Changing Contours of Work. Stephen Sweet
contrast to culture and the way it creates meaning systems that orient people to work, social structure maintains enduring patterns of social organization that determine what kinds of jobs are available, who gets which jobs, how earnings are distributed, how organizational rules are structured, and how laws are formulated. Social structure does not exist independently of culture. Often, social structure reflects cultural attitudes, because people tend to create institutions that are consistent with their beliefs. And structure can also be in conflict with aspects of culture, creating tensions and contradictions with which individuals and societies must grapple. For example, consider how the structural reality of unemployment creates particularly difficult problems in a society such as the United States, where work is valued or structured as a mandatory part of citizenship. Americans are forced to make difficult choices between their cultural ideals and their social structural context: should the unemployed be made to work, or should they be helped because there are no jobs? If the latter, who deserves help, what kind, and for how long?
Throughout this book, we discuss various aspects of social structure, the access to different types of work, the division of labor, the social organization of workplaces, and legal and political arrangements that influence the design of jobs and the terms of employment. Here, we simply illustrate how social structure affects individuals’ experience of work by considering how a few aspects of social structure—social class, job markets, and labor force demographics—may be affecting opportunities and workplace practices in the new economy.
Class Structures
One of the great contributions of Karl Marx (1964 [1844]) was his analysis of class structures and how they shaped workplace practices and opportunity structures. In his classic analysis of the industrial capitalist economy, he argued that employers’ profits depend on the effort put forth by employees, which created incentives to limit wages and to push workers to labor as hard as possible. He also observed that the efforts of workers created far greater wealth for employers than it did for employees. Considering these class relations, Marx argued capitalism would tend to organize work in ways that led toward the creation of a polarized class structure, comprising a disenfranchised working class (the proletariat) and an affluent owner class (the bourgeoisie).
It is hard not to look at dead-end low-wage jobs in the new economy without some appreciation for Marx’s core insight. Tammy (the former manufacturing worker) and Mike (the disadvantaged young adult) are what Marx might have expected to see in an advanced capitalist economy. However, the contemporary class structure of the United States is more complex than the bifurcated and polarized structure Marx envisioned, as evidenced by Meg (the trader) and Emily (the contract worker). And the experience of upward movement among the disadvantaged, as evidenced by Rain (the Chinese restaurant worker) and Kavita (the call center worker), adds even more challenges to simplistic Marxist structural models. Although laborers and capitalists exist, large portions of the workforce seem to fit into neither category. Numerous professional and managerial workers have substantial education, some (or even considerable) workplace authority, and higher salaries than the typical frontline worker. Yet it is difficult to describe them as captains of industry or members of the dominant class, given that they are not in charge and work for someone else who has the ability to fire them. Sociologists have argued long and hard about how to describe these intermediate class positions. One sociologist described such workers as occupying contradictory class locations, combining elements of the classes above and below them (Wright 1985).
How best to map the precise shape of the class structure of capitalist societies is a matter for dispute, but what is not disputed is that class matters. For example, class affects people’s access to work opportunities, although the precise way in which it does so has changed over time. Before the Industrial Revolution, most children inherited their line of work from their parents through a process known as ascription. Farmers’ children tended to become farmers themselves, and craft workers would often learn their trade from their fathers. Women’s roles were largely ascribed as well. One’s occupation was to a great extent one of the things inherited from one’s parents; the cross-generational effects of class were obvious and straightforward. With industrialization, however, the range of jobs expanded profoundly, many new occupations were introduced, and other occupations became less common or completely disappeared. As a result of these changing opportunity structures, fewer children could follow in their parents’ footsteps or inherit occupations from the previous generation. By the late nineteenth century, geographic mobility and social mobility became more common, as children ventured farther from their home communities to find work (Thernstrom 1980). Class still mattered, however, because it affected one’s access to resources such as education, skills, and connections that determined access to work in an economy where jobs no longer were inherited.
The existence of class also affects the structure of workplaces. Marx felt that the antagonism between labor and capital inevitably produced antagonism at work and led to the development of hierarchical, top-down managerial structures designed to control workers and ensure that the interests of employers predominated. Although the polarized workplaces envisaged by Marx may not be the dominant organizational form, managerial efforts to control labor reflect a strong desire to respond to class antagonisms. They reflect the reality that the workplace is a zone of contested terrain, one in which class conflicts take place, with each side using the weapons at its disposal—including layoffs, speedups, technology, strikes, and even sabotage (Edwards 1979, Montgomery 1979).
Throughout this book, we argue that social class remains one of the most powerful forces shaping employment opportunities and access to resources in the new economy. We examine how a changing economy has altered the reality of class and the extent to which changes in class structure have led to a fundamental restructuring of workplaces away from the familiar patterns of industrial America. We also examine how gender and race matter and how they interact with class to shape complex, contemporary structures of opportunity and workplaces. We focus on social class most directly in Chapter 3, but throughout we emphasize that other social markers (such as gender, race, or age) intersect with class in important ways.
Job Markets and Job Demands
Mike’s (the disadvantaged youth) and Tammy’s (the manufacturing worker) problems involve not simply finding work, but also finding work that pays a reasonable income and work that they have been prepared to perform. Meg (the trader), on the other hand, possesses highly marketable skills and can command a handsome salary. For her, the problem is securing a job that matches her personal resources. For Emily (the contract worker), the problem is locating new opportunities that enable her to navigate from one job to the next. Rain (the restaurant worker) understood that few opportunities that would allow him to provide for his family existed in his rural village in China, which in turn led him to migrate to where he believed job opportunities existed. All of these workers have concerns that are structural in nature and involve the way opportunities are configured. All have to adapt themselves to the existing range of jobs and the prevailing ways in which jobs are organized. Their personal problems reflect the fact that workers—especially those laboring in times of economic change—face challenges in locating and adapting themselves to opportunities. For many workers, and for those left involuntarily out of the labor force, the most recent economic recession has significantly compounded these problems. Tammy’s job loss and failed venture into real estate speculation amply illustrate this concern.
The Industrial Revolution of the early nineteenth century was clearly a watershed, one that profoundly reshaped the types of jobs available to workers. The most obvious consequence of industrialization was that far fewer people were employed in agriculture and many more were employed in factory work. However, the changes were not limited to the shift from agriculture to industry. Traditional occupations outside of agriculture were also transformed, as new technologies and new ways of organizing work pushed older approaches aside. For example, the mechanization of weaving during the Industrial Revolution completely removed this work from the home and introduced new skills that fit factory labor. Similar stories can be told about many other traditional occupations, including hat making, shoe production, tanning, and tinsmithing (Thompson 1963).
Is the range of employment opportunities available to American workers