Term_Paper

WEEKLY SUMMARY OF READINGS To be posted on IVLE Discussion Forum by 11:59 P.M. on Tuesdays I. Title You Made (encapsulating the weekly reading materials): Classical perspectives on the division of labor and an overview of bureaucracy II. Summary of the Reading Materials: Week’s 3 readings focus on the classical perspectives on work. The first reading provides us an overview of Marx’s take on the division of labor. He views that whatever the outcome of the capitalist society is, whether wealth is accumulated or reduced, the workers are inevitably the ones suffering the most, because of the nature of the relationship between labor and capital: the workers are always at a disadvantage. Miseries for the workers are unavoidable, unless a change in society structure takes places. The second reading shows Durkheim’s attempt to account for the division of labor that drastically changed the face of the society during the Industrial Revolution. Here the division of labor is explained as the result of increasing competition within the society that forces individual and groups, ones with inferiority to take on new specialization to avoid being driven out of the society. Secondly, he argues that division of labor is not a natural process in every society, but derives from the collectivity. In the third reading, Max Webber tried to define civil bureaucracy based on its characteristics. After that, he gave a clear description of the officials that are central to bureaucracy, what he’s entitled to and what are his responsibilities. In the last paragraph, he gave a history of the development of bureaucracy, and explained why such structure took form. III. Discussion (one or two discussion topics): In the second reading, Durkheim described specialization as a rather voluntary process in order to survive in the over populating society. However, in socioeconomic terms, could this process be demand driven instead' Could it be that the mechanization of the industries gave rise to the need to specialize in work' And could it be that the society’s increasing wealth always demand many more goods and services, and division of specialization are the consequences of these demands '