes on in classrooms.
However, most of the work in the screening hypothesis mode has simply contented itself with supplying different causal explanations for facts discovered by the HC research program. Nonetheless, Blaug thinks HC theory will fade, to be swallowed up by the new theory of signaling, a theory generally about how buyers and sellers select each other when their attributes matter but when information on these attributes is subject to uncertainty.
CHARLES BOSK
''Forgive and Remember''
This is a study of how surgeons detect, categorize, and sanction error. It is a field study conducted in an elite medical institution (our beloved U of C). Bosk studied two different surgical services, one that highly emphasized research and the other that emphasized clinical practice. The hierarchy of each service consisted on 2 attendings on top who were ultimately responsible for patient care, a chief or senior resident who was responsible for the day-to-day management of the patients, second and third year residents who followed the senior residents' orders, an intern who organized the students, a senior medical student and two or three junior medical students who did the routine 'scut' work.
Methodology: While this was primarily an ethnographic study, Bosk supplemented his field notes with written evaluations of housestaff (subordinates) by attendings, faculty meetings where attendings decided to retain or terminate junior housestaff, and interviews with attendings and housestaff.
Themes of Interest:
1.) How a professional group draws a boundary around itself and
determines its own identity through the selection and rejection
or recruits.
2.) How superordinates attempt to control performance and how
subordinates accept or avoid such controls.
3.) How a professional copes with the existential problem of
the limits of his skill and knowledge.
Why Study These Things?
Bosk wanted to refine the Durkheimian insight that each
occupational group possesses its own morality. The occupational
morality of surgeons tells us much about how members of a
profession interpret, act on, and defend their prerogative of
social control.
Theoretical Foundations:
Social Control can be broken down into the following
categories:
1.) internal = how an individual or group regulates itself on
its own initiative
a.) informal = everyday ways that members of a group remind
each other of their responsibilities
b.) formal = institutional review; formal accountability
(e.g. brown bags)
2.) external = the coercive means at a community's disposal to
discipline individuals
a.) informal = random checks by superiors (e.g. the principal
who drops in on a classroom)
b.) formal = the official audit; regular, ongoing review of
performance
Other studies of social control in medicine and the professions are flawed because they take what an error is for granted. They ignore the phenomenological nature of error as a category of social life and the probabilistic nature of medical decision making.
Four Definitions of Failure:
The types of errors made by surgeons can be classified as
follows:
1.) Technical Errors = the surgeon performs his role conscientiously but his skills fall short of what the task requires. These types of errors must be speedily notices, reported, and treated and the mistakes must not be made frequently by the same person. As long as these two conditions are met, attending view technical errors as a normal part of training. They expect housestaff to learn from their mistakes. Supervision and the division of labor are expected to keep these errors at a minimum.
2.) Judgmental Errors = an incorrect strategy of treatment is chosen. These mistakes are more often made by attendings than housestaff because housestaff are not usually given such responsibility. These mistakes occur when attendings try to perform overly heroic surgery or when they fail to operate when the situation demands.
3.) Normative errors = the surgeon has failed to discharge his
role obligations conscientiously. These are almost exclusively
subordinate errors. The housestaff's conduct violates the
working understanding on which action rests. These are breaches
of etiquette governing role relations. The most common of these
errors are:
a.) breaking the 'no surprises' rule;
b.) the inability to get along with nursing staff; and
c.) the inability to secure cooperation of patients and
families.
Normative performance is judged severely because it is seen as
an indicator of honesty and responsibility.
4.) Quasi-normative Errors = eccentric and attending-specific
breaches of standards of performance. These errors indicate
that a surgeon is not a responsible member of a team.
Other errors occur due to exogenous factors. These reasons for
failure do not implicate the competence of the surgeon in any
direct way. The most common of these factors are:
a.) failure from disease
b.) patient procrastination or noncooperation
c.) nursing and support staff error
d.) machine malfunction
Routine Surveillance as Social Control:
Rounds are the major mode of social control and also the least
public. There are three kinds of rounds:
1.) Work Rounds: this is the method for organizing work,
allocating effort, and checking progress. It is carried out by
the subordinates alone. Denying responsibility or knowledge for
affairs on rounds shows disinterest in clinical care. Work
rounds are a method for subordinates to protect themselves as a
corporate group.
2.) Chart Rounds: a review of the patient medical records.
This is used mainly to monitor the performance of students.
3.) Attending Rounds: a way for attendings to see patients and
check the work of subordinates. The zone of autonomy that
surrounds subordinates is 'elastic,' that is, the monitoring of
the attendings covaries with the performance of the housestaff.
Three Important Dimensions of Rounds:
1.) Tension between clinical experience and scientific
reasoning: attendings stress clinical expertise. It is a claim
of authority. The attending constructs the binding
interpretation of reality.
2.) The questioning process: an attempt to establish to what
order subordinate performance belongs. Subordinates must know
the facts of the case (the 'what' questions) and the mode of
treatment (the 'why' questions).
3.) The horror story: these are an element of the oral culture
of medicine that reminds all that healing is a difficult
business and must be done with care. It helps mitigate the
tensions of surgical training.
The Legitimation of Attending Authority:
Conclusion: Forgiveness and punishment are the poles of a
continuum on which responses to deviant acts can be arrayed.
Both are necessary if a group is to sustain a distinct identity
and boundaries. Corporate vs. Individual Self Control: Bosk
distinguishes between professional-self control and professional
self-control. Professional-self control is the individual
professional's ability to handle responsibility. Professional
self-control is the corporate responsibility of the profession
to regulate its own internal affairs. In the professions there
is a hypertrophy of professional-self control and an atrophy of
professional self-control. Adequate controls in the profession
exist only to the degree that a corporate moral sense is
cultivated equal to the individual moral sense.
BOWLES AND GINTIS:
CHAPTERS 1 & 2
B&G engage in a lengthy analysis of the education system in
modern capitalist society (ie the US), faulting liberal
educational theory for its failure to recognize the position of
the educational system with respect to broader social
institutions, namely the economy. They believe that the future
of educational theory must be tied in with a 'comprehensive
intellectual reconstruction of the role of education in economic
life,' which in their work takes the form of Marxist analysis.
What school does is prepare youth psychologically for work, a
function which they believe employers are not unaware, nor have
they refrained from applying considerable political influence in
order to have the educational system produce the kinds of
workers they want. B&G root their model on classic tenets of
Marxism that would make little sense to repeat here. They
believe that education plays a dual role in the social
production of surplus value:
Several major implications follow from this model of
education:
B&G believe that past attempts at educational reform have failed
because they refuse to call into question the basic structure of
property and power in economic life. B&G believe that the key
to reform is the democratization of economic relationships:
social ownership - thus educational reform is linked to the
grand scheme of Marxist solutions, namely -socialism. Despite
the fact that education has often been used as a central
instrument of liberal reformers, the range of effective
educational policy (in the US) has been severely limited by the
role of schooling in the production of an adequate labor force
in a hierarchically controlled and class-structured production
system.
In the eyes of most liberal reformers, education has three
functions:
B&G outline what they believe to be the two dominant traditions
of liberal educational theory:
B&G believe that the politics of education are best understood
in terms of the need for social control in an unequal and
rapidly changing economic order - by providing a means to
integrate 'uncouth and dangerous' elements (among others) into
the social fabric of American life. Thus education serves to
preserve and extent the capitalist order - which consistently
provides disproportional advantage to the dominant class.
