Rinehart's Claims About Work And Alienation example essay topic

To understand Rinehart's claim about work and alienation, we must first have a clear understanding of the definition of the two terms. According to Rinehart, "Work has always had a profound impact on the lives of those who perform it". (Rinehart, p 1). It can offer a sense of accomplishment or meaninglessness (pride or shame) depending on the view we have on the tasks involved. Presuming the type of work you do, it will affect the way in which you spend your free time (Rinehart, p 1).

The second term we must clearly understand is alienation. The development of this term can be credited to Karl Marx, "who used it to describe and interpret the organization of work that emerged with the industrial capitalism". (Rinehart, p 11). In Rinehart's book, The Tyranny of Work, he refers to alienation as. ".. a condition in which individuals have little or no control over (a) the purposes and products of the labour process, (b) the overall organization of the workplace, and (c) the immediate work process itself". (p 14). In order to evaluate the argument contained in the Rinehart text (The Tyranny of Work), I will compare my work experience with the three major sources of alienated labour and conclude that with my experience of work, it supports Rinehart's claims about work and alienation.

In order to understand my evaluation of the argument contained in the Rinehart text, I must briefly explain my current job sphere. I am currently employed twenty hours a week at Pitney Bowes. This company is a major supplier of office equipment such as fax machines, photocopiers and mailing products. My job would be classified under white-collar traditional services, which operates in domestic and local markets. I hold a customer care position for new customer acquisitions. My job duties would include; responsible for sales of company products, and to give information about leasing and price plans.

The work environment is relaxed, and it requires that I follow a formal dress code. I am given my own office space, which includes three walls, a desk with a computer and a phone (with voice mail built in), and a chair. My entire job is done sitting at the desk with the computer in front of me. I am on the phone most of the time talking to customers.

Everything done is through the computer, I place orders on an online form (which can be directly viewed from the shipping department). With this brief job description, I will now continue with a description of works functions and meanings. For most people, work is done for an economic purpose. Its function in general is to allow us to maintain our families and ourselves in an acceptable way.

According to Rinehart, life begins for most people when work ends. The basic reason that people work is because it allows us to do the things we really enjoy. People choose to maintain one's self by working because. ".. unemployment erodes personal relationships and creates feelings of disorientation, despair, and worthlessness". (Rinehart, p 6). People work in order to keep occupied and to keep from becoming bored. Individuals who hold steady jobs evaluate themselves as better than those who do not work.

Among people who do hold jobs, self-esteem is differently distributed along the occupational spectrum (Rinehart, p. 7). Honour has been given to those who work in and hold white-collar jobs, while manual labour comes second in comparison. What most workers want is to become masters of their immediate environment and that their work is important (the two ingredients to self-esteem) (Rinehart, p 7). Another important dimension of work is its social purpose. People derive satisfaction from being involved in work that demonstrates contribution to the well being of humans (Rinehart, p 7).

An example of this can been seen in those who participate in volunteer jobs, and those who have careers in health care, teaching and social work. The different types of rewards we seem to label to certain jobs leads to the explanation of extrinsic and intrinsic work rewards. Extrinsic work rewards according to Rinehart are those that give us. ".. gratifications that are attached to but not an integral part of the work process itself". (Rinehart, p 7). Intrinsically gratifying activity is those jobs that offer opportunity for continuous development of skills and knowledge (Rinehart, p 7). People attach both economic and intrinsic significance to work.

When work offers little gratification, it is reasonable to expect that people will seek satisfaction and pleasure in other places of life. But in the free time we have, leisure also seems to fail in providing enough satisfaction, and therefore we are drawn back to work in order to kill time. In Rinehart's book, The Tyranny of Work, Rinehart singles out three major sources of alienated labour. The first one is the concentration of the means of production in the hands of a small but dominant class.

(Rinehart, p 15). Using Rinehart's theory in comparison to my work experience, this theory holds true. If relatively few individuals control the productive apparatus, they will operate it to their own advantage. The majority of people who work at Pitney Bowes are excluded from determining the products produced and the labour process in which they occur. We have no say when Pitney Bowes decides to design a new photo copier or fax machine. Nor do we have say on how the product should be marketed or produced.

This brings to show that Rinehart's claim on "The relationship between wage labour and capital is also an exploitative one" is true (Rinehart, p 15). We are required to sit at our tables and sell all the products that Pitney Bowes designs. I have never asked my boss what type of profits am I producing for the company when I sell eight fax machines in a four-hour shift. As Rinehart explains, "Workers are required to remain at work beyond the point when they have produced an amount equal to their wages. During these unpaid hours a surplus (surplus value) is produced". (Rinehart, p 15).

