[...] Friedmann treats Taylorism as though it were a “science of work,” where in reality it is intended to be a science of the management of others ‘work under capitalist conditions.6 It is not the “best way” to do work “in general” that Taylor was seeking, as Friedmann seems to assume, but an answer to the specific problem of how best to control alienated labor—that is to say, labor power that is bought and sold.
[...] Friedmann treats Taylorism as though it were a “science of work,” where in reality it is intended to be a science of the management of others ‘work under capitalist conditions.6 It is not the “best way” to do work “in general” that Taylor was seeking, as Friedmann seems to assume, but an answer to the specific problem of how best to control alienated labor—that is to say, labor power that is bought and sold.
[...] I had predicted to the owners of the company what would happen when we began to win, and had warned them that they must stand by me; so that I had the backing of the company in taking effective steps to checkmate the final move of the men. Every time I broke a rate or forced one of the new men whom I had trained to work at a reasonable and proper speed, some one of the machinists would deliberately break some part of his machine as an object lesson to demonstrate to the management that a fool foreman was driving the men to overload their machines until they broke. Almost every day ingenious accidents were planned, and these happened to machines in different parts of the shop, and were, of course, always laid to the fool foreman who was driving the men and the machines beyond their proper limit.
hel yeah
[...] I had predicted to the owners of the company what would happen when we began to win, and had warned them that they must stand by me; so that I had the backing of the company in taking effective steps to checkmate the final move of the men. Every time I broke a rate or forced one of the new men whom I had trained to work at a reasonable and proper speed, some one of the machinists would deliberately break some part of his machine as an object lesson to demonstrate to the management that a fool foreman was driving the men to overload their machines until they broke. Almost every day ingenious accidents were planned, and these happened to machines in different parts of the shop, and were, of course, always laid to the fool foreman who was driving the men and the machines beyond their proper limit.
hel yeah
The issue here turned on the work content of a day’s labor power, which Taylor defines in the phrase “a fair day’s work.” To this term he gave a crude physiological interpretation: all the work a worker can do without injury to his health, at a pace that can be sustained throughout a working lifetime. (In practice, he tended to define this level of activity at an extreme limit, choosing a pace that only a few could maintain, and then only under strain.) Why a “fair day’s work” should be defined as a physiological maximum is never made clear. In attempting to give concrete meaning to the abstraction “fairness,” it would make just as much if not more sense to express a fair day’s work as the amount of labor necessary to add to the product a value equal to the worker’s pay; under such conditions, of course, profit would be impossible. The phrase “a fair day’s work” must therefore be regarded as inherently meaningless, and filled with such content as the adversaries in the purchase-sale relationship try to give it.
The issue here turned on the work content of a day’s labor power, which Taylor defines in the phrase “a fair day’s work.” To this term he gave a crude physiological interpretation: all the work a worker can do without injury to his health, at a pace that can be sustained throughout a working lifetime. (In practice, he tended to define this level of activity at an extreme limit, choosing a pace that only a few could maintain, and then only under strain.) Why a “fair day’s work” should be defined as a physiological maximum is never made clear. In attempting to give concrete meaning to the abstraction “fairness,” it would make just as much if not more sense to express a fair day’s work as the amount of labor necessary to add to the product a value equal to the worker’s pay; under such conditions, of course, profit would be impossible. The phrase “a fair day’s work” must therefore be regarded as inherently meaningless, and filled with such content as the adversaries in the purchase-sale relationship try to give it.
The conclusions which Taylor drew from the baptism by fire he received in the Midvale struggle may be summarized as follows: Workers who are controlled only by general orders and discipline are not adequately controlled, because they retain their grip on the actual processes of labor. So long as they control the labor process itself, they will thwart efforts to realize to the full the potential inherent in their labor power. To change this situation, control over the labor process must pass into the hands of management, not only in a formal sense but by the control and dictation of each step of the process, including its mode of performance. In pursuit of this end, no pains are too great, no efforts excessive, because the results will repay all efforts and expenses lavished on this demanding and costly endeavor.**
The conclusions which Taylor drew from the baptism by fire he received in the Midvale struggle may be summarized as follows: Workers who are controlled only by general orders and discipline are not adequately controlled, because they retain their grip on the actual processes of labor. So long as they control the labor process itself, they will thwart efforts to realize to the full the potential inherent in their labor power. To change this situation, control over the labor process must pass into the hands of management, not only in a formal sense but by the control and dictation of each step of the process, including its mode of performance. In pursuit of this end, no pains are too great, no efforts excessive, because the results will repay all efforts and expenses lavished on this demanding and costly endeavor.**
this is brutal lol
this is brutal lol
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