Job Article

I work as a circulation clerk for a local suburban library. A common misconception is that a library is a boring place to work, however, it is comparable to that of a company’s customer service. Dealing with the public is not always easy. Unlike the type of business that was described in Richtel’s article, a library is not out to make a profit. It is state funded and municipal taxes pay our salaries. What the article is describing is the means in which companies control their employees to maintain efficiency and accuracy. McDonald’s, for example, uses call centers to maximize profits by sparing no wasted time at the drive up. This is related to what Marx was discussing when the capitalist, driven by profit-making and competition, resorts to maximizing the amount of labor-power that he or she can extract from the worker. At the library, managing time and efficiency are still important but not as strictly regulated. This might be due to the fact that there is no profit involved, however, our library is one of the busiest in our system and the state and library board look at that. We have to be efficient and accurate in order to meet the needs of our patrons. The more people that go to the library more often equals more funding to meet our demands. The library board is also responsible for dividing the tax money into our wages. We receive annual raises which are based off of manager reviews and merit. So there is some incentive to working hard. The management of the library is set up like a hierarchy. Each department has managers, the departments are overseen by the administration and directors, and the administration is overseen by the library board, which is made up of elected officials. This makes employee evaluations even more important. Since the board sets our wages, it might not be eager to dish out money to employees that are not efficient and accurate because they can supply that money for other library programs.

Job Comparison

I have only worked one job in my short life. Thank God the job is almost parallel to the job that Ritchel described in her article. The job that I worked at, as you can tell, was McDonald’s. I was a lobby maintenance worker who worked my way up to a cashier. McDonald’s is one of the most difficult jobs to work at. Everyone from your managers to customers look down upon you, sometimes even co-workers, when you work maintenance as I did. I worked at the McDonald’s at Navy Pier, a huge summer tourist site, which thus made this McDonald’s a seasonal employer. They hired loads of workers for the summer months and laid most workers, or as management called them, “under performers” off. This, like the red box, inspired workers to do as much as they could to show that they were dedicated employees and worthy of keeping after the summer tourist season had ended. Most of the employees were young, as was Ms. Vargas, most got paid minimum wage which was $7.75 at the time of my employment, I later heard that it was raised to $8.00. Like Ritchel’s article, our break time was recorded also. Workers were given a thirty minute lunch break, during that time, they had to punch out of the work clock when there order was being taken and punch in once they were done. We also were being watched every minute to ensure that performance wasn’t slipping and that worker weren’t “stealing from the corporation”. There were cameras everywhere from the lobby to the freezer, our privacy was really invaded. The last thing I want to share is that on Labor Day when most people were fired, it was payday, and in order to extract that last little bit of labor time, management made sure that everyone worked their full shift before they got their check and found out if they were being dismissed or not. True work of a capitalist.

Greediness: "What's the Deal?"

"Why do people try to consume lots of things even though it doesn't make them happier?"

The title of this blog is called "Greediness: What's the Deal?" It is named this because it answers the question asked; people are greedy. Now, why they are not happy with being greedy is another question and could be another blog, but we'll consolidate both answers...Here we go:

People usually consume things in excess because of a void that has been left in their life; something is missing. It could be love, friendship and/or companionship, whatever the case these people were not happy in the first place so hoarding becomes a habitual hobby, if you will. Wealthy people tend to consume things at an increased rate than a middle class, or impoverished individual just because they can; they have the funds and resources so consumption of anything becomes simple and easy whereas a individual like me would have to work, sometimes hard to get to the point where I could consume anything (LOL).
For example, if I were to buy an i-Pod for the first time I would be excited and satisfied with that i-Pod. Now if Apple came out with several different colors or versions of that same exact i-Pod I would be inclined to go and get that i-Pod just because it's a different color or version, not because it would make me happier.
My mom used to tell me that my eyes were bigger than my pockets. Well, in this case I can say that anyone who tries to consume lots of things have pockets that matches the size of their "big" eyes.

What is business for?

