The modern organizations today have become important components of our society, if not of any society, regardless of ideology, culture and tradition. Indeed capitalist and even socialist countries rely on the establishment of these institutions supporting its varying political economies. It is a given fact that these organizations become the means for economic growth and stability. To a large degree, the wealth of the society-evident in the level and richness of economic, social, and cultural resources-is a function of the sophistication and complexity of its organizations and institutions.² Without the very framework of organized institution such as the corporation emanating the primal interest of its stakeholders, perhaps it would be difficult to assume the economic effects which become responsive to the needs of the time. Yet, this response is too highly suspicious and problematic. Capitalism therefore welcomes this emerging power of opportunism and exploitation in one level. This highly developed and systematized structure of putting concerted efforts for the attainment of profit objective has gradually changed the facet of humanity trapped within the paragon of market trade-off and commodity exchange. Economic or productive value is nonetheless derivative from its worth and its extension of organization's profundity for wealth-profit index which by way serves as the competitive measure to sustain its existence. In this line, it is truly preposterous to consider or even think about a businessman's hypocrital denial for profit-and more profit-at the expense of labor. The organization in this regard has survived many decades of resistance and attacks within a Marxist critical view because all countries herald its importance in the economic-political order. Its ploys and trickery still are sustained by aristocratic and bourgeois elite.

Modern capitalism regenerates a dialectical meaning of control and alienation which embeds its power to become part of the whole social system. This control emanates to bind human needs and the satisfaction thereof courtesy of this system. Again the focus ricochets back to man concerning the nature, at least the domineering one, of the upsurge of corporate organizations to placate 'man's long search for ways of converting human needs into human satisfaction through economic organization'.³ These are the issues soaked and clenched in man's psyche from which seemingly there are no means of escaping it; inevitable as it is constructed.

No matter how noble and promising to the sensuous pleasures of man, the befitting ideology of organizations and its treatment of labor, technological pervasion, cultural manipulation, class-power relations, and other demeaning factors have to be resurfaced out from a pseudo construct. Identifying the skeletons in the closet, so to speak, will typically pave the way for a rational action of organization change. Let us then diagnose these problems critically.

The Structure of Domination

If our society as Marx claimed is basically founded on its economic structure then in comparison corporate organizations do have the same foundation. The organization can be said as the microcosmic replica of capitalist society. It has its own economic base, underlying ideology and culture, power relation, and class division.

1. Conditions of Labor: Phenomenology of Alienation and Exploitation in the Organization

   One of the critiques fostered by Karl Marx against capitalism is the alienating condition in labor. The issue of labor alienation is a common thing in the organization, though with many so called alleviating interventions and packaged benefits introduced by management, this phenomenon becomes a much bigger picture of a conspired concealment.

   Putting labor in context stresses that it is the 'purposive investment of human skill and energy in the creation of a product.'⁴ Meaning to say, man's productivity is aimed at the purpose for creating a product/commodity which is intended for human consumption and satisfaction.

   Manufacturing companies, for instance, Ford, General Electric, Coca-Cola and to name a few are in this kind of commodity production for market consumption. Service-oriented business organizations are also included in this in which employees' talents, skills and creativity are being harnessed and utilized for market trade-off and exchange. Labor then is an inherent link between market demand and market realization.

   However, by purpose and/or by control two essential features of capitalistic organization raise these undeniable facts:

   1. Most goods and services are produced as commodities; that is, for exchange in the market.
   2. The motive for production by those who control the means for production is profit; production is for profit, not for use.⁵

   In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscript (1884) of Karl Marx, it is also noted that 'labor does not only create goods, it also produces itself and the worker as a commodity, and indeed in the same proportion as it produces goods.'⁶ Undeniably enough, business organizations belonging in several types of industries carry these two dominant features which are nonetheless the identifying stigma of capitalism. Labor then is deliberately intended for this continuity and interplay.

   'The concept of capitalism was not an alternative to, but an extension of that of the market. Capitalism works through the exchange of commodities, and all those directly involved in virtue of their status as owners and exchangers of commodities. Even the otherwise propertyless workers owns one commodity, his capacity to work, which he exchanges with the owner of the capital in return for his means of subsistence.' 7

   This phenomenology as evident in the market behavior of commodity exchange and the tendency of the workers to reciprocate their skills for productive means constitute the mere fabric of any organization. More so, in this setup we cannot set apart labor from the very nature of organization's existence. Labor is considered as one of the significant components of a structured organization in order to attain its goals and gains. Hence, the human resource of the company is one, if not the only one, signifier of corporate viability.

