Harry Braverman (1920-76)
American Marxist (pictured right) who worked in publishing, editing The Autobiography of Malcolm X.
Braverman is famous for his deskilling hypothesis – that management
deliberately deskills jobs to increase their control over employees (see below).
Key book
Labour and Monopoly Capitalism
(1974)
Employers exploit employees by minimizing wages to maximize profit.
So they deskill jobs (through mechanization and dividing skilled work into simplified,
repetitive tasks),
This deskilling is
- proposed by F.W. Taylor’s (pictured right
above) scientific management.
- applied in mass production assembly lines (like Henry Ford’s ,pictured right).
By selling their labour for wages, employees give to employers control over the “labour
process” - Karl
Marx’s (pictured right below) term for converting inputs of materials into a final
product.
Management has a monopoly of information and complete control over people’s jobs, leaving no
room for individual initiative and creativity.
So employees become “alienated” (i.e. degraded and unfulfilled), because they aren’t given
the opportunity to think.
Key quote on human resource
management
The pivot upon which all modern management turns: the control over work through the control over the decisions
that are made in the course of work.
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