From: Paul Adler (padler@usc.edu)
Date: Sun Jan 12 2003 - 12:59:26 EST
Jerry -- here's what I see, in summary: 1. at the aggregate, empirical level: * the overall skill level -- understood as "socially necessary education and training time" to take us back to value categories -- of the US workforce as a whole, of its non-managerial/non-supervisory component, and even of its manual component taken separately, is higher today than 100 or 200 years ago. (We could broaden the discussion to encompass global interdependencies, but it's hard to find data.) The white collar component doesn't show aggregate upgrading over this period due to the huge growth in low-end clerical and sales occupations. These upgrading trends also characterize most individual industries and most individual occupations -- but certainly not all. While it is interesting to study the skill trajectory of individual occupations and industries, if we're interested in capitalist development's skill requirements, we should allow that overall requirement evolve in part due to shifts in the industry and occupation mix. * Jobs do, on the other hand, tend to become more specialized: there is little doubt -- but even less data on the question -- that work tends to become less autonomous. But should we make of that? I think Braverman's celebration of craft autonomy falls under Marx's critique of Proudhon's "craft idiocy" -- B like P ignores what's profoundly progressive about the growing division of labor (both social and detailed division), namely the broadening of interdependence, the abolishing of local geography and craft parochialism. Yes, this interdependence happens under the dictatorship of capital, but history progresses by its bad side, no? * Putting these two points together, we have a "socialization" of work -- indirectly, via the internalization of society's aggregate knowledge in the individual worker's cognitive apparatus (thru education and training), and directly, via the broader and tighter web of interdependence 2. To take your specific examples: * ATMs remove the most mundane, least skilled of the teller's tasks -- the overall job has tended as a result to become somewhat more skilled. But it's been ages since I've seen any data -- the data I recall showed a distinct upgrading trend for bank employees as a whole and for branch employees in particular * cashiers might well be an example of real deskilling * notwithstanding the impression left by David Noble's work, much pre-NC machining involved very little skill. It may have involved union prerogatives that controlled access to the jobs, and these have been clearly weakened, but the skill actually required by the work was often very modest. Conversely, much post-NC work actively involves "machine operators" in helping to edit programs on the shop-floor -- see Maryellen Kelley's work of a decade ago. But as the "bottom line," I have never found any good data on the aggregate trends in machining. BTW: I would argue that we should include the part-programmers in the assessment of the overall impact: (a) their skill levels should be included in the overall skill assessment, and (b) the interdependence between operators and programmers is interesting to compare with the proud independence of the old-style machinist (and I'm still with Marx against Proudhon!) * hospitals are a nightmare. The main issues in hospitals have little to do with our current discussion tho, and much more to do with ruthless cuts in staffing levels. But the assertion of management control (and financial control by insurance companies etc.) is also having some good effects -- silver linings in a terrible cloud: if you want to focus on the work organization issues, I'd point out that doctors' traditional autonomy is hardly worth defending from our class vantage point: I'd rather side with efforts to draw doctors into "evidence based medicine," which forces docs to justify their decisions both to utilization review staff and even to nursing staff -- drawing them all into a broader fabric of interdependence. 3. To put it more theoretically, I'd say this: Neo-Marxist labor process theory interprets work conditions through the lenses of Marx's account of the transition from the "formal subordination of labor to capital" - where, as under insider contracting, management profits primarily from absolute surplus value derived from the lengthening of the working day, leaving workers to organize the details of production - to "real" subordination - where, most notably under Scientific Management, management takes charge of the labor process and reconfigures it to increase labor efficiency and thereby extract relative surplus value. Labor process theory sees this transition as one towards ubiquitous management control and "degraded" labor. I think LPT has lost sight of the basic contradictions of capitalism in this account: even as capital strengthens its domination, it must foster cooperative relations with and within the "collective worker" in order to produce the use-values that will be sold to assure profits. LPT has largely seen the contradiction between the labor process (the creation of use values) and the valorization process (the creation of surplus value) in terms of the contradiction between production and exchange (JE Kelly, 1985). But the valorization process is not only what happens when surplus value is realized in sales: it is also the force shaping the labor process for surplus value creation within the enterprise. If we lose sight of the on-going contradiction between labor process and valorization process within production, it is difficult to account for the contradictory history of Scientific