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... ... middle of paper ... ...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).
Nickel And Dimed: Occupations Barbara Ehrenreich provides evidence in “Nickel and Dimed” that she’s an outstanding author with this book. Its engaging and compelling, no question about that. But it’s hard to get from side to side at times since of the authors attitudes. Her key summit is to carry concentration to the scrape of the working deprived, but she manages to be both abusive and divisive. Occupation on attacking our industrialist system, she fails to become aware of that the endurance of upper classes seems to be what motivates the poor, fairly than what dispirits them. She blames capitalism for the injustices of the world, slightly than easy bad management techniques. A company should be shown that would benefit from a union and it will be shown to all around that one that will promote even better from decent, gentle management decisions. Most irritating, she’s constantly negative about the whole lot, even the positive experiences she has. When one of her colleagues offers to allow her move in with her and her family, not only does Ehrenreich turn the propose down, but she still describes it sneeringly as a "touched by an angel moment." Does she have to dribble with irony yet when writing about an authentically type deed? She condemns "visible Christians," any and all organization, yuppies, anybody who hires and consequently exploits maids, welfare reform, and still tosses in a prod at people who study John Grisham. Is there someone she likes? Her logic is troublesome as well. She begins her research to see if the functioning poor have some financial endurance tactics that the center class don’t know regarding, and decides at the conclusion that no, they don’t, as if admitting that this would signify the poor are imp...
Marks, L. (2006). The Loss of Leisure in a Culture of Overwork. Spirit of Change Magazine.
Many individuals would define leisure as time free from paid work, domestic responsibilities, and just about anything that one would not do as part of their daily routine. Time for leisure and time for work are both two separate spheres. The activities which people choose to do on their spare time benefit their own personal interests as well as their satisfactions. While some people may enjoy one activity, others pay not. Leisure is all about personal interests and what people constitute having a good time is all about. Some may say that the process of working class leisure can be seen to contribute their own subordination as well as the reproduction of capitalist class relations. Self-produced patterns of working class leisure can lead to resistance to such reproduction. This leads to social class relations and inequalities, and the fact that it they can never be completely reproduced in the leisure sphere. This film Home Feeling: Struggle for a Community, gives some examples of the role of leisure within a capitalist society dealing with issues such as class inequalities, and how they are different among various societies.
In the essay The Chosen People, Stewart Ewen, discusses his perspective of middle class America. Specifically, he explores the idea that the middle class is suffering from an identity crisis. According to Ewen’s theory, “the notion of personal distinction [in America] is leading to an identity crisis” of the non-upper class. (185) The source of this identity crisis is mass consumerism. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and mass production, products became cheaper and therefore more available to the non-elite classes. “Mass production was investing individuals with tools of identity, marks of personhood.” (Ewen 187) Through advertising, junk mail and style industries, the middle class is always striving for “a stylistic affinity to wealth,” finding “delight in the unreal,” and obsessed with “cheap luxury items.” (Ewen 185-6) In other words, instead of defining themselves based on who they are on the inside, the people of middle class America define themselves in terms of external image and material possessions.
Before the industrialization movement began, there was more of a blend between the classes, and now there is a distinct separation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Because of the industrialization of the countries, the replacement of manual labor with the use of machinery and the division of labor, the work of the proletarian has become homogeneous. It does not contain the individuality or charm of the laborer as handmade goods do. The worker instead becomes part of the machine and is reduced to performing menial, repetitive tasks. Thus, the workman's pay rate reflects his work, and is reduced to minimum amount needed to barely sustain them. Therefore, as the skill needed to perform the job reduced, so does the amount of the wages. Also, as industrialization increases, so does drudge and toil. The worker become, in the eyes of the bourgeois in control, a part of the machine and as expendable and as easily replaced as any part of the machine. This is in the forms of prolonged work hours, amount of work done in a certain time, or by the increase of the speed of the machinery, which wears down and drains the workers.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States heralded the coming of the “new industrial order.” With the advent of railroads, industrialization went into full swing. Factories and mills appeared and multiplied, and the push for economic progress became the grand narrative of the country. Still, there was a conscious effort to avoid the filth and poverty so prevalent in European factory towns. Specifically, the town of Lowell, Massachusetts, was held up as an exemplary model of industrial utopia. The mill town included beautiful landscaping and dormitories for the women workers. Indeed, it looked much like a university campus (Klein 231). Nevertheless, this idealized vision eventually gave way to the reality of human greed. The female factory workers worked long hours for little pay as their health deteriorated from the hazardous conditions (238). (Specifically, Carson’s Mill in Dalton, Massachusetts, served as the model for Melville’s short story [Melville 2437].) In this way, industrialization (and the subsequent desire for economic wealth) became incompatible with democratic principles. Originally, the prevailing consciousness was that industrialization would further democracy and the two would become a complimentary pair. However, the reality was that these societal changes brought economic divisions; the boundaries were drawn more clearly between the privileged class and the working class.
