Marxist Explanations for the Creation of Organizations

Marxist theorists state that organizations exist more to maximize managerial control than achieve efficiency (Scott p. 166). Workers become deskilled and "part of the machine". Modern organizations deskill and segment workers, reducing job security and making work repetitive, mindless, and boring. (Braverman, 1974). Work division leads to bureaucratization of organizations (Edwards, 1959).

But Burawoy (1985) adds that managers are not as united in their goal of extracting surplus value as Marx would suggest, nor are workers that segmented and weak. However, wider political contexts influence organizational creation and development.

Furthermore, the "work setting is a contested terrain" (Edwards, 1979), with various groups vying for control (Scott p. 168). No one group is eternal and all-powerful.

While some groups (Kerr, et. al 1964) contend that industrialization has increased the variety of technical skills required by workers (the opposite of Marx's predictions), though Braverman contends this is untrue and is an artifact of how the Census bureau classifies workers.