cycles are often very short, with workers sometimes being asked to complete work
involving seven or eight separate operations every forty or fifty seconds, seven or eight
hours a day, fifty weeks a year. When General Motors decided to tighten up on efficiency
in its Lordstown plant in the late 1960s, at the height of its commitment to this
technology, the speed of the assembly line was raised to increase output from 60 to 100
cars per hour. At this new pace some workers had only thirty-six seconds to perform at
least eight different operations, such as walking, lifting, handling, raising a carpet,
bending to fasten bolts, fastening them by air gun, replacing the carpet, and putting a
sticker on the hood.
The principle of separating the planning and design of work from its execution is
often seen as the most pernicious and far-reaching element of Taylor's approach to
management, for it effectively "splits" the worker, advocating the separation of hand and
brain. As Taylor was fond of telling his workers, "You are not supposed to think. There
are other people paid for thinking around here." Men and women were no more than
"hands" or "manpower": the energy or force required to propel the organizational
machine. The jobs they were required to perform were simplified to the ultimate degree
so that workers would be cheap, easy to train, easy to supervise, and easy to replace. Just
as the system of mass production required that products be assembled from
interchangeable parts, Taylor's system rationalized the workplace so that it could be
"manned" by interchangeable workers.
Over the years, Taylor's approach to management has been extended and refined in
many ways, most notably through the development of franchising systems that are faced
with the challenge of offering consistent products and services through decentralized
operations and through the science of ergonomics, which studies the use of energy in the
workplace. Interestingly, Taylor's principles have crossed many ideological barriers,
being extensively used in the former USSR and Eastern Europe as well as in capitalist
countries. This fact signifies that Taylorism is as much a tool for securing general control
over the workplace as it is a means of generating profit. Although noncapitalist countries
and institutions are rarely averse to profitable use of productive resources, one of the
great attractions of Taylorism rests in the power it confers to those in control.
Although Taylor is often seen as the villain who created scientific management, it is
important to realize that he was really part of a much broader social trend involving the
mechanization of life generally. For example, the principles underlying Taylorism are
now found on the football field and athletics track, in the gymnasium, and in the way we
rationalize and routinize our personal lives. Taylor gave voice to a particular aspect of the
trend towards mechanization, specialization, and bureaucratization that Max Weber saw
as such a powerful social force. Taylorism was typically imposed on the workforce. But
many of us impose forms of Taylorism on ourselves as we train and develop specialized
capacities for thought and action and shape our bodies to conform with preconceived
ideals. Under the influence of the same kind of mechanism that has helped make
Taylorism so powerful, we often think about and treat ourselves as if we were machines.