SOCIOLOGY OF WORK
Elaborate Study Summary — Lectures 1–8 incl. Required Readings
Academic Year 2026 · Petar Marčeta
,Lecture 1 — Foundations: Industrialisation & Classical
Social Theory
Reading: Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto (pp. 14–40) | Date: 30 May 2026
1.1 Pre-Industrial Work
Before industrialisation, work was organised in radically different ways. Key features:
• Work was embedded in social and spiritual frameworks — inseparable from daily life and religious
meaning.
• The extended family was the primary unit of production; no separation of home from work.
• Work viewed as a necessary evil, not a calling or virtue in itself.
• Division of labour already existed (by gender, craft, clergy) but was not factory-based.
• Agriculture as the first great transformation: food surpluses freed time for specialised roles (weapon-
makers, priests, soldiers) and enabled the emergence of the state and class differentiation.
Key data: In 1300, roughly 60–76% of European workers were in agriculture. By 2012, only 1–3% in England
and the Netherlands — the full arc of industrialisation in a single statistic.
1.2 The Industrial Revolution
Definition and Origins
Industrialisation = reorganisation of production involving: (1) machinery replacing hand tools and animal
power; (2) inanimate energy sources (steam, electricity); (3) large-scale specialised workplaces (factories).
Origins: late 18th-century England, spreading to USA, France, Germany.
Technology, Empire, Colonialism, and Slavery
• The steam engine produced approximately 300% productivity increase over handlooms. Technology
restructured control over the labour process — not neutral (Malm 2016). Beginning of the
Anthropocene/Capitalocene era.
• Hobsbawm (1999): Rapid industrial growth inseparable from colonial expansion. British textile exports to
India destroyed local industry; raw materials (cotton, sugar, tobacco) from the tropics fed British mills.
• Robinson (2021): Slavery fuelled industrialisation through two channels — the Triangular Trade
generated massive capital accumulation (Williams 2022), and slave labour produced the raw materials
that industrialisation processed.
• Federici (2021): A 'global assembly line' linked colonial slave labour to the reproduction of waged
workers in Europe. The unpaid domestic labour of women in the metropolis subsidised capital
accumulation — a pattern echoed in today's 'imperial mode of living'.
Critical Insight
Industrialisation was not a purely domestic British 'miracle.' It required: (1) colonial markets, (2)
colonial raw materials, (3) slave labour for production, and (4) the state's willingness to enforce
market access by force. This is the world-system context that purely technical accounts of the
Industrial Revolution omit.
1.3 Work Under Industrial Capitalism
FROM (Pre-industrial) TO (Industrial)
Extended family as unit of production Factory as unit of production
Craft work: whole articles made by one person Division of labour; workers perform single tasks
, FROM (Pre-industrial) TO (Industrial)
Natural seasons set work rhythms Clock time; 'time is money'
Work as social/spiritual practice Work as commodity, sold for wages
Worker owns tools and product Worker owns nothing; must sell labour power
• Friedrich Engels (1845): Mass migration to cities — no sanitation, unpaved streets, whole families in
one room.
• Women and children employed as cheapest labour; up to 14-hour working days. Protective legislation
gradually introduced but motives were mixed with patriarchal values and male-worker self-interest.
• Result: the modern bourgeois family form (male breadwinner / female domestic carer) was partly
constructed by this era.
1.4 Resistance: Luddites and Trade Unions
The Luddites (1811–12)
A secret organisation of English textile workers, named after the (possibly legendary) Ned Ludd. Strategy:
destroying machinery as a form of labour protest. Not anti-technology per se, but critics of how technology
was deployed to undermine workers. Suppressed violently by military intervention. Contemporary relevance:
the Luddite question (who controls technology, and for whose benefit?) is central to debates about AI and
automation today.
Trade Unions
Definition: An association of workers created for the purpose of securing improvements in pay, benefits,
working conditions, or social and political status through collective bargaining.
• Three core functions: (1) achieving higher wages and better working conditions; (2) raising the status of
workers; (3) protecting workers against victimisation.
• The Communist Manifesto traces how workers moved from individual resistance (smashing machines)
to organised collective struggle (unions, then political parties), enabled by modern communications and
railways.
1.5 Durkheim on Division of Labour
Émile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (1893). Central question: What holds society together in
an age of increasing individualism?
• Answer: Increasing division of labour creates interdependency — a new form of social solidarity.
Mechanical Solidarity Organic Solidarity
Pre-industrial / traditional societies Industrial / modern societies
Solidarity through sameness and likeness Solidarity through difference and interdependence
Shared beliefs, values, religion Each person fills a specialised role
Low division of labour High division of labour
Individual submerged in collective Individual develops distinct identity
Anomie — The Pathological Forms
• Anomic division of labour: lack of regulation; excessive individualism; moral vacuum.
• Forced division of labour: tradition or inherited status forces people into roles that don't match their
abilities — injustice built into structure.
• Poorly coordinated division of labour: specialists fail to communicate; no integration between parts.