   Ideal Meaning of Labor

   It is construed in a positive sense that the concept of labor is central to Marx anthropology because it develops essential potentialities and fulfills basic needs.⁸ In this regard Marx's theory of labor is an emancipatory element of human nature.

   'Marx stresses the primacy of human agency, the creative ability to produce objects and to recognize one's self and one's humanity objectified in the human-social world. Labor is thus an activity in which basic human powers are manifest; it develops one's faculties of reason and intelligence, it exercises bodily capabilities, it is a social and communal activity, and it exemplifies human creativity and freedom.'9

   To find human meaning as one engages in labor seems not arbitrary because there exists a room for every act of human creativity. This means to say that labor projects the image of the worker's own sense of identity which explains in this manner the highest attribution associated with him as homo faber.

   Alienation and Discontent

   'The target of the critique...is the "total alienation" and "devaluation" of human reality as it is found in capitalist society. It is exactly this phenomenon that is covered over by bourgeois political economy. The basis of human alienation in capitalist society is the alienation of labor, which is the fundamental concept of the new science that Marx develops...For him (sic) the alienation of labor is the fundamental fact of capitalist society from which such other categories of political economy as production, exploitation, profits and wages can be interpreted and criticized.'10

   The mode of production starting from the assembly lines of manufacturing companies and from the offices of business firm and service line industries highlights the realities of alienation and exploitation as posed by this critique. Accordingly, the workers in this case are part of the relations of production of which the commodities produced are objectified and become alien to them. This object has now its own material existence separated from the workers. The product of labor is labor which has been embodied in an object and turn into a physical thing; this product is the objectification of labor¹¹ This means the workers do not own the product of their labor. But it is the capitalist who has the control and power to own it. The goal of production under capitalism is not the creation of use-values; instead, those who control the means of production seek exchange value.¹²

   Alienation from the product of labor can be singled out from the passage of Marx's Das Capital :

   A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of man's labor appears to them as an object character stamped on the product of that labor; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as social relation, existing not between themselves but between the producers of their labor the existence of the things qua commodities, and the value relation between the products of labor...have absolutely no connection with their physical properties and with the material relation arising therefrom.13

   This has caused the fragmentation of human worth in which his social relation as producer is determined by his labor power, i.e., the capacity to satisfy production by performing tasked work in the organization with an almost air of prejudice and discontent imposed against him.

2. Organizational Hegemony: Authority and Power-Relations Between Employers and Employees

   Organization power is the mechanism through which conflicts gets resolved, and it can be defined as the ability of one person or group to overcome resistance by other to achieve a decisive objective or result.¹⁴ Power in this case is an acquired authority based on the legal requisites where it originates. It is vested precisely not on a prescribed 'social contract will' of all the members but it is pervasive, necessary and independent; it is an extension and a manifestation of what has been laid down out from the existing legal charter and other legal instrumentality of the organization. Max Weber says that:

   '...the existence of a capitalistic enterprise presupposes that a very specific communal action exists and that it is specifically structured to protect the possession of goods per se, and especially of individuals to dispose, in principle freely, over the means of production. The existence of a capitalistic enterprise is preconditioned by a specific kind of legal order.'15

   It is clear that for the purpose of using labor and securing production and its end-commodities, the legal order erects its function to inhere power and manipulation. Power here is, to some extent, a mummified authority arising from a legal order based from the economic base it is founded for. Again Weber clearly expounds this notion of power-manipulation hegemony, thus saying that:

   'The structure of every legal orders directly influences the distribution of power, economic or otherwise, within its respective community. This is true of all legal orders. In general, we understand power the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action.'16

   The legal personhood of all organizations delineates the required containment of power in the hands of a single or group of persons. Here lies authority, that is, power (sic) legitimized by the legal and cultural foundations on which the organizations is based, and the ultimate source of power in the organization.¹⁷ Power then permeates from corporate icons and lords like the Board of Directors, President, managers and others whose authority is stratified in the level of influence and dominance. These people exert the means to realize the accomplishment of goal, management of conflict and subordinating resistance. The fact that 'a specific form of exploitation and domination is being reproduced, is an example of class rule and is an important aspect of power...'¹⁸

