Modernity and Globalisation

1. Modernity and Globalisation Gurminder K. Bhambra

2. Industrial Capitalism and Alienation Week 6

3. Overview • Industrial society • Marx: capitalism • Alienation

4. Industrialization and Modernity • The logic of industrialism came to be seen as an internal phenomenon that expanded outwards, incorporating other societies in its wake • This led to the idea of a fundamental division between the pre-industrial (pre-modern) and the industrial (modern) that would, in time, be overcome • Modernity, or modern society, is now represented by the transition to industrial capitalist society and the co-existence of forms is no longer considered to be viable

5. Industrial Society • Technological innovations • the mechanization of production: textiles, coal and iron, steam engines • The growth of urban centres: towns, ports and cities • a rise in population, migration • the concentration of factories • women and children entered the paid workforce • a unified land and water transport network • Commercial agriculture • the enclosures • emergence of the rural proletariat • The spread of banking and finance

6. Industrialisation and Sociology • Early sociologists saw industrialization an opportunity for progressive emancipation from the feudal system • However, towards the end of the 19th century, the key issue was the ‘crisis of industrial society’ • Industrialization was held responsible for the breakdown of traditional communities and the dissolution of social bonds • Private property and free competition, together with the lack of government regulation of economic conditions, were seen as responsible for poverty and general decline of living conditions

7. Internal Connections • Industry, urbanism and the rise of modern cities all contributed to the idea that a new type of society was being created; one that was based on new principles of social organization • the concepts of the ‘division of labour’ and ‘class’ became the defining characteristics of modern society • the pre-industrial ‘mob’ became the industrial ‘masses’, and later, ‘proletariat class’ • The focus on social structure addressed the organization of social life in terms of national institutions and social relations • This established the idea of society as an autonomous, organized whole

8. Industrial Society: Durkheim • The ‘division of labour’ is seen as a source of social solidarity • It can also, at times, present pathological forms resulting in a state of anomie • As the market extends and industrialization gathers pace, new forms of social organization are required which do not always emerge in time • It is not the division of labour that produces the condition of anomie, but the failure to establish the necessary social relations for its regulation (c) Ali B. Sufyan

9. Industrial Capitalism: Marx • The development of industrial production leads to the emergence of two basic classes with irreconcilable interests: • the bourgeoisie and the proletariat • Where labour is divided there is a conflict (contradiction) between the interests of different groups • The ‘de-skilling’ integral to the increasing scale of capitalist production renders all workers uniform determining their constitution as the ‘universal class’

10. Industrial Capitalism: Marx • Capitalism rests on an ‘exchange market’ – things are produced for exchange not for need • ‘Use’ value and ‘exchange’ value • value = the amount of socially necessary labour time embodied in goods produced • The capitalist buys labour and sells commodities • workers are ‘free’ to sell their labour and so their labour itself becomes a commodity -> alienation • ‘surplus value’ is the source of profit • In earlier societies, production (exchange) is controlled by ‘use’; with capitalism, the regulative tie between demand and supply is broken

11. Industrial Capitalism: Marx • The search for profit means that it is an expanding system, controlled only by periodic crises • a crisis is the expansion of production beyond what the market can absorb • Capitalism is an inherently unstable system and contains within it the seeds of its own destruction • asymmetrical relationship between wage labour and capital – inherent contradiction • poverty and the existence of an underclass • collective organisation of workers from a ‘class in itself’ to a ‘class for itself’ -> revolution!

12. Alienation • Workers do not control the products of their labour • all labour creates goods which have an ‘exchange’ not a ‘use’ value • workers sell their labour power in an open market and have no say in the capitalist process • Workers are alienated from work • work is a means to an end, it is not valuable or valued in its own right • Economic relationships are also social relationships and so alienation is also social • money promotes the rationalisation of social relationships Giddens (1971)

13. Questions • What is capitalism for Marx? • How does this differ from Weber’s analysis? • Why is ‘waged labour’ important to capitalism? • What are ‘wages’? • Why might the worker be considered a commodity? • How and why does the worker suffer when the capitalist suffers economically? • Is capitalism necessarily exploitative?