Taylorism Comes to the Social Services

Abstract

From the beginning, office managers held that all forms of clerical work, not just routine or repetitive ones, could be standardized and "rationalized." For this purpose they undertook elaborate studies of even those occupations which involved little routine, scores of different operations each day, and the exercise of judgment. The essential feature of this effort was to make the clerical worker, of whatever sort, account for the entire working day. Its effect was to make the work of every office employee, no matter how experienced, the subject of management interference. In this way, management began to assert in the office its hitherto unused or sporadically exercised right of control over the labor process. - Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (Monthly Review Press, 1974, p. 309)This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

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