SOSC 1000 Lecture Notes - Underemployment, Industrial Revolution, Proletariat

• School: York University
• Department: Social Science
• Course: SOSC 1000
• Professor: Terry Conlin

Document Summary

The notion of work is intertwined with the natural human ability to control the physical environment to create things . Meaningful or meaningless, on average this part of our lives makes up 1/3 of the day, and asserts a level of control over our lifestyles, social class, and ideological beliefs. Continued employment in production of goods and services, restricted to paid labour. Types of work: moving matter around, commanding those who move matter around. Karl marx would define these as the roles of the proletariat (1) and the bourgeoisie (2), two distinct classes which are in constant conflict. Before the industrial revolution changed the labour process in developed countries, occupations were coupled to the finished product. Nowadays, this association is no longer apparent because the worker has been disassociated from the original labour. Therefore, alienation is not as much of a feeling, but a structure created to exploit the ability of others of a perceived lower class.