B&G cite the existence of a dramatic inequality in years of
schooling among those of different social backgrounds - the
higher the SES, the higher the level of educational attainment
(race and sex are also seen as important variables here). B&G
also cite evidence suggesting that the differences observed are
not based on IQ. The theme of social control pervades
educational thought and policy even up to the present and still
remains an overriding objective. The power of schooling has
traditionally often been invoked to reinforce the moral training
of the family or to compensate for a lack of family nurture.
B&G note two significant trends that have occurred with respect
to the concept of discipline: 1) the once highly personalized
authority of the teacher has become part of the bureaucratic
structure of modern society; and 2) discipline no longer aims
at just (forced) compliance but more on 'behavioral
modification' - internalization of behavioral norms.
In examining school grading, B&G find that (issues of IQ aside)
a variety of personality variables were significantly and
positively related to grades (eg. Citizenship and Drive to
Achieve). People high on these two measures also tend to
display low levels of creativity and mental flexibility - traits
which are directly penalized with respect to grades.
The authors believe that the oppressiveness of the educational
system cannot be attributed merely to oversight, indifference,
or stupidity. Rather, the 'business methods' in schools meant
that administrators were recruited from the ranks of politicians
and businessmen rather than professional educators, so that
their orientation was toward cost-savings and control rather
than the quality of education. Thus the educational system came
to even more strongly reflect the hierarchy of authority and
privilege in the capitalist system.
In wrapping up this section, B&G state that the failure of
progressive educational reforms stems from the contradictory
nature of the objectives of its integrative, egalitarian, and
developmental functions in a society whose economic life is
governed by the institutions of corporate capitalism.
CHAPTER 3: The Root of the Problem: The Capitalist Economy
B&G state that 'the economy produces people' and view the
production of commodities as more of a secondary concern. Their
critique of the capitalist economy (a Marxian one) furthers
their analysis of education insofar as schooling is a crucial
people-producing process. One important observation that they
stress is the diametrically opposed natures of the (US)
political and economic systems:
The Political System is democratic; and its central problems
are:
The Economic System, on the other hand, is totalitarian, and its
main concerns are:
In the interest of not beating a dead horse, suffice it to say
that B&G adopt a very straight (orthodox?) Marxist position
regarding capitalism: alienation, reserve army of labor,
ideologies, state serving the interest of the economic elite -
the whole nine yards. As far as education goes, they suggest
that major aspects of the structure of schooling can be
understood in terms of the systemic needs for producing reserve
armies of skilled labor, legitimating, the
technocratic-meritocratic perspective, reinforcing the
fragmentation of groups of workers into stratified status
groups, and accustoming youth to the social relationships of
dominance and subordinacy in the economic system. (trans: the
student body is the proletariat in training).
Private ownership of the means of production and a market in
labor are the most distinctive (and mutually reinforcing)
characteristics of the capitalist economy. Owners of the means
of production gain tremendous power in situations where there is
a large abundance of workers with only their labor to sell and
absence of alternative sources of livelihood (like the US). A
necessary step in determining how education can prepare people
for working in the capitalist economy involves characterizing
the social relations of work. B&G make several observations:
Since the combined corporate and state sectors employ about 2/3
of all paid workers and are growing at a much faster rate than
the labor force as a whole, the contemporary trend in employment
points toward increasing dominance of bureaucratically ordered
workplaces. Workplaces where regulations are promulgated by
management and decision-making and accountability are organized
according to the hierarchical division of labor.
B&G outline the history of economic development: from
share-cropping and the putting-out system, to the rise of
entrepreneurial capital in the early 19th cent., emergence of
the factory system and increasing dominance of large-scale
manufacture, and the corporate consolidation from 1890-1920.
Each step was characterized by increasing intervention into and
control over the actual production process by the capitalist (of
her/his representatives). Linking the economy to education, B&G
suggest that the birth of the factory system fueled the 19C
common-school movement which molded mass primary education,
while the rise of the corporate economy fostered the 20C
Progressive Movement which lent modern secondary education its
characteristic stamp.
Although the overall development of the capitalist economy
points toward a dual tendency of horizontal extension of the
wage labor system and production for profit, and an increasingly
sophisticated deepening of hierarchical mechanisms of control,
this process was neither complete nor uniform. This unevenness
took shape as rapid growth in the corporate and state sectors
and stagnation in the spheres if independent, entrepreneurial,
and household production led to an unequally distributed
ownership of capital and the associated inequalities in both
political power and access to economically relevant information.
Superiority of resources accumulated in large enterprises
afforded superior market power, more complex organization and
planning, use of capital-heavy technology, and a stronghold in
government that allowed the big firms to drive out small-scale
opposition.
Parallel to (and partially a result of) this uneven development
of the corporate sector is the uneven development of the
capitalist work force. Groups with distinctive social class,
racial, ethnic, and sexual characteristics have been
historically drawn into the US labor force in successive
'waves.' For instance consecutive waves on new ethnic
immigration provided a series of new recruits to fill the lowest
occupational slots in the labor hierarchy. This uneven
development leads naturally to the segmentation of workers into
distinct groups based on their unique historical experiences in
the process of integration into the capitalist economy, based on
the relative power they have attained in various sectors, on
their relative social, racial, ethnic, and sexual cohesiveness,
as well as on their differential treatment by employers. The
primary segment: predominantly located in the corporate and
state sectors; jobs characterized by high wages and job
security (possibly through union influence); bureaucratic order
and hierarchical division of labor is the rule; education and
credentials are important. The secondary segment: low wages,
great employment instability and turnover, little unionization;
job ladders are few and short; educational credentials are not
important for job entry, nor is rate of pay usually based on
skill and training.
What about Class? Class is a group of individuals who relate to
the production process in similar ways - property relations and
relations of control are key. Classes are important because in
US society people do not relate to each other as individuals
alone, but also as groups. It is important to remember,
however, that classes are not homogenous but rather display
significant within-class stratification.
Aside from material satisfaction, functions of work include:
economic security of the worker, social relationships among
workers and most importantly development of the human
potentialities of the worker as a social being, a creator, and a
master of nature (this is very early-Marx). B&G content that
the segmentation and differentiation of the labor force causes
different individuals to have different experiences in
production, such that they develop distinct cultures, life
styles, interest, and ideologies. Social stratification and
fragmentation of the working class are, therefore, intimately
related to the experience of individuals in production. The
authors offer evidence of this strong effect of work on all
aspects of life: occupational status and job satisfaction are
related to physical and mental health, as well as longevity;
work experience is closely tied to type and amount of leisure
activity.
And being the good Marxists that B&G are, this section wouldn't
be complete without bring up the prevalence of the alienation of
labor - not surprising in a socio-economic system where 'most
people view their jobs as, at best, a painful necessity.'
Work, Power, and Technology
B&G also address other 'fallacies' about the advances of the
modern economy:
Bad Capitalists say... Good Bowles and Gintis say...