   The subjugation of labor-workers as premised on the employers power manipulation is pacified through systematic ordering of organizational atmosphere. For one, men can be controlled much more efficiently by tying their economic needs and interests to their performance on behalf of employers.¹⁹ And since every worker wants to have job security, management instill a mechanism of paranoia and guilt whenever the authority is questioned or challenged. Management has a ready-made offense to contain the situation by expelling the deviants in the organization. In this power-relation, the management wields the legal mandate and its despotic prerogative to ease the resistance from labor unions by means of either raising bluff economic benefits or letting them to face difficult challenges in the end. Within this mechanism, the workers as represented by their union are seldom successful in this uphill battle. The union sometimes conceals and pretends the real picture of labor needs when management already extends compromise at the expense of the workers. The bargaining table becomes the area of betrayal and treachery as soon as an agreement has been met. The management begins then to count its gains when at the same time the union also counts its filth (not gains). This is where the scenario of power relation becomes domineering and alienating which labor sticks in crumbs while management in gold, so to speak.

3. Rationalization of Technology and the Emerging Prospect of a New Infrastructure

   In a narrow sense, 'technology is the combination of skills, knowledge, abilities, techniques, materials, machines, computers, tools, and other equipment that people use to convert raw materials into valuable goods and services.'²⁰ This definition entails neutrality of how technology is seen as a positive amalgamation of all the needed factors directed for the creation of outputs in organizations. Inside an organization especially in this recent era, technology is present into three levels. The organizational theory formulated by Gareth R. Jones explicates that technology can be categorized at its individual, functional, and organizational level.

   1. Individual level technology-personal skills and knowledge that individual women and men posses.
   2. Functional level technology-the procedures and techniques that groups work out to perform their work and create values.
   3. Organizational level technology-the way the organization converts inputs into outputs.²¹

   However, in contrast it is nonetheless imperative to go much deeper as to its underlying framework. Following the abovesaid contention, the organizations in this manner need to maximize and utilize technological application in order to create value and services at the same time. This classical tendency exhibits the Marxian claim of alienation present even in this degree of capitalistic evolution. The diffusion and wide application of technology has been increasingly evident ever since as far back as the irruption of scientific and industrial revolutions. Indeed, it moves from strict singular path toward a universal constellation of application on the one hand and influence/power on the other. The former case exemplifies the innocent-looking of alleviating principle of 'machines' to replace man's tedious manual labor. Yet, the latter's upsurge as dominance has given birth to a widening congruence of its manifesting power to rule and to dominate. Unconsciously, the three levels (or more) of technology are nothing more than a conduit of pseudo-structures. Of course, technology at this preconditioned level characterized mainly by applied techniques, skills and procedures through scientific, systemic and systematic processes, does not absolutely discount its further enormous benefits and advantages it offer to corporate entities. It has its own pragmatic projects or programs, yet it brings out at the same manner an ideological monopoly over its supposed utility. Herbert Marcuse tells the apposite claim of this.

   The development of modern industry and technological rationality, however, undermined the basis of the individual to increasing domination by the technical social apparatus...Hence, a 'mechanics of conformity' spread throughout the society. The efficiency, and the power of advanced industrial society overwhelmed the individual, who gradually lost the earlier traits of critical rationality (i.e., autonomy, dissent, the power of negation, etc., thus producing a one-dimensional society and one-dimensional man.22

   No wonder then that in this perspective a change of the infrastructure of organization has seemingly transformed it as a sub-unit structure lower than the economic base. Ironically, it has come to the interplay of the economic rationalization, labor power, and the outcome of technological regimentation of domination in the organizational setting.

   

   This does not imply that the economic base of the mode of production typical in a capitalistic organization has become oblivious and has been already engulfed by the technological rationality; but on the contrary, this technological structure becomes the a priori structure, the sustenance, the scaffolding in almost all the organizations. It extends upward and influences all levels in the infrastructure. It makes the organization appears to have a technical base of the economic mode of production. These may include the system dependent, network liaison, intra-and internet linkages, simulators and virtual reality based management toolkits and other automated gadgets and machines that shape the technical and technological landscapes of existing organizations nowadays.

