ACTIVITY
WK7
From Max Weber to the McDonaldisation of work and the growth of the Bullshit Job
We live in a strange world, with inequalities on a scale never dreamt of before. Three billionaires, for example, now own more than the population of sub-Saharan Africa. The small unelected boards of directors of companies such as General Motors control more resources than South Africa or Poland. Virtually every area of life from the human body to sporting activities has been turned into a commodity.
Weber’s influence within sociology helps to articulate an overwhelming pessimism about workers’ struggles and a dismissal of their significance. His hegemonic status blends in easily with a ‘cultural turn’ whereby sociologists focus on how reality is constructed through interpretations and meanings – rather than examining the contradictions at the heart of the class structure. This is all the more ironic in a society which is producing inequalities on a scale that has never been dreamed off in previous history.
This lecture and Round table session will focus on some of Weber’s observations and move through to more contemporary work on McDonaldisation before introducing you to the work of Greaber and his theory of ‘Bullshit Jobs’.
Lecture, Round Table, concept mapping.
Guiding Question: TBC
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THEME
TOPICS COVERED
WK8
Gigs, Ghosts, Whips and the future of work
The future of work is clouded by two contrasting visions. One is a daydream with a laptop and a sea view, where highly-skilled work is divorced from any particular location. The other is a nightmare of drudgery, where hours are spent plodding the corridors of a giant warehouse pushing a trolley with a robotic earpiece telling us to walk further and faster.
As we have discussed over the weeks the future of work and the impacts thereof are fiercely debated, the pessimists and optimists do agree on one thing and that is that there will be significant disruption, the controversy centring on how positive or negative this disruption will be. We have spent a lot of time looking to the past, even as far back as Plato and Aristotle, who had they been alive today may have been supportive of the very contemporary idea of Universal Basic Income as it could return us back to a situation of not having to concern ourselves with work at all (maybe we will all be either Gold, Silver or Bronze
Lecture, Round Table, concept mapping.
Guiding Question: TBC