Since the long history of industrial revolution, there were several new and innovative approaches emerged in capitalist society, especially scientific management. In the 1900s, at first, Marx’s theory of alienation was critically developed by Hegel's philosophy. Taylorism and Marx’s theory of alienation had collisions of thoughts as they stand for different opinions about social system and social status. Taylor’s managements were rooted in the capitalism while Marx was a strong supporter of socialism. There are some debates over the Taylor’s scientific management and Marx’s theory of alienation, for instance, the relationship between them, the effects and the criticisms.
‘Braverman believed that there is a universal trend where scientific
management was seen as flowing every area of working in monopoly capitalist era.’ (HARRIS, 1998, Pp.3) He emphasized the width and importance of scientific management. It became the mainstream management approach in capitalism within that period. Frederick W. Taylor was known as the founder of the scientific management. During the beginning of the 1900s, initially, he has given out the very first introduction of scientific management theory. It is based on Taylor’s work-related experiences and observations. The emphasis from man to system means the transition from old-fashioned, traditional system to the new scientific management. Also, Taylor tended to turn the ‘social man’ into ‘economic man’. He then presented some famous studies, for example, ‘time and motion study’ and the ‘piece rate’ (Imaad, 2008, Pp. 1). This theory focused on the effects and the process of scientific management. Scientific theory generally had positive consequences and made great contributions to firms even to society because it largely increases the productivity. However, according to the Marx’s theory of alienation, scientific management also had several potential negative effects and bias. At first, Karl Marx rose up the Alienation and to explain the theory of Alienation in capitalism in his creations. As the meaning of alienation, ‘Marx use the term to refer to a situation in which our own activities take on an independent existence and become hostile powers working against us.’ (Sayers, 2011,Pp.5) In another words, the concept of alienation fundamentally depends on the excessive expectation of working performances by employers and the enforcements placed upon workers. Marx then identified 4 basic type of alienation occurring by the laboring under capitalist system: the workers might be alienated from the product, from the act or system of production, from their human social nature as well as from other workers. Furthermore, those types of alienation are progressive and interdependent. First of all, Taylor presented a principle in his book: ‘To give each workman each day in advance a definite task, with detailed written instructions, and an exact time allowance for each element of the work.’ (Taylor, 1907,Pp.1) Under the system, workers were requested to produce highly qualified products and overloaded output in allowed limited time through scientific management. Taylor set up the workflow processes and believed that standardization and efficient working organization were one of the core elements of scientific management. He advocated that standardization is necessary for the ultimate output and success in most cases of management. It showed successful consequence to the standardization. Otherwise, He selected and trained workers to make them suit each job instead of departing the workers. However, according to Marx’s thought, workers might become alienated from their labor activity if they were working under the strict monitoring and high pressure working condition. As the actual producer, workers were unable to design the product and decided the production mode. All elements were designed by capitalist classes in order to cater for the market demand and maximum the profits. Workers they could not show their creations and ideas, even their minds.
Marx thought that you could have domination and oppression without alienation; however, you could not have alienation without domination and oppression. Marx believed that alienation happened when workers no longer saw themselves in their work. Alienation occurs when someone no longer works to sell his or her property to another person. But rather they sell their time in order to live, and create these products not because they get joy out of it, but because
Marx, discuss a certain concept of alienated labor as an unavoidable result of capitalist system. The framework that he tries to draw in the book is that capitalist system should be blamed to have class strafication and alienated labor in the society. In a capitalist society people suffer from class conflict and property ownership of bourgeoisie. Bourgeoisie owns the big factories and businesses so then, small manufacturers have to shut down and basically have to join the labors in the big businesses. Workers in capitalist system are obligated to work for long hours under unhealthy conditions for really low salaries. In order to feed a family provide just basic needs, they have to accept those conditions otherwise they would be down the street without any source of income. While bourgeoisie class is enjoying large profits and luxuries life that has been provided by the effort of labors, they can barely themselves and the family.
With the emergence of an industrial working class that arrived from the farms and countryside new theories and ideologies about the political economy began to appear. Karl Marx, a political philosopher during this time, introduced the idea of "alienation of labor". His theory proposed that labor has the ability to create a loss of reality in the laborer because the laborer himself becomes a commodity or object due to the nature of work. In terms of the roles of women it can be argued that the effect is even greater due to the limited choices of work available. This theme is expressed in literature through the writings of Gilman and Alcott.
this study on alienation there will be a micro-study which will attempt to ascertain Marx's
Karl Marx’s article titled Estranged Labor as found in his 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts pays significant attention to the political economic system, which is commonly referred to capitalism. He further delves into nature of the political economy with a keen focus on how it has negatively impacted the worker or laborer. Therefore, the laborer forms the subject of his critical and detailed analysis as tries demonstrates the ill nature of the political economy. To start with Karl Marx portrays how the political economy as presented by its proponents has led to emergence of two distinct classes in society; the class of property owners and on the other hand, the class of property less workers. According to Karl Marx (2004), proponents of the political economy have introduced concepts such as private property and competition indicating without providing any form of analytical explanation but rather just expecting the society to embrace and apply such concepts. In particular, political economists have failed to provide a comprehensive explanation for division that has been established between capital and labor. Estranged Labor clearly depicts Marx’s dissatisfaction as well as disapproval towards the political economy indicating that proponents of such a system want the masses to blindly follow it without any form of intellectual or practical explanation. One area that Karl Marx demonstrates his distaste and disappointment in the article is worker or the laborer and how the worker sinks to not just a commodity but rather a wretched commodity (Marx, 2004). This is critical analysis of Karl Marx concept or phenomenon on the alienation of the worker as predicted in Estranged Labor in several aspects and how these concepts are ...
