Heads Up Sociology

by DK

a TROUBLED life

  Weber married Marianne Schnitger, a sociologist and feminist writer in 1893. Unfortunately, in 1897, he had a quarrel with his father that was never resolved. Following the death of his father shortly afterwards, Weber suffered a nervous breakdown, which left him unable to work for five years. Weber’s struggle with mental illness was described by Marianne in her influential biography of her husband, published in 1926.

  the PROTESTANT work ETHIC

  Weber’s most influential and controversial work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, published in 1905, examines the relationship between Protestant beliefs and values and the rise of capitalism in the West. Weber claimed that although the Protestant values of self-discipline and hard work lay at the heart of capitalist societies, these religious ideals had been replaced by the relentless pursuit of profit and wealth.

  the IRON CAGE of RATIONALITY

  Much of Weber’s writing explores the effects of “rationalization” in society. This refers to the way Western society has become increasingly organised around reason, logic, and efficiency. Weber argues that, although rationalization leads to greater technological and economic advances, it also limits human freedom and creativity. According to Weber, rationality has trapped modern society in an “iron cage”, leading to a widespread sense of “disenchantment” or disillusionment.

  methodological INDIVIDUALISM

  Throughout his work, Weber adopted a method of analysis known as “methodological individualism”. He believed that any study of social change should focus not on social structures, such as ethnicity or class, but on individuals and their actions. Weber was particularly interested in analysing the motives behind human actions and the ways in which individuals in society interact and make sense of one another.

  At the outbreak of World War I, Weber, aged 50, was put in charge of organizing the military hospitals in Heidelberg – a role he carried out until 1915.

  work is a major part of people's lives. we spend most of our waking hours at work. since it takes up so much time, why do we do it? of course, it is to earn money but research shows that that is only part of our motivation.

  Not just about the money

  In the US, the average employee aged between 25 and 64, who has children, will spend 8.9 hours a day at work, compared to 7.7 hours sleeping and 1.2 hours caring for others. Since work takes up so much time, it prompts the question why do we do it? After all, for many people work can be a source of stress and drudgery. Now, the obvious answer is that work equals money, a weekly wage or an annual salary that pays for our rent or mortgage as well as other bills. But that is only part of the explanation.

  First of all, the term “work” needs to be treated with caution. It is easy to think that work refers exclusively to paid work, something that is done in return for a wage, but there are many other forms of work too. For example, for women a major part of their time is spent doing domestic or care work, which is often unpaid.

  British sociologist Keith Grint explains that if you look across time and cultures it becomes clear that Western ideas of work are quite specific to that part of the world. For example, a working day stretching from 9am–5pm is not universal; in West Africa work is more more attuned to the natural rhythms of the body, so you work when you feel awake and rest when you feel tired. Countries such as Spain and Greece used to have a working day that allowed for a rest, known as a siesta, during the hottest part of the day.

  Work brings status

  People are motivated to work for reasons other than money. Work can be a source of status, giving us a value in the world. Think about how common it is when first meeting someone to ask,“What do you do?”, and how that then affects what you talk about next. Work is a place where people meet others and establish friendships that can last for many years. Work also provides structure in people’s lives and provides a familiar routine. That is why many people find retirement or redundancy difficult, when they suddenly find they have so much time on their hands.

  Just the job Though earning money is very important, work also brings self-esteem, and gives us a purpose and status in society. It is also a place to build friendships and feel part of a team.

  The work ethic

  There are other deeper reasons for why people work. There is often a strong belief that work is a good thing, that it is one's moral duty to work, referred to as the “work ethic”. German sociologist Max Weber, in trying to work out the roots of capitalist society in the West, saw that Calvinist Protestantism, the dominant religion in Germany at the time, played an important part in building this belief. Followers of the religion believed that God had already chosen who was going to heaven. Working hard and being successful on earth was a good sign. Hard work became part of the beliefs and practices of the faith. Over time the moral value of hard work has become separated from its religious roots but the practice has remained in the culture.

  Expanding on this theme, sociologist Karl Marx believed that humans both want and need to work, and possess an array of creative talents in order to do so. However, he believed that the way in which capitalist society is organized means that the natural capacity and need to work is distorted. Rather than work being a way to improve one's life or to help society as a whole, it has become for the benefit of an elite. Marx describes this situation as “alienation” and proposed that work under capitalism leaves people feeling unhappy and unfulfilled.

