Applying Marxism to contemporary issues of work and employment

Applying Marxism to contemporary issues of work and employment

Marx’s extensive writings about society, economics and politics, hold that all society progresses through class struggle. He was particularly critical of capitalism. Marx argued that current society is run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit and predicted this would produce internal tensions (and eventually self-destruction and the rise of a new form of society, socialism). Marx’s ideas of ownership of production, alienation and power relationships may play a key role in explaining contemporary issues in work and employment such as lack of job security, having a voice within the workplace and discrimination.

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As stated in “The workplace and social democracy in the post-crisis age”, the financial crisis and recession have caused a change in attitudes towards employment relationships. More now than ever employees worry about job security. Marx belonged to a period of industrial society, whereby factories had thousands of employees all under one authoritative figure, the Boss or Manager. Job Security in this era was not a massive issue as it is now in contemporary times. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 1999 published the results of Job Insecurity and Work Intensification survey and showed that job insecurity had steadily been rising since the second world war. The majority of job insecurity lay in the manufacturing industries and blue-collar workers during the 1970’s and 1980#s but at the beginning of the 1990’s professional and managerial workers had their first great exposure to job insecurity. The information age which we now live in has cost many civil servants their jobs, due to streamlining of systems through computer technology. White collar workers were much less prepared for the changes affecting their occupation. Because redundancy had never occurred to these workers before, the idea of unemployment caused most to experience anxiety and insecurities. Some argue this is an overreaction when compared to the bigger issue of insecurity experienced by the working classes (Giddens, 2009). Anxieties from job insecurities can lead to “loss of control” and a link has been made between job insecurity and poor overall health (Burchell et al, 1996). This feeling of helplessness against impending unemployment can be explained by Marx’s theory of alienation. Blauner (1964) argued that the introduction of automation to factories has reduced worker alienation. Automation has helped to “integrate the workforce and gave workers a sense of control over their work that had been lacking with other forms of technology”. Evidently having a sense of ownership towards your work and feeling part of a comm………………………