Behind The Modern Times

Lily Syafikah Mansor
~Work~

Most of us were laughing when Prof Perry showed to us the Modern Times, a story from Charlie Chaplin. No wonder people said that he was a great comedian actor. I could tell. The video seems visualize what are we studying and help me understand better on the division of labor and the division of labor in detailed. In this video, it is distinct that the division of labor had existed long time ago. We could see that in the video they divide up the work by section and the worker do different types of work. Like Greenbaum said "the labor process is what economists refer to when they talk about how work is divided and who gets to do what". This video also includes the element of social division of labor in detail .This also kind of work rationalization like Max Weber describe that work rationalization which meant breaking down each task into smaller and simpler steps, creating specialized ,narrow, and repetitive work procedures. We could see that Charlie had done the part of product for the whole day. It is what the real worker had been through. They do the same task over and over again. Capitalist may say that it is a good thing to do as it will increase the amount of product and thus it could make more money and the chain of M-C-M' will stay moving. They also claim that this is good as they can provide more jobs to the deskilled worker and they could pay the low wage as the worker is deskilled. For me, this is something that unworthy to the worker as they unable to gain knowledge and improve their skills. They also could not do various work as their work only limited and restricted on certain things. Are they having any options? Capitalist might say that they are free to choose the work or else quit the work if they want. It is true that they have freedom to do so but is their choice is force choice or free choice? We also can relate this to the video that prof. Perry showed to us before this, life and debt. The worker in Jamaica, are they having force choice or free choice? It seems to me that they don't have any better choice but keep on working at the Free Zone even though they did not get the paid as much as they want to live on their life. The Capitalist seem want to gain profit by increase the amount of product but pay the worker with low wage. At the end of the video of Modern Times, it showed that as the capitalist want to increase the production, they try to maximize the work and makes everything seems so fast. At this point it is like quantity much more fundamental than quality because the worker have to move fast as the line keep on moving, non-stop. They might make mistake and work under pressure as the works become a burden for them. Plus, the video also showed that the manager keep an eye of the worker in everything that they do even in the restroom to ensure that the worker keep doing their work. For me this is something that violates their privacy. The worker also a human, they need time to have a break. They aren't a robot that could do work non-stop. At this edge point, it seems that economic democracy (ED) might be another alternative instead of capitalism as the ED divides the profit among the community compare to the capitalism that give the extra profit to the shareholders and the owner while the worker still get the same paid. Capitalism is uncontrollable and it is hard for us to stop it as M-C-M' chain keep growing.