BD: Fragmentation and routinization of jobs lends, in itself,
to increased productivity despite its deleterious effect on
worker satisfaction
No other known form of work organization is more productive
than the hierarchical division of labor. (I'm not sure what the
authors' point here was aside from the fact that the bad
capitalists had to be wrong)
In fact, the factory system emerged as the dominant form of
production because it was an effective form of economic and
social control. The factory system: 1) prevents the individual
workers from gaining enough knowledge about the process to go
into business for themselves, and 2) provides legitimation for
the employer as the coordinator of the production process. The
factory system did win out on technical grounds in the end, but
only because: capitalist producers had the large amounts of
financial resources necessary to make use of the new technology;
only large firms with political clout could assure inventors of
patent protection for innovations; and inventors allied with
capitalist partners or went into business for themselves.
Employers have 3 objectives to keep in mind when pursuing profit
and the perpetuation of their class status:
The right of the superior to direct must be based on generally
held cultural values - often sexual or racial stereotypes, or
credentialing. All in all, the hierarchical division of labor
maximizes the control of management, increases the
accountability of workers by fragmenting jobs and
responsibility, and thwarts development of stable coalitions
among workers.
Structure of Economic Inequality
To further promote a picture of an institutional basis of
inequality, B&G suggest that an over-emphasis on wage/salary
disparity obscures the importance of other aspects of income
such as rent, interest, dividends, profits, capital gains, and
other benefits of owning property which account for over half of
the inequality.
B&G feel that among the most important attributes that serve as
occupational 'entrance requirements' in the US are traits
acquired at birth and traits acquired through personal
development. Given the over-riding concern for profitability
(and for the owner perpetuation of class status) in the
capitalist economy, several worker characteristics are likely to
be used by employers:
In general, B&G feel that the individual employer, acting
singly, normally accepts social values and belief and will
violate them only in the interest of long-term financial
benefits. The broader prejudices of society are used as a
resource by employers in their efforts to control labor. In
this way, the pursuit of profits and security of class position
reinforces racist, sexist, and credentialist forms of status
consciousness. Empirical findings suggest several characteristic
of the relation between education (also training) and
occupational advantage. Education and training work most
effectively in improving economic situation for those who are
already economically advantaged - ie. have high status in the
economic hierarchy. Next, among 'workers' return to schooling
is virtually the same for men and women, whites and blacks.
Further, the economic return to schooling depends on class of
origin as well as present class status. Finally, an increase in
earnings with advancing age is positively related to: being
white and/or male; higher levels of education; relative high
hierarchical occupational location. Empirical findings also
suggest that age significantly affects income independently of
job tenure.
CHAPTER 4: Education, Inequality, and the Meritocracy
Continuing the analysis of the previous chapter, B&G here
introduce the 'legitimation hypothesis,' which suggests that a
major element in the integrative function of education is the
legitimation of preexisting economic disparities. The
educational system legitimated economic inequality by providing
an open, objective, and ostensibly meritocratic mechanism for
assigning individuals to unequal economic positions. It fosters
and reinforces the belief that economic success depends
essentially on the possession of technical and cognitive skills
- skills which it is organized to provide in an efficient,
equitable, and unbiased manner on the basis of the meritocratic
principle. In US economic life, legitimation has been
intimately bound up with the technocratic-meritocratic ideology,
the hallmark of which is the reduction of a complex web of
social relationships in production to a few rules of
technological efficiency. The robustness of this meritocratic
ideology derives largely from its incorporation into an array of
major social institutions - including factories, government, and
schools.
The linking of technical skills to economic success indirectly
via the educational system strengthens, rather than weakens, the
legitimation process:
So, through competition, success, and defeat in the classroom,
students are reconciled to their social positions. B&G make the
point that according to the meritocratic ideal, with the
objective of social efficiency, admissions on the basis of test
scores and other measures of performance should be justified by
the fact that 'smart' people benefit more from college - in
terms of increasing cognitive capacities, earnings abilities,
and productivity. Evidence, however, points to quite a
different reality - return to higher education is independent of
prior test scores. The authors wish to stress that the
meritocratic orientation of higher education, rather than
serving economic rationality, is actually a facade that
facilitates the stratification of the labor force.
Education, Income, and Cognitive Attainment:
Education, in effect mitigates indirect effects between:
1) socioeconomic background and adult income/occupational
status, and 2) childhood IQ and adult IQ. B&G's argument is
that the mental-skill demands of work are sufficiently limited,
the skills produced by our educational system sufficiently
varied, and the possibilities for acquiring additional skills on
the job sufficiently great so that skill differences among
individuals who are acceptable for a given job on the basis of
their criteria (including race, sex, personality, and
credentials) are of little economic importance. Ie. skills are
not as important as you think they are, and selection for hiring
may well be made in the end on the basis of some other criteria.
IQism:
CHAPTER 5: Education and Personal Development
In this chapter B&G ''suggest that major aspects of educational
organization replicate the relationships of dominance and
subordinancy in the economic sphere. The correspondence between
the social relation of school and work accounts for the ability
of the educational system to produce an amenable and fragmented
labor force. The experience of schooling and not merely the
content of formal learning is central to this process.'' If
this sounds familiar, it probably should since B&G pretty much
make about one or two points over and over and over and over
again over the course of the reading.
Reproducing Consciousness
The reproduction of the social relations of depends on the
reproduction of consciousness, the key concern being how it is
that people come to accept their present economic and social
conditions. B&G believe that the economic system (ie. social
relations of production) will be embraced when:
Through a variety of institutional relationships, the
educational system tailors the self-concepts, aspirations, and
social class identifications of individuals to the requirements
of the social division of labor. The two main objectives of the
dominant classes in educational policy are the production of
labor power and the reproduction of those institutions and
social relationships which facilitate the translation of labor
power into profits.
Educational institutions are structured to meet these objectives
in several ways:
All major institutions (including education) in a 'stable'
social system will direct personal development in a direction
compatible with its reproduction. The forms of consciousness
and behavior fostered by the educational system, therefore, must
themselves be alienate, in the sense that they conform neither
to the dictates of technology in the struggle with nature, nor
to the inherent developmental capacities of the individual, but
rather to the needs of the capitalist class.
The Correspondence Principle
The differences in the social relationships among and within
schools, in part, reflects both the social background of the
student body and their likely future economic positions. For
example working class (and minority) parents seem to favor
stricter educational methods, as a reflection of their own work
experiences which have demonstrated that submission to authority
is an essential ingredient in one's ability to get and hold a
steady job.
A study by Binstock isolated several organizational traits
consistently related to various educational institutions:
behavior control (strict rules and external compliance) v.
motivational control (unspecified, variable, flexible task
orientation - internalized norms) leader v. follower orientation
In re-examining the results of studies by Meyer and Edwards, B&G
stress the importance of 'personality factors' (eg. submission
to authority, temperament, and internalized control) along with
standard meritocratic measures of cognitive performance (eg.
the SAT) in predicting educational achievement (grade-point
average). Submission to authority, in particular proved to be a
relatively strong predictor of grades. Internalized control
showed considerably less and temperament showed no predictive
utility for grades.
B&G also cite the work of Brenner, who identifies a significant
correlation between grades and all measures of supervisor
evaluation. After reanalyzing the data and performing various
statistical manipulations (ie. controls), B&G find that grades
no power to predict either worker conduct or worker
productivity. This leads to two conclusions: 1) grades predict
job adequacy only through their noncognitive component, and 2)
teachers' evaluations of behavior in the classroom are
strikingly similar to supervisors' ratings of behavior on the
job.
