3
<title>D.10 How does capitalism affect technology?
8
<H1>D.10 How does capitalism affect technology?</H1>
10
Technology has an obvious effect on individual freedom, in some ways
11
increasing it, in others restricting it. However, since capitalism is a
12
social system based on inequalities of power, it is a truism that
13
technology will reflect those inequalities, as it does not develop in a
16
No technology evolves and spreads unless there are people who benefit
17
from it and have sufficient means to disseminate it. In a capitalist society,
18
technologies useful to the rich and powerful are generally the ones that
19
spread. This can be seen from capitalist industry, where technology has
20
been implemented specifically to deskill the worker, so replacing the
21
skilled, valued craftperson with the easily trained (and eliminated!)
22
"mass worker." By making trying to make any individual worker
23
dispensable, the capitalist hopes to deprive workers of a means of
24
controlling the relation between their effort on the job and the pay
25
they receive. In Proudhon's words, the <i>"machine, or the workshop, after
26
having degraded the labourer by giving him a master, completes his
27
degeneracy by reducing him from the rank of artisan to that of common
28
workman."</i> [<b>System of Economical Contradictions</b>, p. 202]
30
So, unsurprisingly, technology within a hierarchical society will tend
31
to re-enforce hierarchy and domination. Managers/capitalists will select
32
technology that will protect and extend their power (and profits), not
33
weaken it. Thus, while it is often claimed that technology is "neutral"
34
this is not (and can never be) the case. Simply put, "progress" within
35
a hierarchical system will reflect the power structures of that system.
37
As George Reitzer notes, technological innovation under a hierarchical
38
system soon results in <i>"increased control and the replacement of human
39
with non-human technology. In fact, the replacement of human with
40
non-human technology is very often motivated by a desire for greater
41
control, which of course is motivated by the need for profit-maximisation.
42
The great sources of uncertainty and unpredictability in any rationalising
43
system are people. . . .McDonaldisation involves the search for the means
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to exert increasing control over both employees and customers"</i> [George
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Reitzer, <b>The McDonaldisation of Society</b>, p. 100]. For Reitzer,
46
capitalism is marked by the <i><b>"irrationality of rationality,"</i></b> in which
47
this process of control results in a system based on crushing the
48
individuality and humanity of those who live within it.
50
In this process of controlling employees for the purpose of maximising
51
profit, deskilling comes about because skilled labour is more expensive
52
than unskilled or semi-skilled and skilled workers have more power over
53
their working conditions and work due to the difficulty in replacing
54
them. In addition it is easier to "rationalise" the production process
55
with methods like Taylorism, a system of strict production schedules
56
and activities based on the amount of time (as determined by management)
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that workers "need" to perform various operations in the workplace, thus
58
requiring simple, easily analysed and timed movements.
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And as companies are in competition, each has to copy the most "efficient"
60
(i.e. profit maximising) production techniques introduced by the others in
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order to remain profitable, no matter how dehumanising this may be for
62
workers. Thus the evil effects of the division of labour and deskilling
63
becoming widespread. Instead of managing their own work, workers are turned
64
into human machines in a labour process they do not control, instead being
65
controlled by those who own the machines they use (see also Harry Braverman,
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<b>Labour and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth
67
Century</b>, Monthly Review Press, 1974).
69
As Max Stirner noted (echoing Adam Smith), this process of deskilling and
70
controlling work means that <i>"When everyone is to cultivate himself into
71
man, condemning a man to <b>machine-like labour</b> amounts to the same thing
72
as slavery. . . . Every labour is to have the intent that the man be
73
satisfied. Therefore he must become a <b>master</b> in it too, be able to
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perform it as a totality. He who in a pin-factory only puts on heads, only
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draws the wire, works, as it were mechanically, like a machine; he remains
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half-trained, does not become a master: his labour cannot <b>satisfy</b> him,
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it can only <b>fatigue</b> him. His labour is nothing by itself, has no object
78
<b>in itself,</b> is nothing complete in itself; he labours only into another's
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hands, and is <b>used.</b> (exploited) by this other"</i> [<b>The Ego and Its Own</b>, p. 121] Kropotkin makes a similar argument against the division of
80
labour (<i>"machine-like labour"</i>) in <b>The Conquest of Bread</b> (see chapter
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XV -- <i>"The Division of Labour"</i>) as did Proudhon (see chapters III and
82
IV of <b>System of Economical Contradictions</b>).