During the Gilded Age, industrial capitalism (known as the 2nd industrial revolution) became the driving force to transforming the economies in Europe and in the United States. Industrial capitalism was also the foundation for creating a global economy. Many of the business practices and profits derived from commercial capitalism and industrial capitalism. These profits came from machinery, technology, large factories and processing plants. Even though progress and profits came with the Gilded Age, it also brought tensions, conflicts and misery. It also sparked an unbalance social and economic order for workers’ wages and working conditions. This period in history brought heavy masses of immigration to the country. In addition, continuous struggles and ongoing between labor, capital and increased growth in urbanization. Today, we see these similarities and
...elped to widen the rift between rich and poor. Farmers, who were once self-employed, were rapidly becoming factory workers. In 1860 half the nation was self-employed, but by 1900 two-thirds were dependent on wages. This trend caused the rapid urbanization of America, which brought out some issues. Wages were rising, so it was good to be working, but with dependent wages the workers we’re susceptible to economic downturns. The workplace also became much less personable as people began to move to factory jobs. New machines would often displace workers, and individual workers had little power to fight for their rights against the industries. There was always a fear of unemployment, and reformers struggled to protect wages and have provisions for temporary unemployment. As more people moved to the cities and the corporations grew, social rifts became larger and larger.
The Gilded Age was the last three decades of the nineteenth century, when America’s industrial economy exploded generating opportunities for individuals but also left many workers struggling for survival. With the many immigrants, skilled and unskilled, coming to America the labor system is becoming flooded with new employees. During this period, the immigrants, including the Italians, were unskilled and the skilled workers were usually American-born. There was also a divide in the workers and the robber barons. Robber barons were American capitalist who acquired great fortunes in the last nineteenth century, usually ruthlessly. There was much turmoil throughout the business and labor community. Two major organizations, the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor, helped represent the workers in this time of chaos. The Knights of Labor, founded in 1869, were representing both skilled and unskilled workers. They were quite popular with a large boost in membership becoming the biggest union in 1885. They sought for equal pay and equal work. All were welcomed to the Knights of Labor; there was no discrimination on race, gender, or sex. They called for an eight-hour day in order to reduce fatigue and for safety issues. The Knights of Labor Declaration of Principles states their purpose is to “make industrial and moral worth, not wealth” (Reading 9, p. 1). This means the moral worth is to what they could contribute to society rather than monetary gains. They were working towards this improvement of the common mans life to advance in civilization and create new ideas for society. They also called upon the employer to treat the employee with respect and fairness so they can contribute to not only their company but to Amer...
From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, the Gilded Age was a time of American inventions and innovation. As the work place transitioned from rural plantations to industrialized cities, specialized farmworkers stood no chance against a handful of powerful businessmen. A large majority of the socioeconomic power resided in the hands of large corporations, as they dominated the economy and its workers. In Makers, Takers, and Fakers, the author specifically targets Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller who monopolized the steel and oil industries, respectively. Although the author believes the development of the large corporations during the Industrial Revolution hindered the pursuit of the individual’s American Dream, the large businesses actually set the foundation for today’s economy and offered new opportunities for success.
...ls but do not fit into a proletariat class: they are the consumers who work service jobs. Assembly and manufacturing jobs left the U.S. during a period of deindustrialization and moved overseas, creating a transnational capitalist class with U.S. workers torn between Marx’s “petit bourgeoisie” and the proletariat worker, Sklair defines them as a fraction of the capitalist class who share mutual interests and lead similar lifestyles to the corporate fraction of modern capitalists. The Chinese worker is a tool in the perpetuation of Sklair’s “culture-ideology of consumerism” where consumers in the U.S. care more about buying the latest iPhone than about workers’ conditions in Foxconn Technologies in China.
The “American Dream” consists of all U.S citizens having the opportunity to obtain success and prosperity through hard work and determination, but, in a capitalistic economy such as the United States the “American Dream” is merely impossible. Low wages are masked as starting points, taught to eventually pay off in the form of small raises or promotions. Competition to obtain unequally shared resources, is used to define an individual’s extent of initiative. In reality, these are all concepts used by the wealthy to deter the poor working class from obtaining upward mobility. Middle class America, the key factor in helping the wealthy stay wealthy, have adapted to these beliefs and concepts, created to keep them far behind. Conflict theorist
With the advent of technology and the new capitalistic trends of second industrial revolution in Europe, the era became known as the “age of the middle classes” (719). During this time, the middle class was no longer a “revolutionary group” threatening the ruling class. They showed their power through spending and buying goods in what is referred to as consumer taste (719). The middle class during this era transformed and evolved into an assortment of groups. The most successful of the middle class were the business and bank owners, who lived in majesty and eventually surpassed many of the former ruling classes in the aristocracy. In this highest class, there was only a few hundred families that had such wealth and power. The small busine...
Rapid industrialization and nation-wide corporations led to wealthier families and a new middle class. Although there were many who did enjoy the new luxuries paid for by new salaried jobs like managers, technicians, and engineers, many more people were below the poverty line and resided in the slums, living with other families with no privacy and unsanitary conditions. These families were unfortunate because of the wage cuts and the replacement of labor by immigrants and African Americans. A change was in order and the labor unions took the plate by voicing their complaints, and, when that didn’t work, resorting to physical means to get what they wanted.
White collar jobs are considered necessary and imperative in the lives of citizens who need them. Surgeons performing heart surgery and lawyers defending clients are deemed crucial in a world where their services are provided continuously. They went to a college and obtained a specific degree for their different careers. They are highly educated and usually make more money than a less educated person. White collar workers are looked upon as more successful because their higher education has led them to make more money. These men and women also seem to have more authority in society. People tend to amass around the successful, wealthy people to gain their trust and friendship so that maybe their rich friends’