Family Structure and Job Structure
The experiences of parents on the job tend to be reflected in
the social relations of family life - the family socialization
through which children tend to acquire orientations toward work,
aspirations, and self concepts, preparing them for similar
economic positions themselves. In addition, the family helps to
reproduce the sexual division of labor: 1) wives and mothers
normally embrace their self-concepts as houseworkers, passing
these onto their children through the differential sex
role-typing of boys and girls within the family, and 2)
children tend to develop self-concepts bases on the sexual
divisions which they observe around them. The male-dominated
family with its characteristically age-graded patterns of
privilege and power, replicates many of the aspects of the
hierarchy of production the firm.
Kohn suggests that individuals holding higher- and lower-status
jobs value different personality traits and aspects of the job,
on the basis of the variable degree of occupational
self-direction (including freedom from close supervision, degree
of initiative and independent judgment, and complexity and
variety of a job) among workers. B&G - never ones to leave
well enough alone - see it differently. They thing the Kohn's
'self-direction' is the same as their 'internalized norms.'
Even high status workers (who should exercise a considerable
degree of 'self-direction') are probably super-socialized so as
to internalize authority and act without direct and continuous
supervision to implement goals and objectives relatively
alienated from their own personal needs.
Returning to the well, yet again, B&G use Kohn's findings - that
higher-status parents emphasize their children's self-direction,
while working class parents stress conformity to external
authority - to support their thesis that correspondence between
the relations of economic production and the social relations of
various institutions is indicative of a process whereby
individuals are prepared to take their appropriate place in the
unequal hierarchical division of labor, which they nevertheless
come to view as legitimate. You know what they say, 'You can
lead a dead horse to water but ...
As a final note on B&G. They are very anxious to portray a view
of economic and educational processes that jives with the
particular (Marxist) programme they are seeking to promote.
While the development of a Marxist perspective on education is
certainly something valuable, i.m.h.o. B&G tend to overstate
their points and present 'reanalyzed' empirical findings that
seem to be quite selectively chosen. And as I mentioned
earlier, it seems to me that some of their manipulations of data
are not quite kosher, but I'm not sure I can exactly put my
finger on all of it since I had a hard time at points trying to
figure out just what they were trying to do with their data.
For example, it looked like at one point they were trying to
show that IQ didn't have an effect on grades by taking the top
decile (or something like that) in grades and controlling for IQ
in this group. They said there was no significant independent
effect of intelligence - duh! Maybe it's just me, but it would
seem like there shouldn't be a whole lot of variation in
intelligence among just those with top grades (or any within any
other similarly narrow category). Also, in the portions of the
readings where they deal with correspondence between the
relations of production and those of other social institutions,
B&G basically stick to a pretty straight correspondence
argument. They don't go very far in outlining a causal argument
to help explain the correspondence effect - I think that would
have make their positions more convincing.
G.A. COHEN
1. Ownership rights in productive forces.
The economic structure of a society is the whole set of its
production relations. Production relations are relations of
effective power over persons and productive forces, not
relations of legal ownership. But is it is convenient to
represent production relations as relations of ownership.
Want to explore some the features of the concept of ownership?
Do let's.
There is a difference between partly owning something, and
owning part of it.
The last three conditions of my couch ownership are difficult to
discriminate between in practice.
Since we're Marxists, let's extend this discussion to labor
power, where it is more interesting. Let's also collapse our
categories so that they look like this: 1=X owns all of o; 2,3
or 4=X owns some of o; if none of conditions 1-4 hold, then X
owns none of o.
Then, let's assume everyone in the world is male, and make a
table of immediate producers like this one:
TABLE 1
This Guy Owns ... of His Labor Power ... of The Means ofProduction
Slave . . . . . . . . None, zippo, . . . . . . . . zilch nada
Table 1 leaves out five combos of ownership of one's labor power
and the means of production, so let's make...
TABLE 2
Type . . . Labor Power . . . .MOP
1 . . . . . . . nada . . . . . . all
1. doesn't make any sense, because if X is the sole owner of all
the MOP he uses, he is entitled to use them without the
direction or interference of another person. But, 1. also
states that X has no authority over the disposition of his own
labor power. Given that this guy owns no labor power, he cannot
own all of his means of production.
2. also is impossible, because you can't have unrestricted
enjoyment of means of production if your labor power is even
partly owned by another.
3. is a case where a slave retains some rights to his MOP; for
instance, he may be able to sell or lease them.
4. is a possible transition between a serf and a proletarian,
covering serfs who have lost their land (MOP) yet retained some
of their traditional duties.
5. is the case of a proletarian who owns some of the MOP, or an
independent artisan or peasant who does not own all of them.
Now, Table 1 purports to distinguish between slaves, serfs and
prols within the category of subordinate producers. But, while
the slave and serf cells are sufficient to be a sub prod, a
person can still own his labor power and none of the MOP and NOT
be a subordinate producer: for instance top-salaried architects.
What is a subordinate producer then?
Subordination
The proletarian's subordination ensues because, lacking the MOP,
he can ensure his survival only by contracting with a capitalist
whose bargaining position enables him to impose terms which
effect the worker's subordination.
Even if a worker owns some of the MOP, he can't be an
independent producers unless they are means of production he can
use outside of subordination to a capitalist to produce enough
to live. Lack of means of production is not so essential to the
definition of a prol as is the fact that he has to sell his
labor power in order to obtain his means of life.
This is the proper way to set up the definition of a
proletarian, because it defines the class with reference to the
position of its members in the economic structure, their
effective rights and duties within it. A person's class is
established by nothing other than his objective place in the
network of ownership relations, however difficult it may be to
identify such places neatly.
There are as many types of economic structure are there are
kinds of relations of immediate producers to productive forces.
Social forms (eg, socialism, capitalism, slavery) are
distinguished and unified by their types of economic structure,
as individuated by the production relations dominant within them.
A mode of production is a way of producing. There are three
senses, the material mode, the social mode, and the mixed mode
i) the material mode. This is the way men work with their
productive forces, the kinds of material processes they set in
train, the forms of specialization and division of labor among
them. There is a change in the economic MOP when enclosed
fields replace strip farming, when power looms succeed
handlooms, etc. Here mode means nearly the same as
'technique.'
ii) The social mode. The social properties of the production
process have three dimensions:
iii) The mixed mode.. that's when Marx used the term mode of
production in a comprehensive fashion, to denote both matrial
and social properties of the way production proceeds, its
'entire technical and social configuration.' ??
GARY G. HAMILTON and NICOLE WOOLSEY BIGGART
H & B look at 3 approaches to explaining the industrial
arrangements and strategies of 3 rapidly developing countries:
S. Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
There are some aspects of the economic development of these
countries which are similar:- their economic success is fueled
by exports- they have few natural, especially mineral,
resources- they are dependent on industry for wealth- they are
intertwined historically and culturally. Despite these
similarities, they have different forms of firm organization.
Following Granovetter, H & B argue that in each country the firm
is 'embedded' in networks of institutionalized relationships and
these networks have a direct effect on the types of firms that
develop, the management of the firms, and general organizational
strategies.
