Social and Historical Context

1
Social and Historical Context

• Alienation
• And
• Rationalization

2
Marx alienation

• Labor is human nature (species-being)
• Two things distinguish humans as a species
• Complex brain (intelligence)
• Hand with opposable thumb (ability to manipulate
  objects, make tools)
• Manual and mental aspects to labor
• Imagine how object can be transformed in mind
• Reshape object into desirable and useful thing
  through labor

3
alienation

• Capitalism estranges (alienates)
• Worker from product capitalist owns the products
  of labor
• Manual from mental labor worker separated from
  control of labor process
• Worker from his/her human nature
• from nature as Nature
• from self as creative species-being (mental labor
  separated from manual labor)
• from other humans (we are a social species by
  nature)

4
Hochschild feeling managment

• deep and surface acting as labor
• emotive dissonance
• difference between what we feel and what we
  pretend to feel
• causes strain
• face a concept from Goffman meaning the
  identity we establish through social interaction

5
feeling management as alienation

• when conditions estrange us from our face, they
  sometimes estrange us from feeling as well.
  (282)

6
Weber rationalization

• Tendency in modern society is toward rational
  calculation
• For example what do people mean when they refer
  to the bottom line?
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Benefits of action minus costs of action equals
  bottom line

7
rationalization

• Tendency in modern society toward large
  organizations
• The larger organizations get, the more they must
  rationalize their organizational structure and
  operations to maintain efficiency

8
Weber on bureaucracy

• Webers construction of an ideal type an
  abstract description drawing attention to certain
  features as most essential
• Not ideal in the sense of desirable
• Overall, Weber saw bureaucracy as machine-like
  rationality an iron cage

9
Weber on bureaucracy characteristics

• Hierarchy of authority
• Written rules and regulations
• Full-time, salaried officials
• Separation between work tasks and private life
• Members of organization do not own the materials
  they use at work

10
Ritzer McDonaldization

• Based on Webers notion of rationalization
• Four dimensions
• Efficiency
• Quantity
• Predictability
• Control

11
Ritzer McDonaldization

• Irrationality of rationality?
• Even when system is calculated and predictable
  (formal rationality) it can be unreasonable and
  dehumanizing
• Examples
• Food that is not nutritious
• Work that is not rewarding

12
What is to be done?

• Marx the point is to change it.
• the social system, that is
• history is class struggle, leading to revolution
• Weber maintain Liberal institutions (Republic)
  and intellectuals as counterweight (Sadri, 1992
  69-95)
• parliament vs. bureaucracy
• special importance of intellectuals as defenders
  of Reason and the individual