  The reasons why we work are complex and multifaceted, but they are definitely about much more than the money.

  workers' cooperative

  The Mondragon Corporation in the Basque region of Spain is a highly successful global business with a total revenue of 12.11 million euros, but it is run in a different way from most workplaces. It is a workers' cooperative, which makes it a more equal place to work. Workers vote on decisions affecting the business and even select the managers, who are not paid more than five times the wage of the lowest-paid worker.

  The largest employer in the world is the United States Department of Defense, with 3.2 million employees.

  a “job for life” is not a familiar concept to today’s school and college leavers. most young people do not choose to follow a career in one place. but how many even have the option? changes in management styles and the job market mean that the world of work is becoming less fulfilling and more unstable.

  Secure jobs

  The world of work is changing. Not that long ago, towards the end of the 20th century, people could expect to leave school or college and, with perseverance and luck, find a job. Their work would give their lives structure, and possibly a career pathway leading to promotion. Stable employment was the foundation on which to build lifetime commitments such as raising children or buying a house. Work would also have provided a sense of self.

  Soul-less workplace

  Today, work is less likely to guarantee long-term security and a predictable lifestyle, or be the same source of identity. There are many reasons for these changes, one of which is what sociologists call “new managerialism”, the micro-managing of every aspect of the working day.

  The research of British sociologists Phil Taylor and Vaughan Ellis on a call centre is a typical example. The employees there had a tight script to follow. How well they stuck to it and how fast they worked was closely monitored. Deviation from the script or a falling-off in number of calls meant trouble.

  To US sociologist Richard Sennett, a controlled workplace like this is a soul-destroying place to be. He says that work was once like a village, where people got things done but also had scope to make friends and feel part of a community. Now work is often more like a train station: you turn up, do what is required of you, and go home again. It all lacks meaning.

  The “precariat”

  Another change in work is the rise in the number of people without regular full-time employment, who use online marketplaces to find jobs as and when available. The workers in this new economy are part of what British sociolo
gist and economist Guy Standing calls the “precariat” in his book of the same name, published in 2011. The term is a fusion of the words “precarious” (insecure) and “proletariat” (working people). Standing points out how a younger generation is growing up knowing that they may never find a job to support the lifestyle they want. It is not, he argues, lack of will or skill that denies them opportunities, but how the current jobs market is structured.

  On a tightrope In today’s precarious job market, many young people are forced to move from one type of short-term work to another. Opportunities for secure employment are rare.

  Arrival of the robots

  The final big change in the workplace is the development of automation. For example, many production-line tasks in the car industry have been taken over by machines. We do not know what will happen in the future. The list of jobs that could be automated is increasing. Office work and even doctors could be replaced by software or robots. What should be done for a workforce displaced by robots and automated systems will be one of global society’s big challenges in the next few decades.

  betty the robot

  In the summer of 2016, a mobility systems company in the UK took on a trainee office manager: Betty the Robot. Betty, created by an international team at the UK’s University of Birmingham, is a multi-tasker. Her artificial intelligence software enables her to assess staff presence, monitor the environment, check security, and meet and greet at reception.

  Experts predict that by 2025 automation could take over 20–35 per cent of current jobs.

  See also: Why do we WORK? | What role does RELIGION play in society? | PIERRE BOURDIEU | IN CONTEXT | ÉMILE DURKHEIM | We are living in UNCERTAIN times

  Arlie Hochschild is one of the leading sociologists and feminists in the US. She studied sociology at Swarthmore University, then continued her studies at the University of California, Berkeley where she became interested in the role of emotions in sociology. In one of her most famous books, The Second Shift (1989), Hochschild discusses the roles and responsibilities women have at home and in the workplace. Her most recent work focuses on the relationship between emotion and politics in modern US society.

  FEELING rules

  Hochschild was born in Boston, USA, the daughter of US diplomats. As a child, she was fascinated by the way diplomats controlled their emotions in public. Later, she became interested in the way people are expected to feel certain emotions in given situations. For example, people are expected to feel happy when they get married or achieve good grades. Society, Hochschild claims, has distinct “feeling rules” that govern the way we manage our emotions.

  EMOTIONAL labour

  In her book The Managed Heart (1983) Hochschild introduced her theories on “emotional labour”. This refers to the way employees are required to display certain emotions at work. Hochschild’s research focused on a study of flight attendants in the 1980s, who were trained to behave as if they genuinely cared for their passengers. Hochschild claimed that this had a negative impact on the airline staff because, over time, they felt as if they had lost ownership of their own emotions.