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Modern industry is set up to ensure that workers do not become "masters"
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of their work but instead follow the orders of management. The evolution
86
of technology lies in the relations of power within a society. This is
87
because <i>"the viability of a design is not simply a technical or even
88
economic evaluation but rather a political one. A technology is deemed
89
viable if it conforms to the existing relations of power."</i> [David Noble,
90
<b>Progress without People</b>, p. 63]
92
This process of controlling, restricting, and de-individualising labour
93
is a key feature of capitalism. Work that is skilled and controlled by
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workers in empowering to them in two ways. Firstly it gives them pride
95
in their work and themselves. Secondly, it makes it harder to replace
96
them or suck profits out of them. Therefore, in order to remove the
97
"subjective" factor (i.e. individuality and worker control) from the work
98
process, capital needs methods of controlling the workforce to prevent
99
workers from asserting their individuality, thus preventing them from
100
arranging their own lives and work and resisting the authority of the
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This need to control workers can be seen from the type of machinery
104
introduced during the Industrial Revolution. According to Andrew Ure, a
105
consultant for the factory owners, <i>"[i]n the factories for spinning coarse
106
yarn. . .the mule-spinners [skilled workers] have abused their powers
107
beyond endurance, domineering in the most arrogant manner. . . over their
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masters. High wages. . . have, in too many cases, cherished pride and
109
supplied funds for supporting refractory spirits in strikes. . . . During
110
a disastrous turmoil of [this] kind. . . several capitalists. . . had
111
recourse to the celebrated machinists. . . of Manchester. . . [to
112
construct] a self-acting mule. . . . This invention confirms the great
113
doctrine already propounded, that when capital enlists science in her
114
service, the refractory hand of labour will always be taught docility"</i>
115
[Andrew Ure, <b>Philosophy of Manufactures</b>, pp. 336-368 -- quoted by
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Noble, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 125]
118
Why is it necessary for workers to be <i>"taught docility"</i>? Because <i>"[b]y the
119
infirmity of human nature, it happens that the more skilful the workman,
120
the more self-willed and intractable he is apt to become, and of course
121
the less fit a component of mechanical system in which... he may do great
122
damage to the whole."</i> [<b>Ibid.</b>] Proudhon quotes an English Manufacturer
123
who argues the same point:
125
"The insubordination of our workmen has given us the idea of dispensing
126
with them. We have made and stimulated every imaginable effort to replace
127
the service of men by tools more docile, and we have achieved our object.
128
Machinery has delivered capital from the oppression of labour."</i> [<b>System
129
of Economical Contradictions</b>, p. 189]
131
As David Noble summarises, during the Industrial Revolution <i>"Capital
132
invested in machines that would reinforce the system of domination
133
[in the workplace], and this decision to invest, which might in the
134
long run render the chosen technique economical, was not itself an
135
economical decision but a political one, with cultural sanction."</i>
136
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 6]
138
A similar process was at work in the US, where the rise in trade unionism
139
resulted in <i>"industrial managers bec[oming] even more insistent that
140
skill and initiative not be left on the shop floor, and that, by the same token,
141
shop floor workers not have control over the reproduction of relevant
142
skills through craft-regulated apprenticeship training. Fearful that
143
skilled shop-floor workers would use their scare resources to reduce
144
their effort and increase their pay, management deemed that knowledge
145
of the shop-floor process must reside with the managerial structure."</i>
146
[William Lazonick, <b>Organisation and Technology in Capitalist
147
Development</b>, p. 273]
149
American managers happily embraced Taylorism (aka <i>"scientific management"</i>),
150
according to which the task of the manager was to gather into his possession
151
all available knowledge about the work he oversaw and reorganise it. Taylor
152
himself considered the task for workers was <i>"to do what they are told to
153
do promptly and without asking questions or making suggestions."</i> [quoted
154
by David Noble, <b>American By Design</b>, p. 268] Taylor also relied exclusively
155
upon incentive-pay schemes which mechanically linked pay to productivity
156
and had no appreciation of the subtleties of psychology or sociology (which
157
would have told him that enjoyment of work and creativity is more important
158
for people than just higher pay). Unsurprisingly, workers responded to
159
his schemes by insubordination, sabotage and strikes and it was <i>"discovered
160
. . . that the 'time and motion' experts frequently knew very little
161
about the proper work activities under their supervision, that often they
162
simply guessed at the optimum rates for given operations . . . it meant
163
that the arbitrary authority of management has simply been reintroduced
164
in a less apparent form."</i> [David Noble, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 272] Although, now,
165
the power of management could hide begin the "objectivity" of "science."
