SOCI 235 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Homestead Strike, Scientific Management, Deskilling
10 Dec 2014
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This no doubt motivated the changes described by marglin and braverman. Declines in the use of craft labour in assembly industries in the 19 century seem to have been substantially precipitated by the adoption of machinery which certainly increased productivity. The almost continuous decline in prices over the 19 century is a good indicator of this. The relative success of the u. s. steel industry after the homestead strike, and the rising wages that accompanied it suggest that by the end of the 19 century craft labour had become an obstacle to productivity growth. The moving assembly line can be seen as an implementation of taylorist ideas. The shift from chain saws to mechanized cutting probably increased average skill levels while increasing productivity: these cases suggest, then, that changes in production organization do not come at the expense of productivity growth. They contribute to it: the spread of the use of computers provides an interesting counterexample to the.
