the discussion between Bill and myself that follows mostly involves agreement.
Bill Lear writes: >I'm not so sure I agree that the growth of the info
economy coincides with deskilling. Didn't this sort of separation [between
conception and execution] long precede the information age? ...<
yes. That's why I said that >>One of the reasons our society _needs_ all
sorts of computers is that the separation of conception from execution has
centralized as much as possible of the decision-making in a small number of
hands, so that as much information as possible must be put into those hands.<<
>But, if this concentration of decision-making occured long ago, what do
computers add? More efficient control? I'm sure computers aid in the control
of labor somewhat, but do they really add anything fundamentally new? <
Maybe it's not fundamentally new (just a quantitative change rather than a
qualitative transformation), but extra profit is extra profit, extra control
over workers is extra control. Workers struggle against existing systems,
figuring out ways to stay human or figuring out how to take advantage of the
fixity of capital to win higher wages, so that new systems of control are
continually needed if the capitalists want to avoid falling profits and
losing control.
I think that changes in information technology encourage the separation of
conception from execution AND the separation encourages the development and
use of info tech.
>Computers are great at aggregating data, at rapid processing of it, at
relating data, and at remembering data. Bosses can get counts of workers in
Vietnamese factories, weekly pay figures in maquiladoras, etc. But, when it
comes down to it, real control
strategies are things that computers cannot help with, except peripherally.<
The ability to control far-off factories allows a manager to threaten the
workers in the "home country" (to use an increasingly archaic phrase).
>I'm curious, what sorts of information is available today to a boss that
wasn't available to one living 100 years ago? Is it any different, or does
it just get there faster and more accurately? <
the boss had a lot of info back then, but nowadays the need for info is
larger, given the complexity of the products, the world-wide nature of the
production process, etc.
>Also, aren't the great bulk of computers doing things other than
controlling people?<
right. I didn't say otherwise.
>Ironically, in the computer software industry, at least from my experience,
the workers are more difficult to control, because the separation of
conception and execution, not to mention the measurement of work effort, is
so difficult in programming. A good programmer can pump out 10,000 lines of
code a day. A brilliant programmer can put out 2,000.<
right. Efforts at deskilling are at the microeconomic level. But they don't
necessarily abolish skill overall, just as the introduction of the
easy-to-use automatic transmission in cars implied the need for auto
mechanics with more skills. (This is a major point that Braverman missed; he
presumed that the micro efforts implied an overall decrease in the skill level.)
BTW, there are efforts to deskill programming, by having the code-writers
focus on only modules or "objects" rather than the whole program. I don't
know how successful these efforts are.
>> Of course, it also goes the other way: the development of info-processing
and communication technology facilitates and thus encourages the deskilling
of labor. <<
>Of course, it only does that by design. There is no necessary deskilling
effect from development and deployment of info technologies.<
right. It's only under capitalist social relations that info technologies
are encouraged by deskilling efforts and also encourage them (unless there
are other modes of production that have the same deskilling drive as
capitalism).
>Computer-centralized information does not necessarily mean
human-centralized control of information. One might also claim that as the
information age has become more mature, and computers more widespread, the
American public has become better-informed: just think of the hassle Doug
Henwood would have typing out his LBO and mimeographing the thousands of
issues he sends out. I'm not entirely kidding, either. I think that the
American public is better- (that is not to say well-) informed today than it
was in 1950, the dawn of the information age. Along with this, methods of
keeping the public away from actually using that information politically
have become more advanced. ... <
Right. I'm not against technology at all. Technology increases human power,
but we can use technology for either good or evil. Unfortunately,
capitalism some well-known biases toward the latter. People often struggle
for the former (though not often enough, or strongly enough).
Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Academic version of a Bette Midler song: "you are the hot air beneath my wings."
