On 9/2/06, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
excellent! thanks!
but isn't it true that the Hawthorne effect has been generalized to
form the "human relations" school of management that says (at least in
theory) that if a manager treats workers as thinking human beings,
they'll reciprocate more than it costs (to treat them that way)?
To some extent - though it tends to emphasize participation without
authority, and "non-material" rewards. In short it is used to argue
that it is the sensation of self-management that is required rather
than the actual self-management that produces the productivity
increases observed in worker owned and controlled co-ops. Similarly it
is used to argue that praise and prizes (like the famous banana) can
be used to motivate works - you don't need wages or bonuses. Also you
physical comfort in the workplaces is still downgraded - in theory
short of actual physical injury - though given prevelancee of RSI and
general worker injury I would say that limit is not much observed in
practice.
(Similarly, hasn't the Taylorist school of so-called "scientific
management" -- treating workers like machines -- been generalized?)
Sure. This is where very crude marxist analysis will work fine. In
a capitalist society, theories of worker behavior that justify
expoitation and claim to offer the means of carrying out that
exploitation more effectively will tend to prevail over those without
those characteristics. I suspect that Marx and Engels would would
have dissected such a simplistic description with sharp sacrasm or
dissolved it in vitriol. But it is amazing how much that goes on in
capitalism can be predicted and understood with the most vulgar type
of marxism.
