LABRST 1C03 Lecture Notes - Barter, Deskilling
Document Summary
Work is a central human activity involving the shaping of raw material to transform the conditions of our own existence. Work that produces commodities for exchange rather than for use. Allows us to engage in productive labour. Use: food, cleaning, craft, cooking, for your own use. Exchange: for money, for barter, for trade, for the use of others. Enlightenment thinkers believed: work is a fundamental part of the human experience. Work is the means of self-expression and self-development: but under capitalism there is an estrangement or separation of the worker from the spirit of their labour. From product: no control over what one produces, no relationship with the finished object of production, production for exchange not use. From process: lack of control over the process of production, divorcing conception and execution on labour, deskilling. Social alienation: workers are in competition with each other for jobs, all social relationships we have are affected by our relationship with work.