Question

What are the effects of scientific management of the worker in Bravermans terms.

Answer 1

Scientific management of workers aims at increasing productivity levels at limited costs by less labour force .Use of machines and engineering tools help achieve the objectives within the stipulated time.Harry Braverman is critical of applying this scientific management of workers as it affects several work factors .His arguments in his book labour and monopoly capital include 1) with the capitalism present much technological advancement is applied for fastening the work and decreasing production costs 2) with much use of machinery employees will be either deskilled or routinized owing to less manual involvement in work 3) contribution blue collared employees in work is neglected as employees perform their duty according to the instructions of managers and supervisors but not directly.4)management assumes anyone can perform the work since deskilling is present .So employees are paid low wages .5)the intellectual capacity of employees is questioned as the works performed by them are non -innovative which degrades their position in terms of position,promotion, emoluments,allowances etc 6)the pursuit of profit in capitalism drives the owner to use humans as machines where they are hardly rewarded 7)there is an imminent risk of workers becoming mere menials in the hands of rulers 8)the employees can't have either control or monitoring on the process of production as it is done in the case of skilled labour .9)with the labour process that is in practice scope for skilled labour will be declined as exploitation of unskilled proves to be more effective for capitalists in terms of profit making .10) Braverman is critical of taylorism and it's principles as Braverman gives importance to skill than capitalist mode of production by scientific management.