SOSC 1340 1349 B Essay 2

Running head: SOSC 1340/1349 B ESSAY 2

SOSC 1340/1349 B Essay 2

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SOSC 1340/1349 B ESSAY 2 1

Introduction

The division of labor has always been the founding principle of the industrial

organization in some form. In the capitalist industry, the division of labor has been largely

different from the distribution of specialties, crafts or tasks of the production across society.

Earlier societies divided the work into certain specialties. However, they could not subdivide

it as precisely and systematically into the limited operations as the capitalist society. Capitalism

has generated huge profits for organizations and their shareholders along with the consumers

to some extent.

It has offered organizations with easily exploited, abundant and cheap labor; impact on

the government policies permitting them the authority to control labor wages and goods prices

so as to maximize profit, and a huge amount of capital to be invested in the business industry.

Consumers avail benefits from capitalism as they are offered a wide range of products to select

from as per their spending abilities. In the paper, I will be discussing the difference between

the social and detailed division of labor along with the social consequences. The paper will

also explore how the use of Babbage principle leads to degradation work. It will also discuss

about the impact of the Elmer Rice’s play- The Adding Machine.

Capitalism and Division of Labor

Capitalism started with the buying and selling of the labor power. It has developed into

a system that increases capital. For this purpose, capitalist procures labor. After this, their main

motive is to acquire more value and profit out of the labor. If the profit generated from the labor

is high, the accumulated capital will also be higher. With time, capitalism has evolved to such

an extent that it has become a widely used tool for greater profitability. Not only this, but it

also has rendered social division of labor to be less beneficial for the capitalists. In addition, it

led to the introduction of another phenomenon known by the name of detail division of labor.

SOSC 1340/1349 B ESSAY 2 2

Division of labor results in enhanced productivity as it increases the amount of the work

performed by a worker while increasing the abilities of the workmanship (Portes & Walton,

1981).

The social division of labor divides the society into careers or into crafts specialization

which is appropriate to the production process for increasing productivity. However, the sense

of social division of labor gets changed under capitalism. Capitalism is considered to be making

crimes against humanities as it forces social division of labor to disregard the rules and laws of

the market while replacing it with the detail division of labor that divides humans through

cheapening of labor power irrespective of the human capabilities or their needs. This leads to

poverty.

In the working environment, capitalist society dominates the market, and it does not

care about the interest and needs of the workers. It is more concerned with the interest and

needs of the capitalists for the maximization of profits. Capitalism has forced the workers to

enter into the labor market for the purposes of exchanging physical labor only. In the opinion

of Braverman, the division of labor is extremely significant and the most effective approach

for the capitalist society in the working environment. The characteristics of the social division

of labor exist within all of the societies.

The social division means the distribution of specialties, crafts or tasks of production

across society as the majority of the societies have divided the work into specific productive

specialties. The detailed division of labor is known to abolish jobs and the aforementioned

specialties by disintegrating the manufacturing process into small steps that are assigned to

specific workers who repeat them repetitively. Capitalism sub-divided the work of every

productive specialty into the limited operations. The processes involved in the development of

a product is broken down into manifold operational activities that are done by different

SOSC 1340/1349 B ESSAY 2 3

personnel (Braverman, 1974). The society was way different before capitalism with social

division of labor ensuring that the workers are able to do best in their crafts or trades by creating

products in which they were comfortable and proficient.

Capitalist organization of production

Capitalist production implies that most of the production conditions like the factory,

the land and the factory are privately owned. Exchange and production are considered to be

social institutions and thus their organization has certain social consequences. Capitalism has

been founded on the basis of the private ownership wherein the owners are dependent on the

wage labor for creating profits. It tends to exploit the workers by forcing the workers to work

for longer hours. The exploitative relationship of capitalists with the industrial workers results

in their poor living conditions or poverty.

Marx argued that the exploitation mechanism within the capitalist system develops

social antagonisms within the society. Capitalist development that occurs on a private initiative

in a socially unplanned or uncoordinated manner facilitates crisis related to over-production.

This implies that a major portion of the output remains unsold. As opposed to over-production,

over-accumulation of the productive capital tends to invest a huge amount of capital in

production. This results in recession or a depression, in severe cases. As a result, mass

unemployment happens (Yates, 2003). Also, it causes inequality as capitalists exploit the

workers who have only labor provision as a medium of survival (Elwell, 2015).

However, there are other aspects to the consequences of the capitalist organization of

production. Capitalist production demands commodities, money and exchange relations and is

dependent on the sale and purchase of the labor power. In this regard, three primary conditions

are generalized across the society. Firstly, the workers get detached from the means through

which production is done. They can access them only if they sell their labor power or right to

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others. Secondly, workers get free of the legal constraints like slavery or serfdom, which

doesn’t allow them to dispose their labor power. Thirdly, the purpose of the worker

employment results in the expansion of the capital and thus function as the capitalist. Therefore,

the labor process starts with an agreement or contract that governs the conditions of the

purchase of the labor power by employer and sale of the labor power by workers.

