During our class discussion on Thursday, we began to relate our readings with the documentary that we watched in class. The common theme that we discovered involved the reciprocal relationship between work and leisure. In the documentary, The White Fair was the biggest display of work that the World had ever seen thus far. It took over 40,000 workmen to build the Fair grounds. Some people were working by choice in order to compete with other people (or countries). Before this time, people’s work was basic and need-based. But now, they were beginning to relate working with leisure. What the workers put in, the Fair got out. Their hard work created leisurely experiences for millions, including the workers who helped build the place. People could spend the 25 cents to go on the Farris Wheel and enjoy the spectacles. This was a time where people could see the “fruits of their labor”.
In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Hank Morgan experienced a world in which work and leisure operated in an unbalanced system. The peasants would be forced to work endless hours every day to not only provide from themselves, but for the Lords, King, and other people who were of a higher social standing. While this system was delightful for the Lords, Knights, and Kings, it was miserable for the peasants. They received little to no leisure time and when they did, it was nearly not enough to refuel their mental emotional and physical state to work at an efficient level. The relationship between work and leisure this time was not reciprocal, and therefore it was unbalanced.
This made me think about something I learned in one of my Sociology classes last semester. As globalization has developed, many companies have moved the production processes of their goods to countries or people that would be willing ot supply cheap labor. As a result, several forms of alienation have taken place in the workplace. A big form of alienation that occurs is alienation between a worker and the product that they make. A lot of the times, the workers providing the cheap labor do not make enough money to buy the product they are helping to make. Studies have shown that workers alienated from their products have a lower productivity level than those that are not. In terms of leisure and work this makes total sense. A worker might be willing to put forth more work, if it helped them accomplish their leisure. In the case of alienation, if workers were able to buy the products they made, they might be more efficient in the making of these products. Some people in the past have realized this connection and adjusted their workplace accordingly. For example, Henry Ford of Ford Motors changed the working standard of the time by manipulating the work and leisure relationship. He offered a very high hourly rate to his workers, which enhanced their productivity greatly for many reasons. Firstly, no other companies were offering an hourly wage that came close to being as high as Fords. His workers therefore would work hard because they did not want to lose the high paying job that would increase their standard of living. Additionally, the higher wage of the workers made it possible for them to buy their very own Ford car. Ford’s mission was to make a car that his own workers could afford. The manipulation of the production process through the assembly line cheapened the production costs allowing Ford to be able to pay his workers more, and sell the cars for cheaper. Because the workers could now afford the car, their work was directly relating to a large section of their leisure time. The average worker could own their very own automobile. Ford’s technique changed a paradigm at the time that people had to pay their workers as less as possible to ensure a good revenue.
While the forces of globalization have furthered alienation in the workforce, many companies, like Google, are beginning to change their workers experiences to enhance productivity. Work and leisure go hand in hand, and need to be working in a balanced system with each other to produce the best results.