Deskilling Revisited

Continuity and Change in Craft Work and Apprenticeship in Late Nineteenth Century New South Wales

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2746344
AutoresJohn Shields (0000-0001-8524-9857, autor de correspondencia)
Año1995
Número68
Páginas1
Fecha de publicación1995-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLabour History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0023-6942 • E-ISSN: 1839-3039
EditorialLiverpool University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2307/27516351
OpenAlexW2318108740
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas16

Twenty years have now passed since the publication of the late Harry Braverman's seminal study of the historical transformation of work under industrial capitalism2 and the beginnings of the post-Braverman debate on the nature and dynamics of the capitalist 'labour process'. Braverman's central thesis, of course, was that the 'major tendential presence' within the capitalist workplace since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has been the progressive degradation by industrial employers of traditional craft skills and craft institutions through a pervasive and premeditated process of workforce 'deskilling7. According to Braverman, this has embraced three interrelated elements: firstly, the subdivision of craft work into an ever-simpler series of tasks; second, the mechanisation of an increasing number of craft tasks; and, third, the application by employers in the early decades of the twentieth century of F.W Taylor's theories of 'scientific management'. The Taylorization of craft work is said to have involved the systematic appropriation by management of all traditional craftworker knowledge, autonomy and job control and the replacement of customary payment methods by piece-rate systems determined 'scientifically' by means of time-and-motion studies. In the two decades since its publication, Braverman's deskilling thesis has remained one of the most pivotal and contentious elements in the international debate on the nature of the capitalist labour process. The literature in the antiand post-Braverman mould is now of such daunting magnitude and diversity as to defy ready summation.3 However, some criticisms levelled at the deskilling thesis have enjoyed particularly wide acceptance and would seem to warrant brief enumeration. Six criticisms are particularly worthy of mention. Firstly, Braverman's emphasis on unilateral employer agency and control is said to ignore both worker resistance to work reorganization and the possibility of worker compliance and consent.4 Second, this unilateralism is seen as overlooking interventions and mediations by the state, a point of obvious relevance to the Australian scene, particularly in the twentieth century. Third, the assumption of universal, unilinear skill degradation is said to ignore important differences in structural, technological, and product and labour market possibilities and outcomes between and within industries. The same teleology is also seen as increasing the likelihood of temporary, cyclical phenomena being mistaken for immanent secular trends. Four, Braverman's hypothesis of increasing workforce homogeneity has been criticised for overlooking the importance of labour market segmentation, the growth of internal labour markets, and associated divisions within the working class. Fifth, the deskilling paradigm draws on an objectivist conception of 'skill' which is said to overlook the social, cultural, ideological and, in particular, patriarchal dimensions of job definition and the division of labour. Finally

Appropriation · Autonomy · Craft · Deskilling · Epistemology · Political science · Sociology · Work (physics) · Crafts, Textile, and Design · Education Systems and Policy · Engineering · History · Labor Movements and Unions · Law