Because of the computer integrated software which makes the speed dialing processes quicker when calling out, I am able to call three or four times as many people in one hour then can usually be done with a regular phone. Also, the company gives us voice mail so we will never miss that 'important customer' who called while we were selling a photo copier or fax machine on the other line. This atmosphere can be viewed in Rinehart's idea when he states, "In their drive to generate profits and expand capital, employers strive to keep wages low, introduce labour-replacing machinery, speed up, routinize, and control work". (Rinehart, p 15). This relationship of alienation and exploitation forms the basis for continuous conflict between wage labour and capital. The second major source of alienated labour is markets in land, labour, and commodities.

To understand these concepts completely, we must first define what markets are. The term market, according to Rinehart is, .".. an economic arrangement in which the distribution and the use of land, the production of goods and services, and the income and security of individuals are regulated by money and prices, operating through supply and demand and subject to the relative power of buyer and sellers, employers and employees, and creditors and debtors". (Rinehart, p 16) This can be seen in my job in many ways. At Pitney Bowes the distribution and use of land is regulated to only those departments that are profitable. Any department that is seen as a loss of profit is either closed down or restructured in order to produce to the existing quotas. As Rinehart says, "A market society places land, labour, and commodity production under the domain of prices".

(Rinehart, p 16). This is done by gathering all employees in a department that are producing under quota, placing them in a meeting which informs them of the companies move to restructure, and gives them a chance to stay competitive or lose their department to another department which may seem more profitable. Pitney Bowes is a large company whose first concern is profit. "Prices and profits become the ultimate determinants of the means and ends of production...

". (Rinehart, p 16). If I fall below sixty-five percent of quota (on average of three months) I will be terminated from my job. This next source of alienation shows that any successful business must stay competitive with prices in order to succeed, even at the cost of the employee.

The last major source of alienation, according to Rinehart, is the division of labour. At my place of work I do the same tasks over and over again. Each day seems to be getting more repetitive as I go on. Just to list a few, these are my daily procedures; I come in to my office and turn on my computer, log in to my software and start making calls or taking calls. As Rinehart would explain this, the most important types of division of labour are, .".. specialization and the separation of mental and manual labour, or, more accurately, the separation of the conception of the work from its performance".

(Rinehart, p 16). The specialization of work that would occur at my job would be the repetitive calling of customers. I say the same spiel to every customer that I call or take calls from. Nothing changes, the questions are always the same, and if they want the product another department is responsible for shipping out the merchandise.

I never actually get to see what the product I am sending out looks like. All I do is enter what type of product the customer wants on an online form, from there the form is read by some one in shipping (who I will probably never see), and they are responsible for taking over from there. The separation of manual labour is what makes my job boring. I would not mind taking a call from a customer who would like to have a product shipped out to his / her company, and from there going to the stock room and finding the product, then shipping it out.

Instead, It is like I am in a fantasy world. I pretend I enjoy selling these products, I pretend I like the customers, I pretend I know what the products look like, and I pretend I am the one who will rush that delivery and send it out. All these points lead to one thing; it seems that I pretend to like this job. As Rinehart would explain my work experience, .".. work becomes repetitive and mindless and narrowly circumscribes the development of human capacities". (Rinehart, p 16). This last source of alienated labour hold dramatically true in comparison with my work experience.

In conclusion, using Rinehart's argument contained in The Tyranny of Work, I have explained how my experience of work supports Rinehart's claims about work and alienation. Using the three major sources of alienated labour, (a) the purpose and products of the labour process, (b) the overall organization of the workplace, and (c) the immediate work process itself, I have compared each one with my experience of work and shown how these theories hold true. For (a) the purposes of the labour process is for profits of owners, and the products of the labour are determined by the owners not the workers. For (b) the overall organization of the workplace is designed for the owners to take whatever steps necessary for the highest profits, even at the expense of the workers.

And for (c) the immediate work process itself means specialization as a result of the division of labour. Rinehart's key claims show how my experience at Pitney Bowes supports alienated labour.

Bibliography

1. George tti, Ken". Give Young Workers Their Due". Canadian Labour Congress. 2. Jacobs, David C. Collective Bargaining as an Instrument of Social Change. Quorum Books, London. 1994.
3. Katz, Harry C. Converging Differences, worldwide changes in employment systems. Cornell University Press, London. 1999.