>Charles: Perhaps you can elaborate on how people actively participate in
their own oppression and exploitation.
a quickie answer, more later. the following are the voices of downsized managers, many of whom were very bitter and critical about the state of corporate america during the downsizing waves of the early 90s. they often expressed an affinity with 'workers' and, indeed, increasingly saw themselves as workers in a way they hadn't before, even going so far as to support unions and criticize themselves and others for rejecting unions in the past:
"Randy was once the vice president of marketing and sales for a food distributor. This is the second time he has been laid off in his 15 year career. During the entire interview Randy sat calmly in the formal seating area of his home, occasionally punctuating his remarks by leaning forward or making expansive gestures with his lanky arms. However, when it came to the topic of his family, he stood and began pacing between the fireplace and a spot in the room where he could see his wife and children playing in the family room. He stood there for quite some time, but eventually turned to resume his pacing. His voice, no longer steady and even, became increasingly impassioned:
"I'll get a job eventually. I'll work hard because it's in my nature to work hard. I still want to be successful. I want to get that pat on the back. But you know, I think that we're going to lose that because now that everyone admits that there's no security, then it's going to be more of a dog eat dog world than ever. So, I've got to look out for my family. They're number one now. Maybe they weren't before, my wife sure felt that way often enough. When Saturday comes, I'm not going to be in the office unless it's absolutely necessary. I'll kiss ass, but i'm not going to sit around that damn office 'til 8:00 fucking around just to keep up appearances. That's all it is, you know. A fucking game. Well I'm not playing. I'll give 'em one hundred percent, sometimes more, because I'm still driven to be successful. But, I'm not gonna give 'em my life. I did that before but never -- never again!"
Kevin, once the head of marketing for an insurance firm, was in the midst of his third layoff in his eighteen year career. In response to a question about how he might approach his career differently in the future, Kevin noted that he was beginning to reevaluate the meaning of friendship:
"You get so caught up in your career ...that it becomes difficult to remove yourself from that mode where you only consider people in terms of what they can do for you. You start to calculate--this is sad--you weigh the worth of your time. You ask yourself: "Is there a return on my investment with this guy?" Over the past holiday season I vowed I'd never operate like that again. What's the point of success if you do so at the expense of your integrity, of doing what's right. It's popular these days for corporations to have value statements, you know? But behind the shiny plaques in the foyer, there's a set of values that corporations don't make so public: Look out for number one and crawl over anyone who stands in your way--even friends. See, I question that. It's like a line I'm drawing in the sand which says, "this is as far as the long arm of the corporation can reach into my soul"
Elizabeth had recently been downsized out of her position as the director of nursing in an area hospital. She took a great deal of pride in the training programs that she developed for her nursing staff over the years.
However, hospital restructuring threatened the program:
"I was most proud of the mentoring program I established for my nurses. With restructuring they have to scale it back....But, to put that much effort into something only to have it disappear right out from underneath. That's why I keep thinking that I ought to make use of my culinary talents. People have always loved my cooking.... I've decided to take courses on running a small business. And with the money my husband left me, I think I could start a catering business. I could do something that brings me joy. I love to see people enjoy a good meal. A good party is a work of art! It would also be mine and I would be in control. Everything I put my sweat, blood and tears into would be all mine -- no one can take it away." [...] Managers were well-aware that downsizing could derail the careers of even the most talented employees. They criticized government policies that purchased low inflation rates at the expense of high unemployment rates. And, they were highly critical of stock market-driven downsizings which peaked during the 1995 holiday season. Nonetheless, they found it difficult to sustain these structural explanations and tended to gravitate toward individualistic explanations: they often blamed themselves and others for having lost their jobs and for failing to find new ones." [...]
now, there's more but the point is this: these folks have come to a critical consciousness of their status as workers no different than the people they used to manage. it is a consciousness that could, in theory, be cultivated no? isn't that the point? but in the absence of that sort of critical activity, without that push, without these interventions their criticism of the corporate world and what they see as the demise of "the social contract" languishes and is eventually deflected.
that is, they resist but not *in the workplace,* not by challenging the rules, not by organizing for unions, etc. rather, they resist by turning toward their families/friends [men] and 'meaningful careers' [women]. if the social contract is dead for middle and executive level mgmt, they say, then fuck them [ceo's etc]. i'll still play, but i won't give 100%. i'm going to spend more time with my family/friends and quit treating people as means to some ulterior end. etc. women, by contrast, tend to resist by dropping out of the corporate world altogether. they decide to start their own business or go into third sector employment.
as christopher lasch noted a couple of decades ago, the family [civil society more generally] became a 'haven in a heartless world' with the rise of capitalism. as such, it provided an alternative to the cold, calculating world of the market. it was in the bourgeois family that people rejected the market but, in doing so, their energies were directed away from a *direct* critique of capitalism and into cultivating a certain kind of family life seen as "good" and "right" and, ultimately, functional for capitalism. [the ideology of the victorian family, the cult of true womanhood and the cult of the self-made man, the ideal of the 'family wage,' children as priceless and childhood as innocent and in need of protecting, etc].
women managers, by contrast, opted to drop out altogether. the family wasn't a 'haven' for them in the same way as it appeared to men in their late 30s and early 40s. women wanted work that was "meaningful"--that gave them some sense that they were contributing to society, to others' well-being in some way, or that gave them a sense of purpose and identity. one woman went on to become an interpreter for the deaf, another went on to work for an agency that promoted literacy.
the result of both kinds of 'resistance' though is that it ultimately meant that they gravitated toward individualistic explanations for their fate: they prosecuted themselves and one another for their failure--both as 'downsized managers' and when they failed to find comparable employment. their retreat to the family or to meaningful work exacerbates self-blame. if, for example, a male manager gets comparable employment and doesn't proceed up the corporate ladder as he might once have expected to, then he will say to himself: "well, i decided long ago to "draw a line in the sand" and i didn't "give them 100%" so i'm not moving up because i chose not to. [see kathleen gerson's _no man's land_ for more of this. she shows how the ideology of the 'new man' of 'the new fatherhood' and the SNAG is quite compatible with capitalism insofar as men who take on the role of 'involved parenting' do so, in part, because they are both pulled [by changing gender role ideologies] and pushed [by stalled careers].
the response of these men and women isn't really new or even surprising.
the point is really "the logic" of power and resistance in this framework--much like gramsci understands hegemony and resistance except that here the focus is on how this actually works.
now, as for practice, i guess you could envision the following, whether it is "practicable" or not is another question but one that needs to be asked:
i suppose one way to engage in some sort of critical intervention is to have worked with these folks in some way. it sounds ludicrous i know, but that would be the answer: figure out some way to engage them. they were, at the time, willing to listen to structuralist explanations for downsizing. they understood in a way they never had before that their status as "managers" didn't protect them from the vagaries of market discipline any more than ordinary workers.
there's more but need to get back to you. the rest of the stuff in burawoy's anthology might be more useful insofar as it deals with social movements, unions, employee groups etc. --places which might seem more likely a place for leftists to intervene.
kelley