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Katherine Stone also argues (in her account of <i>"The Origins of Job Structure
168
in the Steel Industry"</i> in America) that the <i>"transfer of skill [from the
169
worker to management] was not a response to the necessities of production,
170
but was, rather, a strategy to rob workers of their power"</i> by <i>"tak[ing]
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knowledge and authority from the skilled workers and creating a management
172
cadre able to direct production."</i> Stone highlights that this deskilling
173
process was combined by a <i>"divide and rule"</i> policy by management by wage
174
incentives and new promotion policies. This created a reward system in
175
which workers who played by the rules would receive concrete gains in
176
terms of income and status. Over time, such a structure would become
177
to be seen as <i>"the natural way to organise work and one which offered
178
them personal advancement"</i> even though, <i>"when the system was set up,
179
it was neither obvious nor rational. The job ladders were created just
180
when the skill requirements for jobs in the industry were diminishing
181
as a result of the new technology, and jobs were becoming more and more
182
equal as to the learning time and responsibility involved."</i> The modern
183
structure of the capitalist workplace was created to break workers
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resistance to capitalist authority and was deliberately <i>"aimed at altering
185
workers' ways of thinking and feeling -- which they did by making workers'
186
individual 'objective' self-interests congruent with that of the employers
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and in conflict with workers' collective self-interest."</i> It was a means of
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<i>"labour discipline"</i> and of <i>"motivating workers to work for
190
gain and preventing workers from uniting to take back control of
191
production."</i> Stone notes that the <i>"development of the new labour
192
system in the steel industry was repeated throughout the economy in
193
different industries. As in the steel industry, the core of these new
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labour systems were the creation of artificial job hierarchies and the
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transfer pf skills from workers to the managers."</i> [Root & Branch (ed.),
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<b>Root and Branch: The Rise of the Workers' Movements</b>, pp. 152-5]
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This process was recognised by libertarians at the time, with the I.W.W.,
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for example, arguing that <i>"[l]abourers are no longer classified by difference
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in trade skill, but the employer assigns them according to the machine
201
which they are attached. These divisions, far from representing differences
202
in skill or interests among the labourers, are imposed by the employers
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that workers may be pitted against one another and spurred to greater
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exertion in the shop, and that all resistance to capitalist tyranny may
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be weakened by artificial distinctions."</i> [quoted by Katherine Stone,
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<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 157] For this reason, anarchists and syndicalists argued
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for, and built, industrial unions -- one union per workplace and industry
210
Needless to say, such management schemes never last in the long run nor
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totally work in the short run either -- which explains why hierarchical
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management continues, as does technological deskilling (workers always
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find ways of using new technology to increase their power within the
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workplace and so undermine management decisions to their own advantage).
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This of process deskilling workers was complemented by many factors -- state
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protected markets (in the form of tariffs and government orders -- the <i>"lead
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in technological innovation came in armaments where assured government orders
219
justified high fixed-cost investments"</i>); the use of <i>"both political and
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economic power [by American Capitalists] to eradicate and diffuse workers'
221
attempts to assert shop-floor control"</i>; and <i>"repression, instigated and
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financed both privately and publicly, to eliminate radical elements [and
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often not-so-radical elements as well, we must note] in the American labour
224
movement."</i> [William Lazonick, <b>Competitive Advantage on the Shop Floor</b>,
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p. 218, p. 303]) Thus state action played a key role in destroying
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craft control within industry, along with the large financial resources
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of capitalists compared to workers.
