The White Collar Worker

The white-collar worker is a term used to describe the recently formed ‘new class’, this new class transitioned from the old middle class which was characterized by characteristics such as: economic independence, which was based on owning the means of production with which it works, such as a small farmer farming his own land, or a merchant running his own business (Mill 1956). The white-collar workers consist of dependent employees whose means of production are owned by managers and now are a part of a hierarchy (Mill 1956). This new twentieth-century worker has never been independent as the farmer, as they are always someone’s man (Mill 1956). They are apart of a larger context of centralized property and bureaucratized and rationalized business operations, as with the personnel of large businesses (Mill 1956). Furthermore, whatever remains of small businesses exists solely because it serves the interest of the big businesses, despite some imagined harmony, they have been pushed to the fringes of economic life (Mill 1956). This new middle class held the mythology, that it was classless, that wealth could be achieved through hard work, and constant economic growth is beneficial. Furthermore, this new elite which consisted of corporation owners, military and political executives have corralled the white-collar workers (middle class) and in the process, have alienated and manipulated the individual (Mill 1956).
Prestige involves one individual claiming it and another honouring it (Mill 1956). Prestige’s can be raised by acquiring property, birth, education, income, or power, these claims are what drive a status system society (Mill 1956). Twentieth century American society, has a prestige system but it is rather unstable and uneasy...

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...l occupational status (Mill 1956). The middle classes leisure is that of satisfying their status claims, as their occupation is empty due to their alienation from the actual process, their leisure is empty due to constant consumption (Mill 1956). So, when the occupation fails to gratify status claims, leisure is used to attempt to fulfill the task, which leads to, status cycles, which allow the individual to for a moment be at a higher level of status, by buying more expensive clothes or going to a fancy restaurant (Mills 1956). Vacations, also are an example, as it allows for not only the escape from work, but, the purchase of the feeling of higher status (going to an expensive resort) (Mill 1956). Status cycles, cause for actual class and prestige to be blurred or forgotten about for a moment, which proves Americans need for satisfaction by commodities (Mill 1956).