Karl Marx's Model of Capitalism

Amy Li

Professor Chaganti,

SOC 116

2/29/2016

Karl Marx's Model of Capitalism

Karl Marx's work has been studied by philosophers, economists, sociologist, historians, and political scientist. To revolutionists, Marx's ideas were a source of inspiration but a threat to the leaders of governments. His ideas have a great impact in sociology since it opened the doors to the study of how the social class of an individual has a direct influence on his or her life experiences and opportunities (Hochschild, 2012). He focused on the rich and the poor in society. The social class in which a person belongs is dependent on who owns and controls the means of production. Wealthy people own the factors of production such as land and factories while lower class in the society comprise of people working in the factories owned by the rich and are rewarded with an hourly wage. His aim was to show what effects capitalism had in the economy. People rot in poverty in a world that has abundant wealth because only a few owns property.

 Capitalism is defined by two grouped of individuals. One comprises of people who own businesses, and their sole goal is to make the profit while the other group labored for wages. In this case, the poorer continue to be poorer, and the wealthy continue to accumulate more wealth. Labor is an essential factor of production since without it the owners of land and factories would have no one to work in them (Rudi, 2012). Managerial control is important in ensuring that the companies maximize their profits, and the laborers are rewarded for their efforts. Managerial control involves setting standards of performance measuring performance and taking corrective actions where necessary. The control management tactics used by capitalist comprise of the division of labor, bureaucracy, and money as the key motivator for workers.

Division of labor: The managers under capitalism used division of labor method in controlling the workers. Division of labor is whereby one task was completed by one person (Tullock, Rowley, Tullock, & Tullock, 2005). It involves breaking an activity into different tasks, which are sequential such that an individual performs each task. That way the individual required less thinking such that there would be increased the productivity of the labor force, hence improvement of an organization's efficiency and profits. For instance, various people would complete the formation and assembling of the chest of drawers. Division of labor has its benefits and drawbacks. Firstly, it increased productivity hence profit maximization by the organization (Sun, & G.-Z., 2005). Secondly, the division of labor reduces the costs of training. Since the worker needs to perform a particular process, it will be easier to train. Besides, it saves time since the worker is employed in the same process he or she does not have to move from one process to another.