raghu wrote:
Thanks for the references. What I meant was the union movement was apparently not radical enough in its goals to fundamentally change the factory system itself. The factory system is a particular kind of organization originating from the early stages of the industrial revolution. www.unc.edu/~tgeraght/personal/Factory_OEEH.pdf
This piece contains a bit too much technological determinism for my tastes. I find Marglin's interpretation more useful than the Landus or Langlois views. These latter interpretations ignore relations of production, and, for that reason, they are unable to understand the specifically capitalist nature of a factory.
I'd imagine that the early logic for the factory was mechanization and efficiencies from scale. Certainly it makes sense for some kinds of production e.g. automobiles. But it seems like *all* economic activity has come to be organized in this way. The efficiency gains of the factory system comes at a price. There is a lot of literature on how it reduces labor to mere appendages to machines and the harmful effects of over-specialization. Also a hierarchical boss-servant organization is an inevitable corollary of the factory.
An inevitable corollary of the _capitalist_ factory, perhaps, but not necessarily of the socialist factory. Large scale production which does not rely on the boss-servant organization is consistent with, say, a federated factory system.
So why is it that the labor movement apparently made no attempt to critically question the logic of this institution in the first place?
I believe that the 19th century labor movement did make such an attempt and was defeated. Some of the reasons for that defeat are: 1. Industrial capitalist were able to utilize sources of non-union labor such as women, children and immigrants. 2. Westward expansion served as an effective way to avoid compromises with labor in the US. In the Iron and steel industry, for example, union labor was strongest in the eastern mills (this is reflected in the demographics and earnings in those mills). But rather than fighting this labor directly, capital simply moved west with new mills and found non-union labor that was willing to work. British capitalists couldn't do this (move into undeveloped spaces), and that's why "In Britain, subcontracting systems ... lasted well into the twentieth century (quote from the pdf link above, p. 7). 3. American capitalists were very aggressive compared to European capitalist. The Homestead strike of 1892 is a good example. I have floor-plans of the factory before and after the strike, and to me they reveal quite well the issue of workplace control and the goals of management. 3. The state, in particular the courts, systematically undermined the union movement. The common law developed in a way which protected private rights and the interests of capital, and which, at the same systematically excluded the interests of labor as a self-governing, rule-making body. When the Danbury Hatters decision was handed down (Loewe v. Lawlor, 1908), all private agreements between labor organizations and capitalists were unenforceable.
On a separate note: does the efficiency logic of a centralized workplace still apply today? Is such an organization really essential for a modern economy - which is dominated by services anyway? Why is there so little telecommuting even today for such professions as computer programming and accounting? (I'd argue that the free software projects are proof that alternative types of organization for production are feasible at least for computer programming.)
In my view telecommuting is not compatible with capitalist relations of production; Telecommuters take on too many characteristics of a subcontractor and too few characteristics of wage labor. The free software projects are organized like partnerships, not with employment contracts.