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Bringing this sorry story up to date, we find <i>"many, if not most,
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American managers are reluctant to develop skills [and initiative] on
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the shop floor for the fear of losing control of the flow of work."</i>
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[William Lazonick, <b>Organisation and Technology in Capitalist
234
pp. 279-280] Given that there is a division of knowledge in society (and,
235
obviously, in the workplace as well) this means that capitalism has
236
selected to introduce a management and technology mix which leads to
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inefficiency and waste of valuable knowledge, experience and skills.
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Thus the capitalist workplace is both produced by and is a weapon
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in the class struggle and reflects the shifting power relations
241
between workers and employers. The creation of artificial job hierarchies,
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the transfer of skills away from workers to managers and technological
243
development are all products of class struggle. Thus technological
244
progress and workplace organisation within capitalism have little to
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do with "efficiency" and far more to do with profits and power.
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This means that while self-management has consistently proven to be more
248
efficient (and empowering) than hierarchical management structures (see
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section <a href="secJ5.html#secj512">J.5.12</a>), capitalism actively
250
selects <b>against</b> it. This is because
251
capitalism is motivated purely by increasing profits, and the
252
maximisation of profits is best done by disempowering workers
253
and empowering bosses (i.e. the maximisation of power) -- even though
254
this concentration of power harms efficiency by distorting and
255
restricting information flow and the gathering and use of widely
256
distributed knowledge within the firm (as in any command economy).
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Thus the last refuge of the capitalist/technophile (namely that the
259
productivity gains of technology outweigh the human costs or the means
260
used to achieve them) is doubly flawed. Firstly, disempowering technology
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may maximise profits, but it need not increase efficient utilisation of
262
resources or workers time, skills or potential (and as we argue in greater
263
detail later, in section <a href="secJ5.html#secj512">J.5.12</a>, efficiency
264
and profit maximisation are two
265
different things, with such deskilling and management control actually
266
<b>reducing</b> efficiency -- compared to workers' control -- but as it allows
267
managers to maximise profits the capitalist market selects it). Secondly,
268
<i>"when investment does in fact generate innovation, does such innovation yield
269
greater productivity?. . . After conducting a poll of industry executives
270
on trends in automation, <b>Business Week</b> concluded in 1982 that 'there
271
is a heavy backing for capital investment in a variety of labour-saving
272
technologies that are designed to fatten profits without necessary
273
adding to productive output.'"</i> David Noble concludes that <i>"whenever
274
managers are able to use automation to 'fatten profits' and enhance their
275
authority (by eliminating jobs and extorting concessions and obedience from
276
the workers who remain) without at the same time increasing social product,
277
they appear more than ready to do."</i> [David Noble, <b>Progress Without People</b>,
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Of course the claim is that higher wages follow increased investment and
281
technological innovation ("in the long run" -- although usually "the long
282
run" has to be helped to arrive by workers' struggle and protest!). Passing
283
aside the question of whether slightly increased consumption really makes
284
up for dehumanising and uncreative work, we must note that it is usually
285
the capitalist who <b>really</b> benefits from technological change in money
286
terms. For example, between 1920 and 1927 (a period when unemployment
287
caused by technology became commonplace) the automobile industry (which was
288
at the forefront of technological change) saw wages rise by 23.7%. Thus,
289
claim supporters of capitalism, technology is in all our interests. However,
290
capital surpluses rose by 192.9% during the same period -- 8 times faster!
291
Little wonder wages rose! Similarly, over the last 20 years the USA and
292
many other countries have seen companies "down-sizing" and "right-sizing"
293
their workforce and introducing new technologies. The result? Simply
294
put, the 1970s saw the start of <i>"no-wage growth expansions."</i>
295
Before the early 1970s, <i>"real wage growth tracked the growth of
296
productivity and production in the economy overall. After . . ., they
297
ceased to do so. . . Real wage growth fell sharply below measured
298
productivity growth."</i> [James K. Galbraith, <b>Created Unequal</b>,
299
p. 79] So while real wages have stagnated, profits have been increasing as
300
productivity rises and the rich have been getting richer -- technology
301
yet again showing whose side it is on.
303
Overall, as David Noble notes (with regards to manufacturing):
305
<i>"U.S. Manufacturing industry over the last thirty years . . . [has
306
seen] the value of capital stock (machinery) relative to labour
307
double, reflecting the trend towards mechanisation and automation.
