{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","uuid":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","normalized_title":"laborandmonopolycapitalthedegradationofworkinthetwentiethcentury","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","isbns":["0853459401"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":183,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Labor%20and%20Monopoly%20Capital%20The%20Degradation%20of%20Work%20in%20the%20Twentieth%20Century","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/search"},"page":{"printed_page":"20 / 21","pdf_page":23,"physical_index":23,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"7a6231ed4e25418e7732b7a33a3d28c5669d44778ac656e965672a8a60776892"},"chapter":"Acknowledgments","content":"Unfortunately Mills's work . . . is not a true research study. In effect, it is not the feelings of alienation which may actually be suffered by the salesgirl or by the intellectual at an advertising agency that interest Mills, but rather objective alienation of these persons as it might be reconstructed by analyzing the forces which exert pressure on them. This attitude pretends to be more scientific than 18 a poll of opinions, but it is so only in appearance.\n\nOn the basis of Mills’ approach, Crozier argues, “social life without alienation would in effect be impossible,\" because \"the individual is always necessarily limited by his place in the social structure.\" This is the genteel form of an argument made more bluntly by Robert Blauner when he said: “The average worker is able to make an adjustment to a job which, from the standpoint of an intellectual appears to be the epitome of tedium.\"19 In this line of reasoning we see the recognition on the part of sociology that modern labor processes are indeed degraded; the sociologist shares this foreknowledge with management, with whom he also shares the conviction that this organization of the labor process is “necessary\" and “inevitable.\" This leaves to sociology the function, which it shares with personnel administration, of assaying not the nature of the work but the degree of adjustment of the worker. Clearly, for industrial sociology the problem does not appear with the degradation of work, but only with overt signs of dissatisfaction on the part of the worker. From this point of view, the only important matter, the only thing worth studying, is not work itself but the reaction of the worker to it, and in that respect sociology makes sense.\n\nIt is not my purpose in these comments to deprecate the importance of the study of the state of consciousness of the working class, since it is only through consciousness that a class becomes an actor on the historic stage. Nor do I believe that the feeble results achieved by questionnaire-sociology indicate that the mind of the working class is unknowable, but merely that this particular method of trying to know it is superficial, remote, and mechanistic. Class consciousness is that state of social cohesion reflected in the understanding and activities of a class or a portion of a class. Its absolute expression is a pervasive and durable attitude on the part of a class toward its position in society. Its long-term relative expression is found in the slowly changing traditions, experiences, education, and organization of the class. Its short-term relative expression is a dynamic complex of moods and sentiments affected by circumstances and changing with them, sometimes, in periods of stress and conflict, almost from day to day. These three expressions of class consciousness are related: changes of mood draw upon and give expression to the underlying reservoir of class attitudes which, while it may be deep below the surface, is never entirely exhausted.\n\nThus a class cannot exist in society without in some degree manifesting a consciousness of itself as a group with common problems, interests, and prospects—although this manifestation may for long periods be weak, confused, and subject to manipulation by other classes. The interpretation of the opinions, feelings, sentiments, and changing moods ofthe working class is best accomplished by experienced and well-attuned observers and participants who know the history of a particular group, are acquainted with its circumstances, background, and relation to other parts of the working class, and form their assessments from intimate contact and detailed information. It is for this reason that the most astute interpreters of the moods of submerged and ordinarily voiceless populations have often been union organizers, agitators, experienced revolutionaries—and police spies. While these have always had among them a percentage of fools, illusionaries, and the otherwise error-prone, at their best such active and interested parties, whose interpretations are enriched by their efforts at practice, convey a solidity, a depth and subtlety of observation, an anticipation of changing moods, and an ability to disentangle the durable from the ephemeral that is entirely absent from the tabulations of sociology. It should be added, however, that where some sociologists have themselves gone to work in factories either as part of their professional training or out of necessity, or where as sometimes happens they have put aside their questionnaires and listened to workers with both ears, they have often established relationships of trust, learned to comprehend the milieu, and written creditable accounts.\n\nJob Dissatisfaction in the 1970s\n\nIn the years that have passed since this study was begun, dissatisfaction with work has become what can only be called a “fashionable topic.\" Almost every major periodical in the United States has featured articles on the \"blue-collar blues\" or “white-collar woes.\" Books have been published, commissions set up, conferences organized, experiments conducted. Sociologists have caught the wind in their sails and, reinterpreting their questionnaire statistics, now view with alarm the very percentages of dissatisfied workers which yesterday they found comfortingly small. A Special Task Force selected by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare has prepared a report under the title Work in America which found that “significant numbers of American workers are dissatisfied with the quality of their working lives\":\n\nAs a result, the productivity of the worker is low—as measured by absenteeism, turnover rates, wildcat strikes, sabotage, poor-quality products, and a reluctance by workers to commit themselves to their work tasks. Moreover, a growing body of research indicates that, as work problems increase, there may be a consequent decline in physical and mental health, family stability, community participation and cohesiveness, and “balanced\" sociopolitical attitudes, while there is an increase in drug and alcohol addiction, aggression, and delinquency.\n\n20\n\nLabor and Monopoly Capital\n\nIntroduction\n\n21","previous_page":22,"next_page":24}