Types of Firms in Each Country:
The Market Explanation: (Alfred D. Chandler and Oliver E.
Williamson)
The Cultural Explanation:
The Authority Approach:
South Korea follows a strong state model whereby the state
actively participates in the public and private spheres of the
economy. This type of structure arose out of a time of crisis
(war) for the country.
Japan has a strong intermediary power model where the state
coordinates the activities of the intermarket groups of large
firms. This system arose because of the presence of the emperor
who is the symbol of political unity.
Taiwan has a strong society model which allows familial patterns
to shape the course of industrialization. This coincides with
the overall state policy to limit participation in the private
sector, especially people's economic livelihood.
The authority explanation has historical and structural
adequacy. Economic and cultural factors are important in
understanding growth of markets and economic enterprise, but the
form or structure is better understood by patterns of authority
relations in society.
HEIDI HARTMANN
Marxist analysis provides insight into the laws of historical
development, but Marxist categories are sex blind. Only a
feminist analysis reveals the systemic character of relations
between men and women, but feminist theory has been blind to
history and insufficiently materialist.
Marxism and the Woman Question:
Early Marxists: Engels argued that women were not oppressed
within the proletariat. Women's participation in the labor
force was the key to their emancipation. This early perspective
failed to recognize the difference between women and men's
experiences under capitalism and that men had a vested interest
in women's subordination.
The 'Everyday Life' School: All aspects of our lives are seen
to reproduce the capitalist system. Zaretsky argued that women
labor for capital and not for men. The separation of home from
workplace and the privatization of housework creates the
appearance that women work for men. Capitalism causes the
division of private and public lives and the end of capitalism
will end the oppression of both men and women. This view denies
the importance of inequality between men and women and argues
that division not inequality is the main problem.
Marxist feminism: These theorists subsumed the feminist
struggle into the struggle against capital. For example, Della
Costa argued that housework perpetuates male supremacy and
maintains patriarchy. Women should demand wages for housework
thereby making themselves products of surplus value and part of
the working class.
These three approaches fail to analyze the labor process within
the family sufficiently. They understand women's oppression as
another aspect of class oppression. They fail to recognize that
men have a material interest in women's oppression. Marxism
enables us to understand the structure of production, the
generation of a particular occupational structure, and the
nature of the dominant ideology, but it is a theory of 'empty
places.' The categories of class are sex-blind, they do not
explain why particular people fill particular places.
Towards a More Useful Marxist Feminism:
Towards a Definition of Patriarchy:
Patriarchy is a form of sex/gender system. According to Rubin,
a sex/gender system is the set of arrangements by which a
society transforms biological sexuality into products of human
activity and in which these transformed sexual needs are
satisfied. Our current sex/gender system is a patriarchy
because it is a hierarchy of male dominance. Capitalism creates
the places for a hierarchy of workers, but does not determine
who will fill which places. Gender and racial hierarchies
determine who fills the places.
The Partnership of Patriarchy and Capital:
Toward a More Progressive Union:
A struggle to establish socialism must be a struggle in which
groups with different interests form an alliance. The sexual
division of labor within capitalism has given women a practice
in which they have learned to understand what human
interdependence and needs are. While men have long struggled
against capital, women know what to struggle for.
ARLIE HOCHSCHLD
As we know, The Managed Heart deals with flight attendant and
certain aspects of their work experiences. AH is particularly
struck by the fact that with flight attendants (FAs), the
emotional style of offering the service is part of the service
itself - FAs have to appear to love their jobs. In addition to
the physical and mental work involved, AH introduces the term
emotional labor as one of the key points of her analysis.
Emotional Labor is the management of feelings to create a
publicly observable facial and bodily display; and since it is
sold for a wage, it has exchange value. Emotional work (or
management) are terms used to refer to emotional labor when it
takes place in a private context and carries use value. FA is
an ideal example of this kind of labor, since it requires one to
induce or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward
countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others.
The cost of emotional work to the laborer, however, is possible
alienation or estrangement from the aspect of the self used to
do the work. AH relates her analysis in the book to three
relevant discourses:
AH considers emotion work not as simply a private phenomenon,
but also in a social/relational context. For instance, she
introduces the concept of gift exchange, suggesting that acts of
emotional management are not just private acts but are used as
exchange in relationships under guidance of feeling rules.
Feeling rules are standards used in emotional conversation to
determine what is rightly owed and owing in the currency of
feeling (emotional capital? - as if we needed another kind of
capital). We recognize a feeling rule by inspecting how we
assess our feelings, how other people assess our emotional
displays, and by sanctions issuing from ourselves and from
others. These rules and the rule reminders by which they are
recognized vary from group to group. Since there are both gender
and class patterns to the civic and commercial use of human
feelings, AH believes that this constitutes a relevant
sociological topic. pIn fact, she thinks that a social role is
partly a way of describing what feelings people think are owed
and are owing.
Display is a natural result of working on feeling. AH
identifies two kinds of acting: Surface Acting: is just what it
sounds like. People manage their outward appearance, so it is
physical not actual emotional manipulation. It is a simulation
of emotional affect. Deep Acting: can be done either by
directly exhorting feeling or by making indirect use of a
trained imagination. This involves emotion memory which AH
treats in a noun-like fashion, as something that a person has.
Feelings are objects that can be manipulated. Memories must
seem real now, so actors believe that an imagined happening is
really happening now. We can see examples of deep acting in
every day life when we try to stir up a feeling we wish we had
or to block/weaken a feeling we wish we did not have. FA's have
to do both at work, which makes it like emotional overtime.
AH makes extensive allusions to the theatre to explain how
emotional labor works. Along these lines, she talks about a
personal stage with personal props used in deep acting (and
surface acting too, I suppose). So, the status or degree of
'realness' of a feeling in part depends on the context - and can
be manipulated by using 'props.'
Institutional emotional management:
Misfitting Feelings:
AH talks about 'psychological bowing' which I believe is
supposed to refer to a unit or instance of emotional exchange,
where feeling rules provide the baseline for such an exchange.
She identifies two general types of exchange:
Both types of exchange presuppose a number of ways to pay
psychological dues. For example, we may simply feign the owed
feeling, sometimes without intending to succeed; or we may offer
the greater gift of trying to amplify a real feeling that we
already have; or we may try to reframe an event and offer
ourselves for the moment reconstituted by successful deep
acting. Spontaneous feeling here becomes a choice of what
gestures to make. Nonpayment or antipayment are negative
responses. Guilt or worry acts as a promissory not - upholding
the feeling rules for the person. Pretending is a statement of
deference to another, an offering. Tribute is an offering of
feeling so generous that it actually transforms a person's mood
and thoughts to match what others would like to see. Aside from
psychological bowing, the medium of emotional gift exchange may
be used to maintain reciprocity. Such a relation may be between
equals or there may be a status relation with respect to claim
to emotional reward.
Emotional dissonance (analogous to cognitive dissonance) is the
strain that results from maintaining a separation between
feeling and display over an extended period of time. The
commodification of feeling (through emotional work) in the case
of the FA's has a number of consequences: sexualization of the
work role (catering primarily to a male business class
passenger), emphasis on appearance (physical and emotional
display), and a sense of dispensability and dependence on the
company.
