A Simulacrum of Workplace Community: Individualism and Engineered Culture

Publication Type

Journal Article

Year of Publication

2001

Author

Ezzy, Douglas

Journal

Sociology

Volume

35

Number

3

Pages

631-650

Language

English

Publish Dates

Aug

Keywords

community
culture
freedom
individualism
self
work

Annotation

Ezzy examines the development of ‘engineered culture’ in the western workplace, arguing such cultures foster a “self-gratificatory, narcissistic individualism” that is “consistent with a more general consumerist social relations”. After describing such engineered cultures providing a number of examples, he goes on to outline some of the discussion and debate around them as well as presenting a number of problems that have been raised in relation to them. He then goes on to use Simone Weil’s work, primarily drawn from “Oppression and Liberty” to suggest the possibility of defining a new attitude to what he terms ‘liberated labor’.