Tag: capitalism

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 6

September 27, 2017

“Using dramaturgical analysis, we see here how the actors need to perform convincingly enough that the audience doesn’t have the illusion of the overall interaction shattered- this is called impression management. Here, positive affect is a goal of the corporation because it increases profits but this extra work, which Arlie Hochschild labels “emotional labour” isn’t considered renumerable work.
This emotional labour not only compounds the exploitation of the worker, as they produce more surplus value for their employer, but it is a more obvious example of the alienation caused by capitalism.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 6

Experiences in Corporate America: Arbitration Agreements | Guest Article by Dylan Yoki

September 5, 2017

“The use of these arbitration agreements shifts the balance of power into the firm grip of the employer and there is little that the employees can do to remedy abuses by their employer with these agreements in place. This allows these abuses to go unchecked and the employees may tolerate unethical business practices out of fear of losing their job, even in the case of outright discrimination. With the working class pacified and corporate power growing, the avenues that workers can take through the legal system are dissolving into nothing and businesses are growing bolder in trampling on the rights of their employees.” … More Experiences in Corporate America: Arbitration Agreements | Guest Article by Dylan Yoki

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 5

September 2, 2017

“I believe that the uncritical acceptance of such methods is a result of the inculcation of values of propriety and the normalisation of examination (practices which are so generalised in modern society, they led Foucault to call it “the disciplinarian society”). Having eyes upon you, whether of the state or one’s employer (in reductionist terms, both can easily be conceived as collaborators in class domination, hence enemies/dominators of the working class and so indistinguishable in that regard) is just a part of daily proletarian life in contemporary British society.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 5

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 4

July 7, 2017

“The pathetic value and arbitrariness of rewards at foodchain made the punishment aspect of games the main incentive for competition. Some of these punishments, as discussed in the earlier part of this series, were explicit, however, some were seemingly (and possibly) accidental side-effects. […] Beyond the unfairness of rewards and punishments, and the arbitration involved in the allocation of them, the sales game itself was rigged.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 4

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 3

June 19, 2017

“At foodchain, the objective of the game was to maximise certain types of additional sales and compete with fellow workers on daily scoreboards, displayed for all workers to see. Falling below a certain threshold cumulative score for the week could result in penalisation and winning meant possible rewards. Domination is more apparent when considering penalisation might include being made redundant, or more perniciously, scheduling less hours of work for the “losing” worker.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 3

The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 1

February 22, 2017

“I have wanted to re-write this essay for years but have held back due to a lack of time and, more importantly, because it brings up painful memories. I did, and will, abstract away from the contents of my empirical experience to make arguments about how the structuring of experience and lack of agency and expression possible for workers is evidence that capitalist society is immoral (if we can assume so much without getting into a debate about meta-ethics) but it is paramount to understanding this thesis that you keep in mind that the data provided here is not itself some abstract fantasy used to support the argument, but my real lived experience.” … More The indignity of service work | My experiences as a fast-food worker | Part 1

What Do Final Year BSc Sociology Students Actually Do? | Media & State Studies Seminar Part 3: Media Imperialism

June 25, 2016

“For this series, I would like to give a taste of what it is sociology, as one of the most denigrated sciences online, is actually like. The structure of this assignment, which I am reproducing here mostly unedited, was quite unusual compared to most work undertaken for this subject- essays and some fieldwork- but I think illustrates the variety of ways final year study is done.
In this seminar we discussed how more up to date theories of media imperialism must take into account the complexity of cultural transmission, how audiences actively interpret media according to their own cultural understandings and how new evidence conflicts or supports the media imperialism thesis.” … More What Do Final Year BSc Sociology Students Actually Do? | Media & State Studies Seminar Part 3: Media Imperialism

What Do Final Year BSc Sociology Students Actually Do? | Media & State Studies Seminar Part 2: Elections & New Media

June 19, 2016

“For this series, I would like to give a taste of what it is sociology, as one of the most denigrated sciences online, is actually like. The structure of this assignment, which I am reproducing here mostly unedited, was quite unusual compared to most work undertaken for this subject- essays and some fieldwork- but I think illustrates the variety of ways final year study is done.
In this seminar we discussed the extent to which TV can be considered a primary factor influencing voter decisions and how the increasing demographic shift towards a voter base constituted by, what some theorists call “the digital generation” implies an impending change in political strategy, if it has not already happened as some evidence suggests.” … More What Do Final Year BSc Sociology Students Actually Do? | Media & State Studies Seminar Part 2: Elections & New Media

Mental Health Help Access: It helps to be middle-class. | New Empirical Evidence of Social-Class Based Discrimination

June 14, 2016

“A new study in the Sage Journal of Health and Social Behaviour reports that social class influences US independent psychotherapists’ decisions of whether to offer access to their mental health services. In this article I discuss some limitations which I feel may have been overlooked by the original author however, the authors writing includes important references to the scientific literature and there is plenty of discussion of the limitations of the study not mentioned by me, which show that the author is self-aware, and hopefully this article doesn’t imply otherwise. This work is both important and necessary for researchers of social inequalities and this potential research programme, although in its infancy, should be commended on designing a study which looks cheaply replicable- a rare feat in social sciences.” … More Mental Health Help Access: It helps to be middle-class. | New Empirical Evidence of Social-Class Based Discrimination

Refugee Crisis Continues | Keep Ignoring Everything

March 8, 2016

“I’m not sure whether this mirrors the sentiment of those currently caught up in Middle Eastern mass exodus. […] following is an edited excerpt of the beginning of Hannah Arendt’s 1943 essay “We Refugees”. […]
Should we be asking these Muslim refugees to change their culture in order to fit in with our Western way of life? […] We should not allow them to be treated as exceptions as the Jews were in Hitler’s Germany. I like to think we’re still far from anything like that, but the direction we’re going in when we turn a blind eye and ignore the lessons of history.” … More Refugee Crisis Continues | Keep Ignoring Everything