To be 'professional' in the context of FA's refers to mastery of
a body of knowledge that allows them to accept and adhere to
rules of standardization dealing with appearance, behavior,
attitude, etc. Part of the blurring of feeling and display is
the appeal (by the company) for FA's to think of the plane cabin
(where she works) as their home (where she does not work) and of
the passengers as guests (or family). As a result anger must be
suppressed and blame on passengers redirected away from them.
Suppression of 'negative' feelings is made more difficult by
other problematic work conditions: crew size, exclusion of
blacks and men from FA staff, institutionalized sexism, medical
problems related to the job, and the company's anti-union
position.
One possible solution is collective emotional management (this
is basically analogous to dealing with the prelim by sitting
around and bitching about it and the department). Such team
solidarity (as seen in banter, joking, etc.) can improve morale,
but it can also strengthen grudges against the company or
passengers. Emotional management is accomplished by
transmutation (private to public) in three basic elements of
emotional life:
The cost of this process is that the worker must give up control
over how work is to be done. Emotional response to a situation
is dictated by S.O.P. from up the hierarchy. The general source
of stress is the task of managing estrangement between self and
feelings and between self and display. People who do emotional
work for a living share three dilemmas that other kinds of
workers do not:
1) How to identify with your work role and with the company
without being fused with them:
2) How to use deep acting capacities when you are disconnected
from those you are acting for.
When feelings are successfully commercialized, the worker does
not feel phony or alien; s/he feels somehow satisfied in how
personal her/his service actually was. Deep acting is a help in
doing this, not a source of estrangement. But when
commercialization of feelings as a general process collapses
into its separate elements, display becomes hollow and emotional
labor is withdrawn.
FREDRIC JAMESON
In this essay, Jameson lays out the differences in culture
between the modern and postmodern periods. He also devotes a
lot of time to the effects of these changes on the individual.
Jameson is concerned with the cultural expressions and
aesthetics associated with the different systems of production.
He is not interested in a mechanism of change. This is a
primarily descriptive article.
Jameson draws on the fields of architecture, art and other
culturally expressive forms to illustrate his arguments. The
heaviest emphasis is placed on architecture. It is essential
to grasp postmodernism as discussed here not as a style, but
as a dominant cultural form indicative of late capitalism.
Postmodernism is differentiated from other cultural forms by its
emphasis on fragmentation. Fragmentation of the subject
replaces the alienation of the subject which characterized
modernism. Postmodernism is concerned with all surface, no
substance. There is a loss of the center. Postmodernist
works are often characterized by a lack of depth, a flatness.
Individuals are no longer anomic, because there is nothing from
which one can sever ties. The liberation from the anxiety
which characterized anomie may also mean a liberation from every
other kind of feeling as well. This is not to say that the
cultural products of the postmodern era are utterly devoid of
feeling, but rather that such feelings are now free-floating and
impersonal.
Also distinctive of the late capitalist age is its focus on
commodification and the recycling of old images and commodities.
A prime example of this is Warhol's work, as well as Warhol
himself. Jameson refers to this cultural recycling as
historicism - the random cannibalization of all styles of the
past. It is an increasing primacy of the 'neo' and a world
transformed into sheer images of itself. the actual organic tie
of history to past events is being lost.
All of these cultural forms are indicative of postmodernism,
late capitalism, or what Jameson calls 'present-day
multinational capitalism.' (Yessirree, Jameson is a Marxist.)
Jameson claims that there has been a radical shift in our
surrounding material world and the ways in which it works. He
refers to an architectural example, a postmodern building
Symbolic of the multinational world space which we function in
daily. We, the human subjects who occupy this new space have
not kept pace with the evolution which produced it. There has
been a mutation in the object, unaccompanied as yet by an
equivalent mutation in the subject; we do not yet possesses the
perceptual equipment to match this new hyperspace. Therein lies
the source of our fragmentation as individuals.
This latest mutation in space, postmodern hyperspace, (the
Bonaventua hotel is the example) has finally succeeded in
transcending the capacities of the individual human body to
locate itself, to organize its immediate surroundings
perceptually, and cognitively to map its position in a mappable
external world. This is the symbol and analougue of our
inability at present to map the great global multinational and
decentered communicational network in which we find ourselves
caught as individual subjects. We are now a world where
spatial differentiation is more important than temporal
differentiation, which was dominant in past eras. Late
capitalism aspires to a total space, a vastness of scale
heretofore unknown.
Attendings transform the private troubles that housestaff create
for them into public issues in the Grand rounds and
Mortality/Morbidity Conferences. Through these, attendings
justify their claims to authority by public displays of
virtuosity to the entire collegium of subordinates and
superordinates. These are very carefully staged presentations
of the self. Attendings must account for discrepancies between
expectations and outcomes. Unexpected successes are accounted
for in Grand Rounds. These assure peer recognition of work and
are essentially an ego boost. Attendings also model for
subordinates the proper way to behave as part of the medical
elite. Unexpected failures are accounted for in the
Mortality/Morbidity Conferences. These are the only occasions
for public and open criticism of attendings' work. The reasons
for failure that are presented are all formal and technical (no
normative errors are admitted). Attendings publicly abase
themselves (wear the 'hair shirt') before an audience of
colleagues and subordinates to show that they have learned a
lesson and to show that there is total integrity and complete
disclosure of shortcomings, rather than cover-up.
Schooling in Capitalist America
[or ''Capitalism... bad'']
1) it increases the productive capacity of workers, and
2) helps defuse and depoliticize the potentially explosive class
relations of the production process - thus serving to perpetuate
the social, political, and economic conditions through which a
portion of the product of labor is expropriated in the form of
profits.
1) prevailing degrees of economic inequality and types of
personal development are defined primarily by the market,
property, and power relationships which define the capitalist
system;
2) the educational system serves to perpetuate the social
relationships from which develop an overall degree of inequality
and repressive personal development;
3) there is a close (formal) correspondence between the social
relationships which govern personal interactions in the work
place and the educational system;
4) although the school system has sometimes served the dominant
class interests of profit and political stability, it is an
unwieldy and often unpredictable weapon/tool prone to the
influence of contradictory external forces;
5) the organization of education evolves and takes on distinct
and characteristic forms in response to political and economic
struggles associated with the process of capital accumulation,
extension of the wage-labor system, and transition from an
entrepreneurial to a corporate economy.
1) integrative: helps integrate youth into various
occupational, political, familial, etc adult roles;
2) egalitarian: gives each individual a chance to compete
openly for privilege and status; and
3) developmental: promotes the psychic and moral development of
the individual.
1)The Dewey School: believe that the 3 functions of education
are not only compatible, but also mutually supportive;
education can promote the natural movement of industrial society
toward more fulfilling work, hence bringing its integrative and
developmental functions increasingly into a harmonious union.
2) Technocratic-Meritocratic: argues only for compatibility of
functions of education; this view is based on a conception of
the economy as a technical system where work performance is
based on technical competence; inequality of income, power,
and status are, consequently, seen as a reflection of the
unequal distribution of mental, physical, and other skills
1) insuring maximal participation of the majority in
decision-making,
2) protecting minorities against the prejudices of the majority;
and
3) protecting the majority against any undue influences on the
part of an unrepresentative minority.