Management, and in particular for the coexistence of bitter struggles by workers against such rationalization with important cases of workers embracing Scientific Management (see, for example, the case the Amalgamated Clothing Workers under Sidney Hillman described by Fraser, 1991) and with the history of the Scientific Management movement's progressive embrace of unionism and the cause of economic planning (see Jacoby 1983; also Nelson, 1992; Schachter, 1989; Nyland, //). In the software factory as on the shop floor, purely coercive dependence cannot entirely displace collaborative interdependence, else production would cease. The effect of the supercession of formal subordination by real subordination -- combined with the related development of the forces of production -- is to progressively deepen and broaden the collaborative interdependence of the collective worker, and thereby exacerbate the contradiction between the increasingly socialized forces of production (here embodied in the capabilities of the collective worker) with exploitative relations of production. Looking forward to reactions! Paul 3. At 8:37 AM -0500 1/12/03, gerald_a_levy wrote: >In [8313] Paul A wrote: > >> As I interpret it, it implies a position quite contrary to Braverman's. >> Specifically, it implies that capitalists are forced to upgrade (not >> degrade) workers' capabilities (since these are part of the forces of >> production), and in doing so to create a class >> increasingly intolerant of capitalism's limitations (recurrent >> crises, inequality, wars, ecological devastation, etc.) and >> increasingly capable of taking a leading role in governing society. >> This upgrading of capabilities (the "class in itself") is seen in >> rising average skill and education levels, a tendency to greater >> responsibility at work, and growing breadth of workers' >> world-horizons. These trends in turn seem to me to reflect the >> growing knowledge-intensity of advanced economies and a concommitant >> increase in interdependence within and across firms firms. > >Hi Paul. >Was upgrading a typical consequence of automation in the banking >sector? Hasn't the ATM meant deskilling and loss of jobs for many >bank tellers? Similarly, it is hard for me to see how electronic cash >registers cum bar code identification systems have resulted in upgrading >for cashiers in retail stores. In the case of banking, it is true that >there are some new skills and jobs that have developed as a consequence >of the diffusion of information technologies, but has this meant that >_most_ workers in that sector have experienced a skill increase? > >> I have explored these issues in connection with the impact on work of >> advanced technologies in manufacturing and engineering and with the >> Toyota Production System, > >Have computer numerical control machine tools resulted in an >upgrading of skills or deskilling? In the case of robotics, except for >robotics programmers, technicians, and maintenance & repair workers >(which is a small fraction of the industrial workforce) how has there been >an 'upgrading' of workers' skills? > >It may, however, be the case that there are certain aspects of the >Toyota Production System that don't represent deskilling, e.g. the >dynamic of 'quality circles' where workers assume for themselves >some of the traditional control functions of managers (to >increase the intensity of work and product quality) does imply an >extension of knowledge about other jobs besides their own and the >interconnection of those jobs. There are other cases in the same >industry where there has been upgrading of skills as a consequence >of technological change (e.g. the radically different design of work >at Volvo's Kalmar auto assembly plant beginning in 1971) but >these have tended to be special cases (the main rationale for the >Volvo Kalmar plant was the high rate of absenteeism among >Swedish factory workers and the difficulty getting Swedish >workers to agree to work 'on the line'. It was believed that an >attempt to 'humanize' the work environment would help overcome >these problems.) > >> and I'm currently looking at large-scale >> software systems development organizations and hospitals. > >I think that specialization has extended from doctors to nurses >and many other workers in hospitals. This suggests increasing >skill levels but perhaps less of a holistic understanding of >medicine. It is hard to see how a reduction in 'manpower' (sic) >levels at hospitals, e.g. of nurses who might now watch >videocameras for all of the patients in an area rather than looking >in on them individually, represents upgrading. OTOH, the >existing health care system in many countries encourages new >technological developments in medicine _relatively independent >of the price of services_ and this is a different dynamic than in >most sectors where the decision to diffuse a particular technology >is more constrained by cost considerations (i.e. doctors and >hospitals can adopt new technologies and pass along the >increased cost to consumers: although, this is being resisted by >health insurance companies who frequently have to pay the bill). > >In solidarity, Jerry -- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Prof. Paul S. Adler, Management and Organization Dept, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0808 USC office tel: (213) 740-0748 Home office tel: (818) 981-0115 Home office fax: (818) 981-0116 Email: padler@usc.edu List of publications and course outlines at: http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~padler/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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