I have always seen the purpose of business as a means to serve the community by providing goods and services. If you look back in time to when humans started gathering in larger groups, you can see the necessity of business. A farmer provided food for weavers; weavers provided clothing for farmers. This is the simplest form of business – transaction of trade, seen as C-M-C in Marx. Surplus commodities are exchanged to serve use-values. Needs are met.

Business also provided an outlet for personal fulfillment and growth. People could specialize, which led to advancements in the production (both quantitative and qualitative) of goods. Business created a happier society, because people could excel at their specialty and generate a surplus of products of use-value for everyone.

Marx then talks about M-C-M’, which is the exchange of money for commodity to make more money, which removes business from its original purpose. In this equation, there is no focus on providing use-values to a community. We now see quantitative growth for the individual. This translates into exploitation of the commodity – the sale of an item for a cost higher than its original value, while the use-value is the same. In present day, people of the community have become the commodity in the form of labor and are thus exploited by the same means.

If an individual wanted to specialize in weaving today and set up a shop, they would be crushed by the corporate competition. People, who would have once specialized, are now wage earners for those corporations. Most wage-earner positions are similar, repetitive, and lack any individualization. A cashier at a Wal-Mart is the same as a cashier at Best Buy. There is no specialization – just a labor force to better serve the need of the individual in the pursuit of profit-making (M-C-M’). Thus business has moved away from its original purpose to serve the community and create specialization, and moved towards the gains of the individual, which in turn decreases the productivity and happiness of the community as a whole.

I used to think that business is for providing people with an increased standard of living. That is I believed that people created products to make the life of the rest of the world easier and more sustainable, which brings forth the term technology. Technological advances help make the life of people who need those technologies less difficult. Marx challenges this view by arguing that business is just a way for people to make money by spending it. He basically says that people invest (or appropriate) their money to a certain commodity in order to exchange it for a higher amount of money thus completing their cycle of business. He implies that every man’s main order of business is to increase their quantity of money. I agree with Marx’s claim that business is just buying to sell in order to increase one’s monetary value. I also feel that my views is important because these people are increasing their monetary value in order to increase their standard of living.

What business means

I think businesses are to satisfy peoples’ needs and to make a profit. When you have a business, it is basically a requirement to make profits. In actuality, if you have no profits, then you will either have a struggling business or no business at all. To make a profit, your consumers buy your products. If your product satisfies your consumer’s needs, then they will more than likely come back and purchase that same or more products considering you are a dependable business. Therefore, you make profits. From what I’ve understood from the reading, Marx and I have the same notion on business. Marx explains the C-M-C concept which is pretty much the idea of a business. C-M-C is “selling in order to buy”. For instance, the seller buys the product, consumers then “pay him back” by purchasing that product, and then the seller has more money to buy more products. The idea that business is important is because it satisfies our human needs and with that, businesses can satisfy us more by supplying more of what we need.

What is business?

Personally, I believe first and foremost that a business is bound to its literal definition, that being a profit seeking industry or enterprise. The most elementary and predominant goal of a business should be fundamentally to make money. Those in charge of operating the industry need to earn a living. So earning a profit is a necessity for the time and effort employed in producing a commodity, whether good or service, that can exhibit a use value for the public, but more importantly, an exchange value for the manufacturer in Marx’s M-C-M cycle. Marx seems to agree with this. Being in a profitless M-C-M cycle is redundant. In order for this cycle to be effective, money must be invested in a commodity or bundle of commodities that can ultimately be transformed into a new commodity, with a use value for the public, that can be sold for more than the commodities used to manufacture it. “But industrial capital too is money which has been changed into commodities, and reconverted into more money by the sale of these commodities” (Marx 256). If you purchase the ingredients and produce steel, you can sell it for more than the components used in it. “The ceaseless augmentation of value, which the miser seeks to attain by saving his money from circulation, is achieved by the more acute capitalist by means of throwing his money again and again into circulation” (255). In other words, what Marx is stating here is that if companies invest money into commodities to earn a profit upon resale, more money can be circulated and gained, benefiting the industries and the economy. Ultimately, I think my claim that businesses should be profit seeking is accurate, and I think that this is important because, as Marx said, it is the passion and drive for enrichment that fuel the markets and can benefit the businesses that are part of the market.