The Degradation of Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

The Degradation of Work - Essay Example The pioneering work of Harry Braverman in Labor and Monopoly Capital is worth the area of attention and appreciation to understand the past working condition, the working environment, and the unethical commodities therein. Harry Braverman has described with great intelligence and ability the division of labor and mechanization in his competent writings. Braverman believed in the presence of disorder in the management of labor and attributed this feature to the then existence of machines. His writings were bold and addressed the society as whole. Though his writings were produced during his living in USA, they held applicability to people from different regions and areas of living. It could wisely address the then prevailing conditions even in the other countries including India, South Africa, and United Kingdom. In past times, the complete thrust of capitalism was to weaken the base of humanity. One could find a place in workplace, after having sold his/her labor power and creative ability to the capitalists who viewed it as their own property. The sorrow touched the human working form with the exposure to the fact that the ability to work and create was being considered on par with the other means of production. The truth is that to the most capitalist, labor was the cost of production. And the capitalist therefore aimed to minimize this cost of production then no matter what harm or loss it inflicted on the working people. Though true, it really takes a pain inflicting approach to agree to its prominent and irrational existence. The capitalists further aggravated the then existent condition of degradation of labor by imposing the evil effect by indirect means to the workers. The workers could do little, if at all to beat this deadly approach towards their work and creativity. It seemed as if the goodness of man had been sold to a rich hand. Harry Braverman in his intellectual writings exposed naked the ugliness of the then existent capitalism. He pointed out with authentic understanding and examples that the focus of capitalist management is control over the workers. The first step of the capitalist to get the workers into the factories, and then the dirty game takes its grip by watching the workers with an aim for dividing them. The divided workers stand not in unity even to achieve their most essential goal. The condition faces further grief from the machines that threaten them with redundancy. The focus of fight of the workers rested on the objective of winning higher wages and benefits, while yielding to employers the complete right to control the workplace. This was called as "accord" between labor and capital. This "accord" held its own existent limitations for survival and progress. The "accord" acted as an insufficient basis of fighting the class struggles. The prominent reason that resulted in the failure of "accord" was a definite limit on wage increase that was placed and it found its existence even in the periods of rapid capital accumulation. Absence of present applicability of Braverman's brave work in the pleasant present time Labor power or labor force is an important concept brought to practice by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. He viewed