Revision summary
Capitalist work organises time for surplus. Marx: necessary versus surplus labour; absolute and relative surplus value. The working day’s legal limit is a class outcome, then offset by intensity. Weber, Taylor, and Braverman describe office and deskilling. Indian informal and unpaid care days remain weakly limited.
Model answer
Introduction
Capitalist work is socially organised to command labour time for surplus. Karl Marx’s chapter on the working day shows that this command meets a political and bodily limit. The organisation of work is therefore a struggle over hours, intensity, and who counts as a worker.
Body
Capital’s drive
- The working day has a necessary part that reproduces labour power and a surplus part that capital seeks to extend.
- Absolute surplus value lengthens the day; relative surplus value intensifies it through machines and cooperation.
Social organisation
- The factory clock, fines, and later Taylor’s split of conception and execution organise time.
- Max Weber’s office adds career time and files. Harry Braverman tied scientific management to deskilling.
- Gender organises a second unpaid day of care, which Ann Oakley made visible. Capital depends on that limit being unpaid.
The limit of the working day
- Marx treated the Factory Acts as a class victory that capital then answers with intensity.
- Law, union, and inspectorate are social organisations of the limit, not gifts of technique.
- Informal and gig work in India often sit outside that legal day: log-in hours, piece rates, and contractors, as Jan Breman showed for circulation.
Present form of the same struggle
- Overtime culture in offices, warehouse scans, and platform incentives recreate an unbounded day.
- PLFS informality means most Indian workers never had a Fordist legal day to lose.
Nature of the organisation
- It is simultaneous technical cooperation and domination.
- The working day’s limit is the political skin of that organisation.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD CAP[Capital] --> WD[Working day] WD --> ABS[Length] WD --> REL[Intensity machines] LAW[Factory Acts unions] --> LIM[Political limit] INF[Informal gig care] --> OPEN[Day still unbounded]
Conclusion
Capitalist work organisation is command of time for surplus, through mill, office, and platform. Marx’s working day is the key limit, always reopened by intensity and informality. Gendered unpaid hours and Indian contractors show whose day is legally bounded.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Distinguish between family and household with reference to the concept of development of the household.
Next question in the 2018 paper (Q6). View answer →
-
Does a laptop job abolish the working day?
It often blurs the limit. Marx’s issue was command of time, not the mill wall.
-
Is unpaid housework part of the working day?
It is socially necessary labour that capital does not clock. Feminist work adds that limit.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2020 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Discuss the new labour codes and their impact on formal and informal labour in India. -
2019 · Q7(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
What is 'informal labour' ? Discuss the need for and challenges in regulating informal labour in the post-industrial society -
2017 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Trace the changing nature of organisation of work in capitalist society over the years -
2016 · Q5(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Describe the nature of social organization of work in industrial society. -
2016 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
"Globalization has pushed the labour into informal organization of work." Substantiate your answer with suitable examples. -
2015 · Q5(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Distinguish between the social organization of work in feudal society and in capitalist society. -
2015 · Q6(a) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
"Education helps in perpetuating social and economic inequalities." Critically examine the statement. -
2015 · Q7(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
The increasing importance of the tertiary sector has weakened the formal organization of work in recent times. Examine the statement .
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2018 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
The focal point of sociology rests on interaction. How do you distinguish it from common sense?
Sociology
Sociology focuses on interaction as action oriented to others. Weber, Mead, and Goffman named that object. Common sense is Schutz’s unexamined stock of typifications. Durkheim’s rates and caste studies show why everyday talk is not enough. Sociology uses common-sense language and then tests it.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2018 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Distinguish between fact and value in Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Sociological Thinkers: Karl Marx
Weber split value-relevance of the problem from value-discipline in proof. The question of modern capitalism is culturally selected. The claimed fact is elective affinity with inner-worldly asceticism. Ideal types organise the comparison. The book does not preach Calvinism as a duty.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2018 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Do you think T and Me are central terms in Mead's work
Sociology
Yes: I and Me are central in Mead. Me is the organised attitudes of others, the self as object. I is the unpredictable response that allows novelty. Play, game, and generalised other form the Me. Blumer’s interactionism inherits the pair.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.