  SERVICE with a SMILE

  Much of Hochschild’s research focuses on the role of women in the workplace. She claims that women are much more likely than men to work as shop assistants, receptionists, or call-centre operators – jobs that require “good service” and high levels of emotional labour. Hochschild argues that this leads to gender inequality because it reinforces the idea that certain occupations are more suited to women.

  EMOTIONS and POLITICS

  In her book Strangers in Their Own Land (2016), Hochschild looks at the way people’s emotions affect their political choices. Over a five-year period, she travelled to Louisiana to talk to white working-class voters who felt let down by the US government. She tried to understand why, in an area that has suffered major industrial pollution, people blame the government rather than the industries that caused the damage.

  In l974, when her son was three years old, Hochschild wrote a children’s book called Coleen the Question Girl, which tells the story of a girl who can’t stop asking questions.

  modern technology makes working life easier for many people, but it is also a powerful and widely used tool for control. millions of employees now accept as normal the watchful eye of a surveillance camera and the possibility of their electronic data being investigated at any time. sociologists are questioning this erosion of freedom in the workplace.

  Technology takes control

  The workplace has changed a great deal since the Industrial Revolution that began in late 18th-century Britain drove technological development forwards. Innovations swept on through the first half of the 19th century – most notably with the first mechanized computer and the electric motor. Since then, scientists have continued to develop ever more sophisticated machines and computers capable of performing tasks in a few minutes that in the past took workers many hours.

  US sociologist and Marxist Harry Braverman, writing in the 1960s, saw technological advancement as the beginning of the end of work for human beings. He imagined a world where people were set free to devote their energies and extra leisure time towards developing their natural creativity and skills. His vision remains a distant reality, but Braverman’s work highlighted the fact that technologically sophisticated equipment released the majority of workers from dull and demoralizing work on mass production lines, or repetitive and time-consuming desk work. However, at the same time as reducing physical workloads, modern technology is imposing limits on people’s freedom in a new and subtle way.

  “Dataveillance”

  In the last decade, sociologists of work have focused attention on the ways technology has been appropriated in the workplace to increase productivity and efficiency. Surveillance technologies such as CCTV cameras, computer login counters, computer monitoring software, and electronic “swipe cards” are all used to gather information about the activities of staff. Knowing that at any moment CCTV footage covering your actions and data spreadsheets detailing your productivity can be called up on a computer screen has the same effect as a supervisor looking over your shoulder. According to Australian sociologist Roger Clarke, such monitoring devices were used initially by only a few employers. Now, with decreasing costs and widespread availability, surveillance technology is part of the modern workplace. Workers are subject to “dataveillance” – Clarke’s term for the monitoring of employees’ activities using personal data systems. Such systems include tracking the amount of time homebased employees spend at their computers; how long office employees are at their desks; and their movements in the work environment throughout the day.

  Are you really alone? Even if you are working alone in your office, surveillance devices could be watching your movements and reading your emails.

  Invasion of privacy?

  According to Clarke, whether or not employers draw directly on the information generated by dataveillance, a significant part of their power derives from employees’ awareness of being under constant scrutiny.

  This suggestion has led to debates about the extent to which employers have the right to try to control employees’ lives outside of work. A particular concern is the increasing tendency of employers to check up on what their staff post on Facebook and online social media. Some areas of your personal life may be no more private than your work life.

  MONITORING MAIL

  British sociologist Kirstie Ball’s 2010 study of workplace technology found that out of 294 US companies with over 100 members of staff, more than a third employed people with the specific task of reading through staff emails in search of rule-breaking. Ball’s thought-provoking work also found that over 75 per cent of US companies monitor not just employees’ emails but check which internet websites they visit.

  Dataveillance is widely used for such purposes as tracking criminals and investigating identity theft.

  See also: Are we all on CAMERA? | Do you live ONLINE?

  Ou
r lives are structured around many important social institutions, such as work, religion, and education. These are at the core of our lives, though they are constantly undergoing changes that impact on us all. Where we live is also a key factor in our lives because it gives us a community, be it in the city or in the countryside.

  RELIGIOUS DUTY

  In 1905, Max Weber publishes The Protestant Work Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. In this work, Weber tries to answer why capitalism emerged in the West. He claims its roots lie in the Protestant religion of the 1500s. Protestantism claims that if you work hard and do well during your life, then God will save you after death.

  SOCIAL GLUE

  In 1912, Émile Durkheim publishes The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. In it he lays out his idea that religion acts as glue that holds society together. It does this in two ways. First, it provides sets of rules and norms of behaviour that work to maintain social order. Second, religious rituals provide an emotional situation that binds practitioners together.