1) insuring the minimal participation in decision-making by the
majority (the workers),
2) protecting a single minority (capitalists and managers)
against the wills of a majority, and,br>
3) subjecting the majority to the maximal influences of the
single unrepresentative minority.
1) over + of businesses in the US were small individual
proprietorships
2) there are a large number of entrepreneurial enterprises,
owned by one or two small capitalists who are often from the
same family and employ a number of hired workers
3) there is a large and growing corporate sector - a sector
that dominates the American economy and is dominated by a small
number of economic giants
4) a sizable state sector showing a rapid rate of growth
5) the important sphere of domestic or household production
that comprises about half of all economically active adults.
Again following Marx's lead, B&G believe that alienated labor
is not the necessary consequence of modern technology. Why
not?
1) even within the confines of existing technologies work could
be organized so as to be more productive and more satisfying to
workers;
2) technology itself is not the result of a socially unbiased
advance of knowledge, but rather reflects the monopolization of
control over technical information by the captains of
industry;
3) alienated labor is not a technical but an essentially social
phenomenon, since labor is not a commodity but a living, active
agent.
BC: The Industrial Revolution's victory of the factory system
over traditional work forms demonstrates the efficiency of the
hierarchical division of labor in the context of advanced
technology
B&G: Success of the factory system was due to tapping cheap
labor supplies, extending the work day, and forcing an increase
and the pace of work
B&G: The increase in the number of steps in the production
process in the context of the modern factory effectively adds
spaces between separate tasks adds does not out weigh the
benefits supposedly to be had from coordination of steop,
increased dexterity and speed, or mechanization of the process.
1) technical efficiency: work should be organized to maximize
output for the given set of inputs
2) control: decision making power should be retained at the
top of the hierarchy; fragmentation of workers at a variety of
subordinate levels prevents a solidary workers' interest from
forming and challenging their superiors - basically a 'divide
and rule' strategy
3) legitimacy: authority relationships must be organized in
such a way as to appear just, or at least inevitable; these
relations cannot, therefore, violate the norms of the wider
society.
B&G support the assertion that the roots of inequality in the US
are to be found in the class structure and the system of sexual
and racial power relationships. The school system is then but
one of several institutions which serve to perpetuate this
structure of privilege. Education, while reflecting the
structure in privilege in society at large, is relatively
powerless to correct the underlying institutionalized economic
inequality. Since WWII the level of wealth inequality has
remained unchanged. Further, arguments that universalistic
criteria for hiring should select for the most qualified
applicant regardless of sex, race, etc. seem unconvincing in
light of the negligible (modest at best) strides women and
racial minorities have made toward economic parity. The
segmentation of the labor force, in fact, weakens the power of
labor as a whole and acts as an immediate case of much of ht
inequality between men and women/whites and blacks/urban- and
rural-born/etc. - basically the primary economic sphere is
advantaged at the expense of the secondary.
1) cognitive capacities and concrete technical and operational
skills;
2) personal traits that enable the individual to operate
effectively in a work role;
3) modes of self-presentation, which may be valuable to the
employers in their efforts to stabilize and legitimize the
organization's structure of power as a whole;
4) ascriptive characteristics; and
5) credentials - which the employer may also use to promote
legitimacy.
1) the day-to-day contact of parents and children with the
competitive, cognitively-oriented school environment buttresses
the technological perspective on economic organizations;
2) the status allocation mechanism acquired heightens legitimacy
by rendering educational attainment dependent not just on
ability, but also on motivation, drive to achieve, perseverance,
and sacrifice; and
3) frequent failures gradually bring a student's aspirations
into line with his/her probable career opportunities.
The traditional technocratic-meritocratic perspective suggests
that education increased people's income by increasing an
individual's cognitive abilities - which in turn translates into
higher productivity and greater income. B&G find that only a
minor portion of the substantial statistical association between
schooling and economic success can be accounted for by the
school's role in producing or screening cognitive sills. They
propose a model where 'years of schooling' acts as important
mediating variable.<
Next the dynamic duo turn their attention to dispelling the
rumor that intelligence is important in economic success. Their
line of though follows much the same line as the previous
section. B&G present empirical evidence to support their
contention that the emphasis on IQ as the basis for economic
success serves to legitimate an authoritarian, hierarchical,
stratified, and unequal economic system, and to reconcile
individuals to their objective position within this system.
After reviewing the various positions surrounding the IQ debate
and presenting some (IMOH) dubiously manipulated empirical
findings, B&G conclude that the fact that economic success tends
to run in the family arises almost completely independently from
any inheritance of IQ, whether it be genetic or environmental.
Further, a family's position in the class structure is
reproduced primarily by mechanisms operating independently of
the inheritance, production, and certification for intellectual
skills. Long and short: IQ is not an important criterion for
economic success
1) The perceived needs of individuals are congruent with the
types of satisfaction the economic system can objectively
provide - it a harmony between the needs which the social system
generates and the means at its disposal for satisfying them.
2) There generally exists in the consciousness of community
members the view that fundamental social change is not feasible,
unoperational, and utopian. This may come about as a 'divide
and conquer' strategy on the part of dominant classes to promote
social distinctions that cause a fragmentation of the conditions
of life and the consciousness of the subordinate classes. To
this latter aspect, B&G link the phenomenon of alienated labor.
1) schooling produces many of the technical and cognitive skills
required for adequate job performance
2) the educational system helps legitimate economic inequality-
ie. the meritocratic ideal
3) school produces, rewards, and labels personal characteristics
relevant to the staffing of positions in the hierarchy
The educational system integrates youth into the economic system
through a structural correspondence between its social relations
and the relations of production. The structure of social
relations in education habituates students to the discipline of
the workplace, as well as developing types of personal demeanor,
modes of self-presentation, self-image, and social class
identifications - all of which are crucial to job adequacy.
More specifically, the educational structure's vertical
authority lines and relations between administrator:teacher,
teacher:student, student:student, and student:work replicate the
hierarchical division of labor in the economic sector.
Alienated labor is also the result in the schooling system.
Different levels of education, further, feed workers into
different levels within the occupational structure and,
correspondingly, tend toward an internal organization comparable
to levels in the hierarchical division of labor.
Issue of education aside, family background also accounts for a
significant portion of the association between schooling and
economic attainment. For instance about 1/3 of the correlation
between education and income is due to the common associations
of both variables with socioeconomic backgrounds (even holding
IQ constant). That is, people whose parents have higher-status
economic positions tend to achieve more income themselves
independent of their education, but they also receive more
education.
''The Economic Structure'', from Karl Marx's Theory of History
1. I can wholly own all of my couch.
2. I can partly own all of my couch (that is, Jen and I buy it
together).
3. I can wholly own part of my couch (that is I have title to
one half and Jen has title to the other); and, of course,
4. I can partly own part of my couch (I have a half interest on
one half of the couch, Chris has the other half interest on that
half of the couch, and Jen owns the other half),
Serf . . . . . . . . . . Some . . . . . . . . . . . Some
Proletarian . . . . . . . All . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nada
Independent Producer . . All . . . . . . . . . . . . . .All
Grad Student. . . . . . .??? . . . . . . . . . . . . . ???
Homemaker . . . . . . . ??? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ???
