Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Taylorism and other forms of scientific management were implemented in many industries in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the formalization of control over the labor process was accelerated when Henry Ford and his engineers systematically applied the principles of scientific management to the entire labor process. Fordism represents two critical changes in the historical process of fragmenting tasks and increasing the division of labor. First, whereas Taylorism developed work rules to standardize the production of parts, Fordism brought these standardized parts to the worker and further separated conception from execution by specifying how the assembly of parts was to be done. Second, using the assembly line to bring work to the worker made it possible to limit interruptions in the labor process and increase control over the pace of work. By creating more precise control over the labor process and setting the pace of work, Ford discovered that he could pay high wages while maintaining high profits. His capacity to pay higher wages than other capitalists permitted Ford to be more selective when hiring workers and to impose stricter standards on those workers. The incentive of higher wages was particularly important because it allowed Ford to overcome some of the central impediments to capital accumulation during this historical period: absenteeism and ... log in or subscribe to read full text