People in the office

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

People in the office. A contribution to the sociology of employees (American original: White Collar. The American Middle Classes ) is a classic of employee sociology , published in 1951 by C. Wright Mills . The study is considered to be “the first, still up-to-date“ macro-sociological ”account of the alienation of the work and living conditions of the“ middle ”(...) for whose favor the“ modern ”politicians are still struggling to this day”.

The German translation by Bernt Engelmann was published on January 1, 1955.

context

White Collar: The American Middle Classes appeared in 1951 after The New Men of Power , the first part of the trilogy ( Stratification Trilogy ) about the investigation of the balance of power within different layers of the USA. 1956 finally followed the analysis of the American power elite ( The Power Elite ).

Overview

Mills' study has 4 parts with a total of 15 chapters and 49 sub-chapters, in which, in contrast to the old middle class, he examines the working and living environments of the new dependent employees, their lifestyles and power relations.

In the introduction, Mills sums up the development from a free and independent entrepreneur to a manager and from a classic representative of academic professions to a modern specialist and skilled worker who works in a complex context with a variety of other specialized professions. Fallada's Little Man What Now serves as a critical example of the status insecurity and endangerment of this new form of employment, as does Priestley's Angel Pavement and Orwell's Coming up for air. Kitty Foil is presented as an affirmative example for the USA, the psychological deformations become clear in The Death of a Salesman . The "little man" is always dependent, devoid of history, harassed, paralyzed by fear. It is controlled rather than being able to determine the conditions of its success for itself. His Kafkaesque alienation (see p. Xvi) makes him look for dreary " replacement " satisfaction:

He is bored at work and restless at play, and this terrible alternation wears him out. (Auxiliary translation: he is bored at work and restless at rest, and this terrible shift is draining him.)

He is often in conflict with superiors, colleagues and customers, whereby he is the predetermined loser. He has to constantly disguise himself and sell himself and thus also alienate himself from himself. Politically disoriented and indifferent, but numerically decisive, the middle class is wooed by right and left parties. Mills wants to make the situation of the employees understandable in their social context, because only this empowers them to take on political responsibility based on their actual self-image. Neither the classical liberalism of Mills nor the theory of the proletariat of Marx can help in the investigation , since the employee is neither a petty bourgeois nor a worker . (See p. Xx)

The first part of the study that follows presents the early world of small business owners , their ideas about property, independence, freedom and security, and the self-balanced society they determined. The system of property changed with the decline of farms, the new dynamism of business life and the emergence of the "rag bourgeoisie". A new competitive rhetoric prevailed that made competition a lifestyle and celebrated independent farmers and small business owners.

The second part shows which new forms of employment are characteristic of the new middle class, which legalities apply in economic life and which hierarchies have emerged. In the fifth subchapter " The Managerial Demiurge ", Mills analyzes bureaucratic structures, hierarchies, the special case of the foreman, the new type of entrepreneur and the powers of the manager. He sees three trends .... In the sixth subchapter, Mills presents various professional groups, including the new skills that are being added in previous professions: first in administration, then in health professions, lawyers, university teachers and business people.

The seventh subchapter " Brain Inc. " on the qualified services presents four phases of development in which new technical professions emerged, Chapter eight presents the world of retail sales, Chapter nine the office professions.

Part three of the work analyzes the new work ethic (10th chapter), status panic (11th chapter) and conditions of professional success (12th chapter).

The fourth part deals with the collective self-image, union organization and political stance of the new middle class in the USA.

Theses and main statements

Mills depicts the radically changed situation of the middle class in the USA in the post-war period. His thesis is that the employees have been transformed by the bureaucracy of the large companies into mindless and content machines, whose identity is formed in the hierarchical network of function and title.

He describes three forms of exercise of power in the workplace: coercion, also physically noticeable, authority and manipulation.

Like Weber, Mills seems to see people trapped in bureaucratic rationality. Mills feared that the middle class could be “ politically emasculated and culturally stultified ”. This would strengthen the elite.

The middle class is alienated from reality because, although they earn a good income, they no longer have the opportunity to influence or change the world.

Big business stands above them, and below them the workforce; before them lies the fate of total political dependence, behind them their sinking world to which they cling. (P. 98)

According to Mills, employees of large companies are politically conservative in the intermediate position between entrepreneurs and workers because they identify with their employers. Because of their vulnerable position, they tend to “status panic”, which also means that they tend to reject innovative changes that could endanger their position.

Mills considers the liberal idea of ​​market competition of the economy to be an ideology which, against the fact of monopoly formation, is supposed to justify the claim of the haves to their wealth through achievement and the inferior position of others. At the same time, the illusion of advancement through performance is maintained. Krzysmanski comments: "At the same time, Mills saw the crisis of liberalism, which promised unlimited advancement for everyone, but [which] had long since become a chimera in the constraints of careers."

Quote

Kindness and friendliness become aspects of personalized service or of public relations of big firms, rationalized to further the sale of something. With anonymous insincerity the Successful Person thus makes an instrument of his own appearance and personality..↵↵ Auxiliary translation: Friendliness and courtesy become part of the personalized service or public relations of large companies. These are used rationally to increase the sales of something. With unspoken dishonesty, man makes his own external appearance and character the instrument of his success. (Chapter 8)

expenditure

literature

  • Hans Jürgen Krysmanski , Mills, C. Wright (8/28/1916 Waco, Texas - 3/20/1962 Nyack, New York) People in the office. A contribution to the sociology of employees . In: Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff (Ed.), Lexicon of Sociological Works . 2nd, updated and expanded edition, Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3-658-02377-5 , p. 511 f.
  • Horst Meier: Mills, Charles Wright (8/28/1916 Waco, Texas - 3/20/1962 Nyack, New York) People in the office. A contribution to the sociology of employees . In: Sven Papcke and Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff (eds.), Key Works of Sociology , Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 978-3-531-13235-8 , pp. 345–347.
  • Oliver Neun: On the topicality of C. Wright Mills. Introduction to his work . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2019, ISBN 978-3-658-22375-5 , chapter "White Collar", pp. 38–51.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ White Collar, C. Wright Mills. (No longer available online.) In: www.uni-muenster.de. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016 ; Retrieved December 4, 2016 .
  2. ^ C. Wright Mills: White Collar: The American Middle Classes . Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-19-975635-3 ( com.ph [accessed May 3, 2020]).
  3. ↑ Lutz Eichler: System and Self: Work and Subjectivity in the Age of Their Strategic Recognition . transcript Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-8394-2213-7 ( google.de [accessed December 4, 2016]).
  4. ^ A b Doug Mann: Understanding society: a survey of modern social theory . Oxford University Press, Don Mills, Ont. New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-542184-2 .
  5. ↑ Stuart Sim, Noel Parker (Ed.): The AZ guide to modern social and political theorists . Prentice Hall, Harvester Wheatsheaf, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-13-524885-0 .
  6. ↑ Status and position: critical analysis of a socio-economic model . Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-663-12383-5 ( google.de [accessed on December 4, 2016]).
  7. ^ Andreas Hess: The political sociology C. Wright Mills': A contribution to the political history of ideas . Springer-Verlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-663-01310-5 ( google.de [accessed December 4, 2016]).
  8. ^ White Collar, C. Wright Mills. (No longer available online.) In: www.uni-muenster.de. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016 ; Retrieved December 4, 2016 .
  9. ^ C. Wright Mills: White Collar: The American Middle Classes . Oxford University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-19-976358-0 ( com.ph [accessed May 3, 2020]).