2 . . . . . . . some . . . . . . .all
3 . . . . . . . none . . . . . . .some
4. . . . . . . some . . . . . . . none
5. . . . . . . all . . . . . . . . . some
Subordinates have superiors who enjoy the rights they don't
have. Let's note three facts about our subordinate producers in
Table 1: i) They all produce for others who do not produce for
them. ii) Within the production process they are commonly
subject to the authority of the superior, who is not subject to
their authority. iii) In so far as their livelihood depends on
their relations with their superiors, they tend to be poorer
than the latter. Each non-producer typically receives more of
the fruits of production than does the producer. Considering Ed
Laumann's criticism that Marxism doesn't recognize the
contribution of the entrepreneur, Cohen would have this to say:
Yes, the capitalist assumes risks in exchange for the profits he
enjoys when they do not materialize; this, however, does not
reduce subordination, but tends to consolidate it. Just because
there's some reciprocity, that means there may be some justice
in the subordination, but there is not a lack of subordination.
1) productions' purpose: for use, or for exchange (barter) or
for exchange-value, or for maximum exchange value
2. the form of the producer's surplus labor. This is the way
surplus labor manifests itself in the society in question.
Under capitalism, it manifests itself as a quantity of exchange
value: surplus labor is revealed only in the disguised form of
profit on investment of capital.
3. the means of exploiting producers (or mode of exploitation).
This is the means whereby the producer is made to perform
surplus labor. What enables the capitalist to exploit the prol
is the prol's lack of surplus labor,which forces him to contract
with a capitalist on terms which exact surplus labor from him.
Here exploitation proceeds by means of the labor contract, and
is therefore mediated by exchange.
''Market, Culture, and Authority''
Japan has enterprise groups consisting of linkages among large
firms. There exists relational contracting between equals.
(e.g. intermarket groups)
South Korea displays less diversity in networks than in Japan.
There are large, hierarchically arranged sets of firms managed
by the state.
Taiwan has family firms and business groups. There are low
levels of vertical and horizontal integration and a relative
absence of oligarchic concentration.
This is a developmental thesis of institutional change based on
changing market conditions that argues that the invention of the
corporation accelerated the rate of industrialization in the
U.S. and American management ideas spread abround to the
industrializing world. This theory emphasizes state industrial
policies and entrepreneurial responses but it cannot account for
the different organizational arrangements in the 3 countries nor
does it offer an unqualifies explanation for any one country.
This theory tries to link organizatinal patterns with the
cultural practices of the larger society. These organizational
practices are generalized expression of such social factors as
belongingness, loyalty, and submission to hierarchical
authority. However, there is too much focus on secondary causes
and it is necessary to take the market into account. This
explanation is also better for explaining a 'cultural complex'
(i.e. region) than individual country differences.
H & B advocate a political economic approach with a Weberian
emphasis because this incorporates economic and cultural factors
and allows for historical diversity. The Weberain view holds
that many factors (such as task requirements, technology, class
and status compostion, etc.) contribute to organizational
structure, but most important are 'principles of domination.'
These are normative justifications that determine authority and
encourage obedience. This approach broadly conceptualizes
organizations as structures of authority. The differences in
these 3 countries arose from different historical and political
experiences in which leaders had to legitimize a system of rule.
''The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism''
Most Marxists look at the relationship between women and the
economy instead of between women and men. Hartmann divides
Marxists into 3 categories:
Many feminist theorists have used Marxism as a method of social
analysis - historical dialectical materialism. Mitchell and
Firestone are too examples, however, Hartmann criticizes their
approaches for not developing a materialist conception of
patriarchy. Mitchell sees patriarchy only as ideology; and
Firestone overemphasizes biology and reproduction in her
approach. Radical feminists contribute to the discussion by
emphasizing patriarchy in their work. However, their conception
of patriarchy is not historically grounded and their focus is
largely psychological instead of economic.
Hartmann emphasizes the need to recognize men's power and
women's subordination as a social and political reality. She
defines patriarchy as a set of social relations between men
which have a material base and which, though hierarchical,
create interdependence and solidarity among men that enable them
to dominate women. She focuses on the material base of
patriarchy which is formed by men's control over women's labor
power by excluding women from access to essential productive
resources and by restricting women's sexuality.
The union of patriarchy and capital was not inevitable. Men
sought to keep high wage jobs for themselves and to increase
male wages generally. Women's' home responsibilities reinforced
their inferior labor market position. Patriarchy divided the
working class by allowing one part (men) to be bought off at the
expense of another (women). Patriarchy legitimates capitalist
control and delegitimates certain forms of struggle against
capital.
It is necessary to isolate the mechanisms of patriarchy by
looking at who benefits from women's labor power, uncovering the
material base of patriarchy, and investigating the mechanisms of
hierarchy and solidarity among men.
The Managed Heart
1) Labor: the growth of the service sector means that
'commuinication' and 'encounter' occupy a more centralized role
in the work process of many laborers (cf. Daniel Bell 1973)
2) Display (of feelings): this deals mostly with Goffman's
accounts of display work and face-to-face interaction.
3) Emotion: i.e. what it is and how to manage it
Institutions arrange their front stages in order to guide the
way we see and the way we are likely to feel spontaneously - for
example, by means of protocols for interaction or the physical
arrangement of the institutional/work environment. This a way
to control the content and course of interaction between
individuals in such a way as to make more probably both certain
desired material and emotional outcomes.
Feelings may be experienced as being inappropriate (misfitting)
a situation. There are a number of ways this can become
manifest. Two major examples are: problems in timing
(dependent on a public standard of the propriety of expressing
private emotion); and problems of placing (it is necessary to
have the right audience to receive an emotional expression).
Although it seems paradoxical, individuals in close
relationships may expect to have more freedom from feeling rules
and less need for emotional work; in reality, however, the
subterranean work of placing an acceptable inner face on
ambivalence is actually al the more crucial. The deeper the
bond, the more emotional work, and the more unconscious we are
of it. She talks about quirks in this context. But I don't
think it is the same thing we were talking about. Or maybe it
is, hmmmmm....
--Straight exchange: does not (necessarily) have anything to do
with hetero's (or 'breeders'). It is an exchange where you use
rules to make an inward bow. The focus is making a gesture
toward observing a rule, not on the rule itself.
--Improvisational exchange: presupposes the rule and plays with
it (to create humor or irony). It calls the rule itself into
question.
1) Emotional Work: is no longer a private act, but a public act
which is bought on one hand and sold on the other.
2) Feeling Rules: are no longer simply matters of personal
discretion negotiated with another person in private, but are
spelled out publicly.
3) Social Exchange: is forced into narrow channels.
Issue: potential for 'identity confusion'
Solution: 'Depersonalization' of the self. Either by
considering the non-work self the only 'real' self or (more
commonly) by deciding that each self is real in its own
different way and time. The result, either way, is that for
these workers feelings are thought of not as spontaneous,
natural occurrences, but as objects they have learned to govern
and control.
Issue: Being 'phony'
Solution: Fall back on surface acting
3) How to maintain self-esteem without becoming cynical if you
are doing deep acting for an audience from whom you are
disconnected:
Issue: Maintaining the illusion
Solution: Define the job as 'illusion making' and remove the
self from the job, take it less seriously.
''Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism''