Richard Sennett's Concepts of New Capitalism - Literature review Example

The aim of this paper is to critically discuss the extent to which Richard Sennett’s account of personal consequences of ‘new capitalism’ helps explain the issues discussed in various articles in media in the recent past that describe a change in the world of work. This paper will first introduce the central idea around the argument on the effects of new capitalism from both divides. It will then give a brief introduction of Richard Sennett’s concepts of ‘New Capitalism’ and finally examine each of Sennett’s concepts on the consequences of ‘New Capitalism’ and use them to help explain the issues discussed in the various articles cited in this paper. The question as to whether work under today’s new capitalism corrodes character has largely been left to conservatives who have inherently ignored the negative effects of capitalism. Conservatives argue that poverty and joblessness are responsible for bad character and not ground rules or economic conditions laid by capitalism. Therefore, in this new environment, one’s failure to find, advance and stay in a job is seen as an individual and not a social failure. This school of thought further argues that in the same breadth, welfare programs are unnecessary and that they give the poor a free pass. This they say encourages dependence and inhibits personal responsibility which in turn is a hindrance to character and success. In his book The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism, Richard Sennett, a sociologist, portrays a bleak picture of what he refers to as the today’s ‘New Economy’. He presents anecdotes of people working in the ‘New Economy’ and from these draws conclusions about the consequences of work in the era of new capitalism. Sennett argues that people have to cope with new concepts, namely; flexibility, flextime, delayering, ever-changing working conditions and teamwork. Concepts, that he argues create a mirage of self fulfillment to workers while creating newer and more sophisticated forms of oppression that disorient and undermine the psychological wellbeing of the workers. Emphasis on these concepts, he says affects character and will ultimately lead to decline of morals and personal values like loyalty and commitment which are desirable in society. In the book Richard Sennett claims that “the pursuit of flexibility has produced new structures of power and control, rather than created the conditions which set us free”. In the ‘New Economy’ emphasis is placed on flexibility rather than bureaucracy. The new approach attacks bureaucracy while emphasizing risk. This emphasis on flexible working is changing the meaning of work as it introduces newer controls instead of simply abolishing the rules of the past. This new flexibility introduces newer controls that are a lot harder to comprehend. For instance, due to lack of clear guidelines and fixed rules, in this new flexibility regime work tasks are not clearly defined, neither are promotions nor dismissals. Sennett’s concept of flexibility being a new structure of control rather than a condition for freedom explains Tony Featherstone’s argument in his article: Why Flexible Working can hurt your career. The author claims that even though workers love the concept of a flexible work environment, most employees view flexible working hours as an avenue to penalize their careers, while other employees view flexible working hours as a reward and are therefore less inclined to ask for pay rises and promotions. “Working mums and dads who need to finish early picking up the kids or caring for an elderly parent may not push as hard for fairer outcomes” (Featherstone, 2015). Featherstone in his article also appreciates the fact that flexible working does not suit everyone. He notes that many people have jobs that can only be performed either in an office or at a specific work site and that some employees too are only productive when working from the office. Another author Eric Jaffe in his article: How flexible hours can harm employees as much as it helps them, argues that flexibility in working hours may lead to victimization and even penalization of employees due to what he refers to as the ‘morning bias’ towards workers with later start times. “The problem is that changing the rules doesn’t change the employer perceptions, and employees who arrive late to work tend to have a bad reputation – even if they perform just as well in their job” (Jaffe, 2014). This shows that unless such biases and stereotypes are dealt with, flexible working hours are just but another method of controlling employees, albeit more sophisticated. Sennett argues that flextime which is a now a big part of the ‘New economy’ is a benefit given to favored employees and since it’s an employee’s reward, it puts the worker in the institutions intimate grip. He also notes that a number of controls have been put to manage employees working away from the office. “People may be required to phone into the office regularly or intranet controls may be used to monitor the absent worker” (Sennett, 1998) The effects of the ‘New Economy’ are already being felt through the work culture of the millennial generation, mostly referred to as generation Y. The