Discuss the factory in connection with spaces and subjects of Essay

Discuss the factory in connection with spaces and subjects of modernity - Essay Example g the prices down to the point where the cottage industries could no longer afford to stay in business and individuals were forced to come into the cities to find work – namely, at the factories. The factories, in order to keep track of their employees to pay them appropriately, artificially divided the day into shifts, including the day shift, night shift and graveyard shift. Through the use of this convention, factory workers began identifying themselves as a part of a crowd rather than an individual being. In addition, they no longer had the power to order their day according to their individual biorhythmic schedules as they might have done in the small towns and farms, but were expected to conform to the rigorous routine espoused by the corporation. This objectification was further emphasized within the factory by the mechanistic work structures and the tendency to reward those individuals who â€Å"caught on† quickest to changes and adaptations. Georg Simmel (1903) wrote that this practice within the factory served to make each individual only a mere cog in the wheel, interchangeable at their work stations, yet indispensable in that perhaps only a few people knew how to operate that particular piece of machinery or that part of the production line. In this latter sense, each man was also dependent on the others to get their jobs completed. Within this mechanized world, money emerged as the common denominator of all values. The more you have, the more individuality you are afforded within this metropolitan system. This wasn’t a new concept, but was further emphasized within the factories with the designation of shirt colors, as in white collar worker for those individuals who were in the upper tiers of the workfloor and blue collar workers for those who were expected to get dirty in the performance of their work – in other words, the drones. Within this culture, the emphasis is placed on the objective worldview, in which everyone fits within a