Power

=Theories of Power=


 * Subordination:** The effects of Scientific Management and Post-Fordism have created a society in which optimality is reached when production is obtained at lowest cost, resulting in a division among the population. Disparity is evident and reinforced in the workplace, creating a social cost, a disintegration of individual morale where people are subjected to routine work. In an age where educational credentials and skills are highly marketable, those who are unqualified are subjected to limited employment options. Certain groups of people have to “settle” for jobs in the marketplace. A CBC documentary examined the lives of recent Canadian immigrants. They had high hopes of moving to Canada, but in the end were disappointed. Lacking skills due to language barriers, the immigrants were reduced to unskilled labor, where subordination and a social hierarchy exists, one in which the immigrant is dominated. The immigrant is not placed in a setting in which he can thrive, because that would be a direct threat to the hierarchy. Workers are kept in place for a reason, to secure the positions of top level managers (Webster). This is the reality of “corporate imperialism,” a social order. “They wouldn’t have it any other way.”

=Foucault on Power=

Michel Foucault discusses knowledge and power extensively. A portion of the discourse pertains to the fact that education is obtained to hold a certain amount of power. Also the vast majority of people have an intrinsic //Will to Power// as discussed by Friedrich Nietzsche. Foucault explores this concept in relation to discourses on sexuality, the incarceration system and controling society's madness by normalizing all of its devious facets. The institutionalization of these concepts (madman, criminal) or the act of bringing it into everyday discourse (as with sexuality) is, according to Foucault, a form of societal power control and power struggle. "Deviants" are locked away or in other ways marginalized in order to maintain stability and power. Nietzsche also discusses power in relation to "priestly types" who, after a long evolutionary process of coping with physical inferiority, have learned to control people's "herd instinct" through other more cunning, mental as opposed to physical, means. The concept of Panopticism is related to this: a cautionary instinct has been instilled within the consciousness of citizens who censor themselves as a result of the institutional eye; ie. police, surveillance cameras, etc. Shifting Roles:** Differences in the workplace exist. However, such power roles can no longer be assumed. A workplace environment that does not embrace a learning experience will continue to show signs of the post-fordism era, one in which power struggles will be characteristic of the life at work. Managers will feel the need to defend their legitimacy and workers will feel the effects of subordination (Webster). //Shoshana Zuboff// addresses the issue that workplace environments are constantly changing such that roles shift according to the circumstances that prevail. This is especially evident in the technology, media and telecommunication industries where certain technologies are changing the “rules of the game” (Deloitte). Companies, more than ever before, are looking to become more integrated, not relying on providing a single product or service, and certainly, not a single method of “doing things”.

=Works Cited=

Deloitte, Tohamatsu. //Knowledge is Power//. 2005. Foucalt, Michel. //Discipline and Punish.// Webster, Frank. //The Information Society Reader//. 2004.