   At the staged of their scientific-technical development, then, the forces of production appear to enter a new constellation with the relations of production. Now they no longer functions as the basis of a critique of prevailing legitimations in the interest of...enlightenment, not become instead the basis of legitimation.23

4. Hegemony of Cultural Consciousness in the Organizational Setting

   Organizational or corporate culture is the pattern of shared beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, norms and values in an organization which may have been articulated but in the absence of direct instructions, shape the way people act and interact and strongly influence the ways in which things get done.²⁴ This has been the definition of corporate culture in a capitalist parlance; yet, such may cause a drastic result that perpetuates the non-contradiction and pacification of existence in the organization. This kind of culture is similar to ideology-a permeating ideology. In this line, Gramsci denies that ideologies are mere illusions.²⁵ These things-to get things done-are real. In a corporate setting the values and attitudes contribute to the miserable experiences of the employees. It is because these values are formed externally to their will and freedom. Once an employee is hired he is suppose to adapt this kind of culture prior to him, outside of him which becomes totally alien for him. Likewise, the culture being held by the members constitute the very fabric of hegemony in the organization. It is a collective system of beliefs from those who remain valiant and obedient in this capitalistic toleration. Corporate culture expresses the core ideology permeating among class interest, those who attain the highest stature in organizations, those who help to enliven such culture. Graham C. Kinloch suggests that cultural ideology is:

   The symbolic reaction of particular socio-economic groups to specific division of labor situations, representing attempts to reassert social (organizational) order through highly integrated and exclusive worldviews. These symbolic models of reality are forms of false consciousness in the way they legitimate group interests...And they affect intellectual dynamism, the expression of group needs, socio-economic heterogeneity, the process of human thought, and the foundation of social order. Ideology represents the manner in which human beings meet their needs, in the context of society (and of organizations likewise).26 (Parentheses mine)

   However, we cannot escape the fact that this cultural setup has helped to maintain the level of developments in organizations. There are many positive effects that this has brought in the realm of change management. Culture can work for an organization by creating an environment which is conducive to performance improvement and the management of change.²⁷ The impact of culture can include:

   • Conveying a sense of identity and unity of purpose to members of the organization
   • Facilitating the generating of commitment and 'mutuality'
   • Shaping behavior by providing guidance on what is expected²⁸

   Accordingly, what ties all these characteristics together into a coherent managerial strategy is the underlying paradigm-a mindset-that gives them immense potency.²⁹ The weltanschauung of corporate organizations is to implant coherent actions as stimulated by mission, vision and objective. This is injected and imposed as a mindset, a mental frame that comprises the entire culture of the whole and endures the values and beliefs of the particulars (employees). Anyone who cannot live with this kind of setup has no reason to remain as member. A cult-like culture³⁰ has long been known as a fanatic devotion of corporate members to adhere with a given set of beliefs strongly held by them. Hence, those who are not able to cope with it give up easily and eventually leave the organization. In this respect, one should learn to compromise one's principle in life or that which make him/her a part of the whole dissolving the relevant individuality of the person. Henceforth, it is justified to make a critique to show that essential human needs and powers are being repressed and distorted in capitalist society; consequently, the theory of alienation provides a justification of revolutionary social transformation on the grounds of capitalism's oppressive and destructive effects on human life.³¹

   Culture is thus related to the perpetuation of alienation of labor in the organization. From this, a revolutionary action must be geared toward changing this corporate culture of pretense and make-believe. In the final analysis, a culture that is suitable to unleash the human potentials and that man's productivity capacity is not measures by material outputs or fetishized exchange but by his creative intiatives bordering on freedom and self-determination. Armstrong believes that:

   The strength of a culture will clearly influence its impact on corporate behavior. Strong cultures will have more widely shared and more clearly expressed beliefs and values. These values will probably have been developed over a considerable period of time and they will be perceived as functional in the sense that they help the organization to achieve its purpose.32

   Only when its takes to recognize the power of one to influence the many-the culture ignites within the core values of the individual, of groups, of all the members in the organization. Until then, that a culture becomes organizational.

RHODERICK VILLAMORA NUNCIO is a M.A. candidate in Philippine Studies major in Philosophy and Literature at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines. He finished his Bachelor's Degree major in Philosophy and Human Resource Development at San Beda College. He is currently the HRD Coordinator of the Department of Philosophy, HRD & Social Sciences