The first type of alienation is from “product of labor”. This is where the worker is separated from their work. This is basically saying that the work that the worker is creating does not necessarily show their creativity. Marx wrote:
Each of the four classical theorists Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Simmel had different theories of the relationship between society and the individual. It is the objective of this paper to critically evaluate the sociological approaches of each theory to come to a better understanding of how each theorist perceived such a relationship and what it means for the nature of social reality.
The concept of alienation plays a significant role in Marx's early political writing, especially in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1848, but it is rarely mentioned in his later works. This implies that while Marx found alienation useful in investigating certain basic aspects of the development of capitalist society, it is less useful in putting forward the predictions of the collapse of capitalism. The aim of this essay is to explain alienation, and show how it fits into the pattern of Marx's thought. It will be concluded that alienation is a useful tool in explaining the affect of capitalism on human existence. In Marx's thought, however, the usefulness of alienation it is limited to explanation. It does not help in either predicting the downfall of capitalism, or the creation of communism.
In Marx’s early works, he spoke of the alienation of man from his own essence. He then went on discussing alienation as the experience of isolation resulting from powerlessness when he wrote ...
Marx’s theory of alienation describes the separation of things that naturally belong together. For Marx, alienation is experienced in four forms. These include alienation from ones self, alienation from the work process, alienation from the product and alienation from other people. Workers are alienated from themselves because they are forced to sell their labor for a wage. Workers are alienated from the process because they don’t own the means of production. Workers are alienated from the product because the product of labor belongs to the capitalists. Workers do not own what they produce. Workers are alienated from other people because in a capitalist economy workers see each other as competition for jobs. Thus for Marx, labor is simply a means to an end.
THE TERM "alienation" in normal usage refers to a feeling of separateness, of being alone and apart from others. For Marx, alienation was not a feeling or a mental condition, but an economic and social condition of class society--in particular, capitalist society.
Frederick Taylor and Henri Fayol are both considered classical contributors to management theory. Both were developing and expression their viewpoints at similar time period with the aim of “raising standard of management in industry” (Brodie,1967, p7) in a period were very few publications and theories on management. While both theories were developed with the same influencing factors such as war, social struggles and industrial revolution (Urwick. 1951, p7) each developed quite different management theories. Frederick Taylor is considered the Father of Scientific management and he developed scientific principles of management, focusing on the individual,...
Today’s era of business world adapts to everything new but these modern concepts are an indirect tribute to the theories produced by Taylor, Fayol, Mayo and Weber. Taylor’s Scientific management theory is one such example which has become such an important aspects of modern management that it feels unbelievable that his concepts were a part of the history. It is falsely assumed that as the society progresses, the older theories tend to lose their importance. The thing to be noted here is that these theories are based on basic human needs which do not change with time; the thing that changes is the method to fulfil those needs. Investigating earlier management theories is important because these theories are less complex and provide immediate solution to the problems. These theories basically help us to go to the root of the problem and understand its complexity. The better understanding we have about the problem, the easier it is to accomplish the objectives of the company. The following essay states the importance of the Taylor’s Scientific management theory and how it is implemented even today in the business world.
the study of time and action; b) the management on assignment; c) the theory of organization. (8)Taylor’s theory created a revolution in the subject of management because it was the first scientific method in field of management science. (1)After that, management became a truly scientific knowledge and it expanded and modified by later generations. Therefore, Taylor is “known as the father of scientific management”. (2) Taylor put forward a perspective which was “study the character, the nature and the performance of each workman” and moreover, to “train and help and teach this workman”. (3) In the following paragraphs, will exploring the relevant and irrelevant hypotaxis between Scientific Management and organizations.
The evolution of management though the decades can be divided into two major sections. One of the sections is the classical approach. Under the classical approach efficiency and productivity became a critical concern of the managers at the turn of the 20th century. One of the approaches from the classical time period were systematic management which placed more emphasis on internal operations because managers were concerned with meeting the growth in demand brought on by the Industrial revolution. As a result managers became more concerned with physical things than towards the people therefore systematic management failed to lead to production efficiency. This became apparent to an engineer named Frederick Taylor who was the father of Scientific Management. Scientific Management was identified by four principles for which management should develop the best way to do a job, determine the optimum work pace, train people to do the job properly, and reward successful performance by using an incentive pay system. Scientifi...