¶ … Netflix employees "tear, slap, and clack" through a day's work can be easily understood within a classic sociological framework, using either a Marxist or a Durkheim lens. Both Marx and Durkheim would have noted that the Netflix model represents quintessential division of labor. The employees perform one task with maximum efficiency. While Durkheim would focus primarily on the social contracts and organization of the employees within the Netflix organization, Marx would critique the means by which the Netflix associates are distanced from the owners of the means of production, their labor artificially devalued and exploited, especially given the employees come from developing countries in Africa and Asia. However, the way Sheehan describes the Netflix operation shows that Durkheim's concepts of social solidarity, specialization, and interdependence are indeed requisite to human survival and are inescapable, as the sociologists affirms in his dissertation on the function of the division of labor. Whereas Marx focuses on conflict and division, Durkheim emphasizes bonding and collaboration. The Netflix case, as Sheehan describes it, fits Durkheim's model better than Marx's because there is a lack of conflict embedded in the analysis. In fact, the employees of Netflix are called "associates," in a deliberate attempt to include the women in the company. The term associate connotes partner in the way employee does not. By calling the employees associates, the Netflix company affirms a commitment to social solidarity and group membership. While the associates only make $9/hour and are far removed from what Marx called the means of production, the women from Asia and Africa are empowered to a degree. They work as fast as they would like, for example. They also receive free membership and movies, which further entrenches them into the system and connects them directly to the work they do. One woman described by...
The process of unpacking and then stuffing the Netflix envelopes might represent the division of labor, but it does not necessarily represent the division of social classes.
Max is one of the central characters of the novel when it comes to the issues of Marxism because he blames capitalism entirely for the inequality of blacks; he believes that it is capitalism that has kept the black people oppressed. Max tries to show the jury that the case is not just about one black man and one black woman, but rather, it is about millions of blacks
Thus, Nora was controlled by Torvald in even her most mundane actions and behavior. Nora was also economically indebted to Dr. Rank and Krogstad, immediately explicating why she was willing to be controlled by these men. Her fear of being discovered by Torvald that she had borrowed money from Krogstad made her submissive to Krogstad's demand that Nora influence her husband to allow Krogstad to keep his job ("Do as
In the car Nick sees him look sideways as though lying and thinks "And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him, after all" (65, Chapter 4). Nick's middle class ideology leads him to scorn those who would strive to get ahead. It is the traditional view of the underclass toward upstarts from within. In the
Gatsby Marx and the Great Gatsby In the 1920s, the United States was enjoyed a new and unprecedented period of industriousness and growth. Within this period, its advancement as a production society would seen one of its most torrid phases of expansion. But just as this time would prove the economic merits of capitalism, it would begin to demonstrate the considerable dangers that also accompany this system. This dichotomy is captured best
Another fundamental element of liberal theory and ideology is the right for each individual to pursue and hold private property. According to Locke, each individual has the opportunity and the right to work to better oneself through the accumulation and improvement of their own private property, "it is allowed to be his goods who hath bestowed his labor upon it," (Locke, 21). This is also a crucial feature in the foundations
E., by exploiting the working class and appropriating the "surplus value" produced by the working class for himself. (Marx, "The Production of Absolute Surplus-Value") the working class is forced to work for the capitalist since in the "Capitalist" stage of social development all the sources of production are in the hands of the Capitalist who deliberately keeps the wages at low levels by creating unemployment and a ready army of
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