, 1.6 Marx on Alienation, Labour, and Capital
Key works: Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts (1844); Capital Vol. I (1867); Communist Manifesto
(1848).
Alienated from… Explanation
Labour itself Work is externally imposed, not freely chosen. The worker does not affirm but
denies himself in work.
The product The object produced confronts the worker as an alien power — it belongs to
the capitalist.
Co-workers Competitive individualism undermines human community; workers are set
against each other.
Human potential Humans' unique capacity for conscious, creative labour (species-being) is
reduced to mere survival.
Nature The natural world becomes merely a raw material input rather than
humanity's extended body.
• Surplus value: workers produce more value than they receive as wages; the difference is appropriated
by the capitalist as profit — this IS exploitation.
• Capital is 'dead labour' (past labour stored in machines, factories) that dominates living labour.
• Two fundamental classes: Bourgeoisie (owners of means of production) and Proletariat (must sell
labour power).
• Workers are 'doubly free': personally free (not slaves), AND free from the means of production — own
nothing, must sell labour. This 'double freedom' makes wage labour possible and exploitation
systematic.
1.7 Weber and the Protestant Work Ethic
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905). Research question: Why did
capitalism emerge in Western Europe rather than in China, India, or the Islamic world?
Causal Step Content
1. Protestant doctrine Calvinist predestination: God has already decided who is saved; humans cannot
change this.
2. Individual worldview Calling (Beruf): diligent worldly work is a sign of grace; idleness is sinful.
Asceticism: earn but do not spend on luxury.
3. Economic behaviour Reinvestment of profit; disciplined labour; rational accounting.
4. Macro outcome Capitalism: capital accumulation, rationalised enterprise, market economy.
Important Nuance
Weber is NOT arguing religion 'caused' capitalism in a simple way. He argues for an elective affinity
between Protestant ethics and capitalist spirit — mutually reinforcing. By mature capitalism, religious
motivation had faded (the 'iron cage' of rationality), but work-discipline structures remained.
1.8 Reading: The Communist Manifesto (pp. 14–40)
Section I: Bourgeois and Proletarians
• Opening claim: 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.'
• Every epoch: dominant group oppresses subordinate one — ancient Rome (patricians/slaves),
feudalism (lords/serfs), capitalism (bourgeoisie/proletariat).
• Rise of bourgeoisie: exploration of America, colonial trade, slave system providing capital and raw
materials, failure of guilds to meet market demand, manufacturing → steam industry → world market.
Bourgeoisie as revolutionary force: 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned' — capitalism
destroys tradition, reduces all bonds to cash payment, creates the world market and the proletariat.
Elaborate Study Summary — Lectures 1–8 incl. Required Readings
Academic Year 2026 · Petar Marčeta
,Lecture 1 — Foundations: Industrialisation & Classical
Social Theory
Reading: Marx & Engels, Communist Manifesto (pp. 14–40) | Date: 30 May 2026
1.1 Pre-Industrial Work
Before industrialisation, work was organised in radically different ways. Key features:
• Work was embedded in social and spiritual frameworks — inseparable from daily life and religious
meaning.
• The extended family was the primary unit of production; no separation of home from work.
• Work viewed as a necessary evil, not a calling or virtue in itself.
• Division of labour already existed (by gender, craft, clergy) but was not factory-based.
• Agriculture as the first great transformation: food surpluses freed time for specialised roles (weapon-
makers, priests, soldiers) and enabled the emergence of the state and class differentiation.
Key data: In 1300, roughly 60–76% of European workers were in agriculture. By 2012, only 1–3% in England
and the Netherlands — the full arc of industrialisation in a single statistic.
1.2 The Industrial Revolution
Definition and Origins
Industrialisation = reorganisation of production involving: (1) machinery replacing hand tools and animal
power; (2) inanimate energy sources (steam, electricity); (3) large-scale specialised workplaces (factories).
Origins: late 18th-century England, spreading to USA, France, Germany.
Technology, Empire, Colonialism, and Slavery
• The steam engine produced approximately 300% productivity increase over handlooms. Technology
restructured control over the labour process — not neutral (Malm 2016). Beginning of the
Anthropocene/Capitalocene era.
• Hobsbawm (1999): Rapid industrial growth inseparable from colonial expansion. British textile exports to
India destroyed local industry; raw materials (cotton, sugar, tobacco) from the tropics fed British mills.
• Robinson (2021): Slavery fuelled industrialisation through two channels — the Triangular Trade
generated massive capital accumulation (Williams 2022), and slave labour produced the raw materials
that industrialisation processed.
• Federici (2021): A 'global assembly line' linked colonial slave labour to the reproduction of waged
workers in Europe. The unpaid domestic labour of women in the metropolis subsidised capital
accumulation — a pattern echoed in today's 'imperial mode of living'.
Critical Insight
Industrialisation was not a purely domestic British 'miracle.' It required: (1) colonial markets, (2)
colonial raw materials, (3) slave labour for production, and (4) the state's willingness to enforce
market access by force. This is the world-system context that purely technical accounts of the
Industrial Revolution omit.
