How Does Harry Braverman Predict A Trend Toward Deskilling Under Capitalism?
Over 30 years ago, Harry Braverman predicted a trend toward deskilling under capitalism, while Daniel Bell predicted a trend toward upskilling.
Review the empirical research on skill trends – a minimum of four empirical studies – and provide your own assessment.
The two divergent views on the future of capitalist societies consist of a positive and negative one. Both views are concerned with skills. One way of analyzing skill trend is to consider them in relation to how work is organized, but a major difficulty has been the lack of consensus on the definition of ‘skill’. There are many factors which affect the demand for skills in the economy, one of which is technology and new machinery. This essay will analyse the ‘deskilling thesis’ …show more content…
Thus, the use of technology to subdivide labour in order to maintain control over it decreases the need for skilled labour. This is evident in the fast food chain sector, as the use of advanced machinery has led to simplification of tasks and therefore replacing labours. However, he also stresses that technology is not the only cause of deskilling, rather technology only becomes a cause when management breaks down a skilled task resulting in more workers performing the same task but with less …show more content…
Three mills, all of which underwent technical changes, were examined.
Penn and Scattergood argued that computerization had ‘little effect’ on the formal division of labour and ‘not much effect’ on the nature of specific job tasks. However, the introduction of fork lift trucks did lead to 60 redundancies and elimination of laboring tasks which Penn classified as ‘much routine nonskilled manual work’. A further observation by a worker was that the introduction of computerization allows for tigher control over the machinery. Based on their empirical research, it was concluded that there was little evidence of deskilling but it did not rule out the possibility of the deskilling thesis in larger assembly plants. [Deskilling or
Review the empirical research on skill trends – a minimum of four empirical studies – and provide your own assessment.
The two divergent views on the future of capitalist societies consist of a positive and negative one. Both views are concerned with skills. One way of analyzing skill trend is to consider them in relation to how work is organized, but a major difficulty has been the lack of consensus on the definition of ‘skill’. There are many factors which affect the demand for skills in the economy, one of which is technology and new machinery. This essay will analyse the ‘deskilling thesis’ …show more content…
Thus, the use of technology to subdivide labour in order to maintain control over it decreases the need for skilled labour. This is evident in the fast food chain sector, as the use of advanced machinery has led to simplification of tasks and therefore replacing labours. However, he also stresses that technology is not the only cause of deskilling, rather technology only becomes a cause when management breaks down a skilled task resulting in more workers performing the same task but with less …show more content…
Three mills, all of which underwent technical changes, were examined.
Penn and Scattergood argued that computerization had ‘little effect’ on the formal division of labour and ‘not much effect’ on the nature of specific job tasks. However, the introduction of fork lift trucks did lead to 60 redundancies and elimination of laboring tasks which Penn classified as ‘much routine nonskilled manual work’. A further observation by a worker was that the introduction of computerization allows for tigher control over the machinery. Based on their empirical research, it was concluded that there was little evidence of deskilling but it did not rule out the possibility of the deskilling thesis in larger assembly plants. [Deskilling or