Babbage Principle and Degradation of Work

The Babbage principle points out the varied competitive advantages through the well

thought-out division of labor. It is the most popular reason for the specialization of the worker

purpose. As per the opinion of Babbage, skilled workers spend usually spend time doing tasks

that are beneath their skill-level. His proposal was regarding the subdivision of the work into

tasks on the basis of difficulty level to be assigned to workers as per their specialization. In this

way, workers could focus on those tasks only which best-suited them. In addition, the labor

costs can be cut by allocating high-skill tasks to the high-cost workers while restricting the

other tasks to the lower-paid workers. This human value view was limited to the minimization

of the time period to recover training costs.

The Babbage principle is principal to the development of the division of labor in the

capitalist society. The principle offers expression to the social side of the division of labor and

not to its technical aspect. If the translation is made in market terms, it means that the labor

power required to complete a process can be bought at a cheaper rate in the form of dissociated

elements instead of a capacity incorporated into a single worker. It was first applied to the

handicrafts and then to the mechanical crafts to evolve into an underlying force regulating the

work in the capitalist society at every hierarchical level and setting.

In capitalism, the principle is observed as an approach for preserving the scarce skills

by allocating tasks to qualified workers who do not waste social resources. The Babbage

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principle is considered to be the response to a shortage of technically trained workers or skilled

workers. The capitalist mode of production destroys the all-around skills wherever it exists and

develops occupations and skills that are in line with its needs. Henceforth, technical capacities

get distributed on the need-to-know basis. From this point onwards, the distribution of

information on the production process to all of the participants becomes a barrier to the

operation of the capitalist production mode.

Labor power can be considered to be a commodity. Its utilization is no longer planned

as per the desires and needs of the sellers, but rather as per the needs of the purchasers, who

are, essentially, employees looking for expanding the value of their capital. The cheapening of

the commodity is in the permanent and special interest of the purchasers. The Babbage

principle reveals a highly common mode to cheapen labor power. As the capitalist mode of

production develops a working population as per its needs, this principle is imposed on the

capitalists themselves.

The application of the Babbage principle to labor process has led to the degradation of

work. This has been due to the categorization of the work and its processes as some work is

shunned or looked down upon by the individuals of the society, even if they are unemployed.

In addition, the principle, also known as economy of the machinery, has resulted in the

technological advancements leading to the destruction of certain by turning them antiquated or

obsolete while developing better existing employment opportunities. The procedure of division

of labor and the pursuit for decreasing labor costs for increasing profitability resulted in the

development of machines and mechanisms like automation for finding the ideal solution to the

underlying corporate problem.

The Babbage principle had led to the degradation of work as it has established

contemporary specialization wherein there is a lot of focus on the job qualification and

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academic level which is a threat to the global social and economic system. The huge emphasis

on the education qualifications results in the condition of engaging theoretical workers who

have minimal first-hand or job experience due to their knowledge instead of their skill or

talents. On the other hand, the emphasis on education compels the society to degrade work,

particularly the ones with minimal academic level as they are seen as low-value work that has

a substantially substandard social position. The Babbage principle has developed a dilemma

within the labor market wherein hard-working workers outclass their counterparts, which

makes the management hold a negative perception of the workers who are performing poorly.

This develops conflicts that cause degradation of work.

The Adding Machine

Elmer Rice was a successful individual who detested capitalism absolutely. He was an

American author/playwright who had many plays that criticized capitalism like Between Two

World and Judgement Day. Rice was more leaned towards the theory of socialism. However,

his plays didn’t receive much attention as the theatres were under the control of capitalists. In

his plays, one of the central scenes that were played showed him leaving school as the young

boy in the high school for supporting his family. He finds a job at a manufactured products

firm and observes the harsh working conditions over there.

Another play of Elmer Rice was The Adding Machine. The play illustrated the impacts

that Braverman illustrates in his findings and work. It was based on an individual by the name

of Mr. Zero who was employed as an accountant in a big organization (Rice, 1956). He

continued to work for the company for a long period of time but was eventually laid off to be

replaced by the adding machine. Zero turns psychotic and murders his boss. He was found

guilty of the crime by the court and was hanged to death. This is in line with the statement of

Braverman that implies that the main purpose of the capitalism is to only maximize profits by

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being efficient and replacing proficient workers like Zero with un-skilled or low-skilled

workers. The Adding Machine is seen as a commentary on the capitalist rationalization that

explores the human effects of worker replacement by the machines.

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References

Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capital. Monthly Review, 26(3), 49.

Portes, A., & Walton, J. (1981). Labor, class, and the international system. New York:

Academic Press.

Elwell, F. W. (2015). Harry Braverman and the Working Class. Bureaucratic Culture and

Escalating World Problems: Advancing the Sociological Imagination, 85.

Rice, E. (1956). The adding machine. New York, Hollywood, Calif.: S. French.

Yates, M. (2003). Naming the system. New York: Monthly Review.

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