308
As a consequence . . . the absolute output person hour increased
309
115%, more than double. But during this same period, real earnings
310
for hourly workers . . . rose only 84%, less than double. Thus, after
311
three decades of automation-based progress, workers are now earning
312
less relative to their output than before. That is, they are producing
313
more for less; working more for their boss and less for themselves."</i>
314
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 92-3]
318
"For if the impact of automation on workers has not been ambiguous,
319
neither has the impact on management and those it serves -- labour's
320
loss has been their gain. During the same first thirty years of our
321
age of automation, corporate after tax profits have increased 450%,
322
more than five times the increase in real earnings for workers."</i>
323
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 95]
325
But why? Because labour has the ability to produce a flexible amount of
326
output (use value) for a given wage. Unlike coal or steel, a worker
327
can be made to work more intensely during a given working period and
328
so technology can be utilised to maximise that effort as well as
329
increasing the pool of potential replacements for an employee by
330
deskilling their work (so reducing workers' power to get higher
331
wages for their work). Thus technology is a key way of increasing
332
the power of the boss, which in turn can increase output per worker
333
while ensuring that the workers' receive relatively less of that output
334
back in terms of wages -- <i>"Machines,"</i> argued Proudhon, <i>"promised us an
335
increase of wealth they have kept their word, but at the same time
336
endowing us with an increase of poverty. They promised us liberty. . .
337
[but] have brought us slavery."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 199]
339
But do not get us wrong, technological progress does not imply that
340
we are victims. Far from it, much innovation is the direct result
341
of our resistance to hierarchy and its tools. For example, capitalists
342
turned to Taylorism and "scientific management" in response to
343
the power of skilled craft workers to control their work and working
344
environment (the famous 1892 Homestead strike, for example, was a
345
direct product of the desire of the company to end the skilled workers'
346
control and power on the shop-floor). In response to this, factory
347
and other workers created a whole new structure of working class
348
power -- a new kind of unionism based on the industrial level. This
349
can be seen in many different countries. For example, in Spain, the
350
C.N.T. (an anarcho-syndicalist union) adopted the <b><i>sindicato
352
(one union) in 1918 which united all workers of the same workplace
353
in the same union (by uniting skilled and unskilled in a single
354
organisation, the union increased their fighting power). In the UK,
355
the shop stewards movement arose during the first world war based on
356
workplace organisation (a movement inspired by the pre-war syndicalist
357
revolt and which included many syndicalist activists). This movement
358
was partly in response to the reformist TUC unions working with the
359
state during the war to suppress class struggle. In Germany, the
360
1919 near revolution saw the creation of revolutionary workplace unions
361
and councils (and a large increase in the size of the anarcho-syndicalist
362
union FAU which was organised by industry). In the USA, the 1930s saw a
363
massive and militant union organising drive by the C.I.O. based on
364
industrial unionism and collective bargaining (inspired, in part, by
365
the example of the I.W.W. and its broad organisation of unskilled
368
More recently, workers in the 1960s and 70s responded to the
369
increasing reformism and bureaucratic nature of such unions as
370
the CIO and TUC by organising themselves directly on the shop
371
floor to control their work and working conditions. This informal
372
movement expressed itself in wildcat strikes against both unions
373
and management, sabotage and unofficial workers' control of production (see
374
John Zerzan's essay <i>"Organised Labour and the Revolt Against
375
Work"</i> in <b>Elements of Refusal</b>). In the UK, the shop stewards'
376
movement revived itself, organising much of the unofficial strikes
377
and protests which occurred in the 1960s and 70s. A similar
378
tendency was seen in many countries during this period.
380
So in response to a new developments in technology and workplace
381
organisation, workers' developed new forms of resistance which
382
in turn provokes a response by management. Thus technology and
383
its (ab)uses is very much a product of the class struggle, of
384
the struggle for freedom in the workplace.