1.3 Work Under Industrial Capitalism
FROM (Pre-industrial) TO (Industrial)
Extended family as unit of production Factory as unit of production
Craft work: whole articles made by one person Division of labour; workers perform single tasks
, FROM (Pre-industrial) TO (Industrial)
Natural seasons set work rhythms Clock time; 'time is money'
Work as social/spiritual practice Work as commodity, sold for wages
Worker owns tools and product Worker owns nothing; must sell labour power
• Friedrich Engels (1845): Mass migration to cities — no sanitation, unpaved streets, whole families in
one room.
• Women and children employed as cheapest labour; up to 14-hour working days. Protective legislation
gradually introduced but motives were mixed with patriarchal values and male-worker self-interest.
• Result: the modern bourgeois family form (male breadwinner / female domestic carer) was partly
constructed by this era.
1.4 Resistance: Luddites and Trade Unions
The Luddites (1811–12)
A secret organisation of English textile workers, named after the (possibly legendary) Ned Ludd. Strategy:
destroying machinery as a form of labour protest. Not anti-technology per se, but critics of how technology
was deployed to undermine workers. Suppressed violently by military intervention. Contemporary relevance:
the Luddite question (who controls technology, and for whose benefit?) is central to debates about AI and
automation today.
Trade Unions
Definition: An association of workers created for the purpose of securing improvements in pay, benefits,
working conditions, or social and political status through collective bargaining.
• Three core functions: (1) achieving higher wages and better working conditions; (2) raising the status of
workers; (3) protecting workers against victimisation.
• The Communist Manifesto traces how workers moved from individual resistance (smashing machines)
to organised collective struggle (unions, then political parties), enabled by modern communications and
railways.
1.5 Durkheim on Division of Labour
Émile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (1893). Central question: What holds society together in
an age of increasing individualism?
• Answer: Increasing division of labour creates interdependency — a new form of social solidarity.
Mechanical Solidarity Organic Solidarity
Pre-industrial / traditional societies Industrial / modern societies
Solidarity through sameness and likeness Solidarity through difference and interdependence
Shared beliefs, values, religion Each person fills a specialised role
Low division of labour High division of labour
Individual submerged in collective Individual develops distinct identity
Anomie — The Pathological Forms
• Anomic division of labour: lack of regulation; excessive individualism; moral vacuum.
• Forced division of labour: tradition or inherited status forces people into roles that don't match their
abilities — injustice built into structure.
• Poorly coordinated division of labour: specialists fail to communicate; no integration between parts.
, 1.6 Marx on Alienation, Labour, and Capital
Key works: Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts (1844); Capital Vol. I (1867); Communist Manifesto
(1848).
Alienated from… Explanation
Labour itself Work is externally imposed, not freely chosen. The worker does not affirm but
denies himself in work.
The product The object produced confronts the worker as an alien power — it belongs to
the capitalist.
Co-workers Competitive individualism undermines human community; workers are set
against each other.
Human potential Humans' unique capacity for conscious, creative labour (species-being) is
reduced to mere survival.
Nature The natural world becomes merely a raw material input rather than
humanity's extended body.
• Surplus value: workers produce more value than they receive as wages; the difference is appropriated
by the capitalist as profit — this IS exploitation.
• Capital is 'dead labour' (past labour stored in machines, factories) that dominates living labour.
• Two fundamental classes: Bourgeoisie (owners of means of production) and Proletariat (must sell
labour power).
• Workers are 'doubly free': personally free (not slaves), AND free from the means of production — own
nothing, must sell labour. This 'double freedom' makes wage labour possible and exploitation
systematic.
1.7 Weber and the Protestant Work Ethic
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905). Research question: Why did
capitalism emerge in Western Europe rather than in China, India, or the Islamic world?
Causal Step Content
1. Protestant doctrine Calvinist predestination: God has already decided who is saved; humans cannot
change this.
2. Individual worldview Calling (Beruf): diligent worldly work is a sign of grace; idleness is sinful.
Asceticism: earn but do not spend on luxury.
3. Economic behaviour Reinvestment of profit; disciplined labour; rational accounting.
4. Macro outcome Capitalism: capital accumulation, rationalised enterprise, market economy.
Important Nuance
Weber is NOT arguing religion 'caused' capitalism in a simple way. He argues for an elective affinity
between Protestant ethics and capitalist spirit — mutually reinforcing. By mature capitalism, religious
motivation had faded (the 'iron cage' of rationality), but work-discipline structures remained.
1.8 Reading: The Communist Manifesto (pp. 14–40)
Section I: Bourgeois and Proletarians
• Opening claim: 'The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.'
• Every epoch: dominant group oppresses subordinate one — ancient Rome (patricians/slaves),
feudalism (lords/serfs), capitalism (bourgeoisie/proletariat).
• Rise of bourgeoisie: exploration of America, colonial trade, slave system providing capital and raw
materials, failure of guilds to meet market demand, manufacturing → steam industry → world market.
Bourgeoisie as revolutionary force: 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned' — capitalism
destroys tradition, reduces all bonds to cash payment, creates the world market and the proletariat.
