How Does Paid Employment Affect Your Identity - Essay Example

Marxist view of capitalist work: Karl Marx’s theory of capitalism is significant enough to understand the relationship of the identity of an individual with that of the nature of his employment. Karl Marx explained in his work, the role of capitalism in shaping the modern society. In his theory he mentioned the effectiveness of capitalism in maintaining a relationship between different classes (Klegg, 1990, p.55). According to the theory, the goal of the capitalist is to gain maximum profit in the business and generally the capitalist reach their goals by the exploitation of the labor class.

The capitalist exploit the conditions of the labors by paying the labors with wages which are much lesser than their efforts they put in for the work. The difference in the value of the wages paid to the workers acts as a source of profit for the capitalist. According to the theory it can be comprehended that the motive of the capitalist are always fulfilled as they take an upper hand and decides the fate of the others. This nature of the capitalist or the employers identifies them as exploiters of the society and the workers or the laborers in the society are referred as the exploited section of the economy (Baiman, et al, 2000, pp.42-44). The general identification of the two broad division of the society can be attained from the theory of the capitalist work by Karl Marx.

Karl Marx also held the idea that the economic structure of the society has a high level of influence on the thoughts of the human being and also guides the behavior of the people. The thought process and the behaviorist pattern of the individuals is a guiding factor for setting of an identity in the society and determine the overall reputation of the individual. The Marxian theory also classifies the social structure based on the nature of employment of the persons. (Anderson & Taylor, 2010, p.17) Ervin Gofman’s theory of dramaturgy and Impression management: The concept of dramaturgy was framed by the sociologist Erving Goffman, where he brought in the idea that the life of the individuals is symbolical to a never ending play or drama and the people are the mere actors in the stage of life (Ritzer, 2004, p.211). The theory of impression management was also devised by him where he stated that the individuals show a general tendency to manipulate the behavior of others in the stage of life.

In depicting the behavior of others various factors creep which are social setting, appearance and manner of interaction of an individual. These factors help to establish the relation between the identities of an individual and the nature of his paid employment (Kendall, 2011, p.574). The social setting of a person is one of the guiding factors to determine the identity of a person. The income level of a person builds up the social setting of a person and subsequently helps in creating his identity in the society.

An Individual with high level of income tends to have a flamboyant social setting does his best to create an identity among the people that he belongs to the upper level of society. On the contrary the lower economic sections of the society do not have much resource to draw the attention of people. Their social setting is devoid of any materialistic thing as they face hard time in fulfilling their primary needs. According to Goffman, appearance of a person is also a crucial factor in setting up his identity in t