386
With a given technology,
387
workers and radicals soon learn to use it in ways never dreamed off
388
to resist their bosses and the state (which necessitates a transformation
389
of within technology again to try and give the bosses an upper hand!). The
390
use of the Internet, for example, to organise, spread and co-ordinate
391
information, resistance and struggles is a classic example of this
392
process (see Jason Wehling, <i>"'Netwars' and Activists Power on
393
the Internet"</i>, <b>Scottish Anarchist</b> no. 2
394
for details). There is always a "guerrilla war" associated with technology,
395
with workers and radicals developing their own tactics to gain counter
396
control for themselves. Thus much technological change reflects <b>our</b>
397
power and activity to change our own lives and working conditions. We
398
must never forget that.
400
While some may dismiss our analysis as "Luddite," to do so is make
401
"technology" an idol to be worshipped rather than something to be
402
critically analysed. Moreover, to do so is to misrepresent the ideas
403
of the Luddites themselves -- they never actually opposed <b>all</b>
404
technology or machinery. Rather, they opposed <i>"all Machinery hurtful
405
to Commonality"</i> (as a March 1812 letter to a hated Manufacturer put
406
it). Rather than worship technological progress (or view it uncritically),
407
the Luddites subjected technology to critical analysis and evaluation.
408
They opposed those forms of machinery that harmed themselves or society.
409
Unlike those who smear others as "Luddites," the labourers who broke
410
machines were not intimidated by the modern notion of progress. Their
411
sense of right and wrong was not clouded by the notion that technology
412
was somehow inevitable or neutral. They did not think that <b>human</b>
413
values (or their own interests) were irrelevant in evaluating the
414
benefits and drawbacks of a given technology and its effects on workers
415
and society as a whole. Nor did they consider their skills and livelihood
416
as less important than the profits and power of the capitalists. In other words,
417
they would have agreed with Proudhon's comment that machinery
418
<i>"plays the leading role in industry, man is secondary"</i> <b>and</b> they
419
acted to change this relationship. [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 204] Indeed,
420
it would be temping to argue that worshippers of technological progress are, in
421
effect, urging us <b>not</b> to think and to sacrifice ourselves to a new
422
abstraction like the state or capital. The Luddites were an example of
423
working people deciding what their interests were and acting to defend
424
them by their own direct action -- in this case opposing technology which
425
benefited the ruling class by giving them an edge in the class struggle.
426
Anarchists follow this critical approach to technology, recognising that
427
it is not neutral nor above criticism.
429
For capital, the source of problems in industry is people. Unlike
430
machines, people can think, feel, dream, hope and act. The "evolution" of
431
technology will, therefore, reflect the class struggle within society and
432
the struggle for liberty against the forces of authority. Technology, far
433
from being neutral, reflects the interests of those with power. Technology
434
will only be truly our friend once we control it ourselves and <b>modify</b>
435
to reflect <b>human</b> values (this may mean that some forms of technology
436
will have to be written off and replaces by new forms in a free society).
437
Until that happens, most technological processes -- regardless of the other
438
advantages they may have -- will be used to exploit and control people.
440
Thus Proudhon's comments that <i>"in the present condition of society,
441
the workshop with its hierarchical organisation, and machinery"</i> could
442
only serve <i>"exclusively the interests of the least numerous, the least
443
industrious, and the wealthiest class"</i> rather than <i>"be employed for the
444
benefit of all."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 205]
446
While resisting technological "progress" (by means up to and including
447
machine breaking) is essential in the here and now, the issue of
448
technology can only be truly solved when those who use a given
449
technology control its development, introduction and use.
450
Little wonder, therefore, that anarchists consider workers' self-management
451
as a key means of solving the problems created by technology. Proudhon, for
452
example, argued that the solution to the problems created by the division
453
of labour and technology could only be solved by <i>"association"</i> and <i>"by a broad education, by the
454
obligation of apprenticeship, and by the co-operation of all who
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take part in the collective work."</i> This would ensure that <i>"the
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division of labour can no longer be a cause of degradation for the
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workman [or workwoman]."</i> [<b>The General Idea of the Revolution</b>, p. 223]
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While as far as technology goes, it may not be enough to get rid of
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the boss, this is a necessary first step in creating a technology which
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enhances freedom rather than controlling and shaping the worker (or user
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in general) and enhancing the power and profits of the capitalist (see
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also section I.4.9 -- <a href="secI4.html#seci49">Should technological advance be seen as
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anti-anarchistic?</a>).