generation Y has picked up on this culture as a result of economic pressures to provide flattened flexible organizations. The result is loss of loyalty and commitment to work. The Millennial Compass Report observes that most millenials don’t want to be tied to a single organization, a fixed timetable or structure. They would also rather avoid the responsibilities and stress they see top management and leadership shouldering (Williams, 2014). Decentralization and control is another concept that Sennett argues is also a sophisticated way of exerting control over employees. “One of the claims made for the new organization of work is that it decentralizes power, that is, gives people in the lower ranks of organizations more control over their own activities. Certainly this claim is false in terms of the techniques employed for taking a part the old bureaucratic behemoths. The new information systems provide a comprehensive picture of the organization to top managers in ways which give individuals anywhere in the network little room to hide” (Sennett, 1998). Sennett further argues that classical pyramidal hierarchies have been replaced by shapeless forms of control in the new economy aided by the advent of information technology. Managers use several types of workplace surveillance techniques to monitor employees for a number of reasons. The most commonly used methods are video surveillance, computer monitoring, phone tapping and spying and use of active badge systems that track the whereabouts of the worker within the workplace. The reasons for employee monitoring are such as to prevent theft or ensure maximum productivity. In the article: The Negative Impacts of CCTV Workplace Surveillance, the authors observe that companies employing workplace surveillance are changing employee behavior for the worse and not for the better as most of them believe. “Employers who use panoptical surveillance, are constantly knowingly or unknowingly increasing paranoia in the work-place” (Ragoo & Chuttoo, 2015). Most companies use surveillance within their premises in the pretence of observing safety measures when in reality the intention is to monitor the daily activities of their employees. While reasons for employee monitoring may be valid in some cases, it still has immense negative impacts on employee’s health, stress levels, morals and morale. The issues raised in this article can be validated using Sennett’s concept on the effects of decentralization and control on the worker’s emotional and psychological well being. The advent of technology in the new capitalism era has resulted in clever ways of controlling and monitoring workers. This, the authors observe could result in health and stress problems among employees. Workplace surveillance also affects employee loyalty and commitment as workers are more likely to quit their job if they lose morale and feel that that their rights to privacy are compromised at the workplace (Ragoo and Chuttoo, 2015). In his book, Sennett explains the role of The Protestant Ethic indicating how it sought to demonstrate the emergence of a new character type, the “driven man” as a direct result of the birth of the protestant work ethic. He argues that Protestantism unlike Catholicism focuses on the theology of the individual. Sennett further argues that teamwork is a chimera and is only useful in the exercise of domination and is of no other value. Organizations often front the virtues of teamwork as being beneficial since they give employees a sense of ownership of their work. Author Sophia Cross in her article: Negative Aspects of Teamwork however disputes this fact and argues that this is not always the case. She notes that in some cases teamwork can be detrimental to the health of an organization and its employees. She appreciates that however some employees do well in a team environment, some work at their best independently (Cross, 2015). The issues raised in all the articles discussed in this paper are explained by various concepts outlined by Richard Sennett in his book about the consequences of new capitalism. The concepts of flexibility and flextime explain the negative impact on workers in the ‘new economy’ as a result of flattened organizations which eliminate traditional bureaucracy. The concept of decentralization and control explains the impacts of decentralization as outlined in the featured articles. It also explains the impact of the use of information technology in employee monitoring and explains how this affects employee health, loyalty and commitment. Finally, the last part examines the article: Negative aspects of Teamwork and explains using Sennett’s how work ethics and teamwork is affected as a result of the new capitalism. References: Featherstone, T (2015), Why flexible working can hurt your career: Why do so many managers still have an antiquated 'bums on seats' mentality? Jaffe, E (2014), How flexible hours can harm employees as much as it helps them: The morning bias may cause supervisors to look down on other workers with later start times. Ragoo, J and Chuttoo, R (2015) The Negative effects of CCTV workplace surveillance Cross, S (2015) Negative Aspects of Teamwork Williams, R (2014) How the Millennial Generation will change the world of work Read More