Industrial Diseases
Brink Lindsey's article "Big Mistake" (February) is a valuable contribution, but several points about it should be made. Lindsey seems to repeat the myth that America's industrial dominance was the accidental result of the destruction of competing economies by World War II. In fact, America was the leading industrial nation well before that war, and I know of no period in which America's ascendancy was less challenged than in the 1930s. Along with this, he suggests that the protectionism of the interwar period insulated American industry from positive developments abroad. It might have done so, if there had been any such developments. But I know of none, and none are pointed out. (Certainly, nothing good was happening in Germany or Japan at that time.)
It is worth asking why this should have been so, given the problem that Lindsey documents. The answer seems to be that Europe (and Japan, which took its cues mainly from Europe) was suffering from the same handicap, but even more acutely.
Michael Underwood
Arlington, VA
Brink Lindsey's article "Big Mistake" contains a few big ones of its own, relating to a misunderstanding of scientific management due to acceptance of some widespread myths surrounding "Taylorism."
First, it is unlikely that scientific management itself caused the hostility in employment relations that Lindsey discusses. That conflict arose out of the Marxist-style position that the unions themselves adopted, in which it is assumed that conflict between workers and management is a natural state of affairs. Scientific management was an easy scapegoat, but its principles, as Lindsey points out, were also adopted by unions who demarcated and segregated jobs into very narrow classifications in the mistaken belief that they would increase employment. They also used their large numbers and political pull to raise wages to the uncompetitively high level that Lindsey talks about.
In discussing Taylor's "contempt" for the mental ability of the American worker, Lindsey here drops the context of American society in the early 1900s. The level of education among the American population as a whole was not high, especially in the Deep South, and in this context the separation of thinking or work design and the work itself was entirely appropriate. It is still a hallmark of many of today's "total quality management" practices.
As Ed Locke and David Sweiger stated in their seminal article "Participation In Decision Making: One More Look," "Taylor has been criticized for decades for advocating authoritarian practices, [but] he did not advocate obedience to authority as such, but rather obedience to facts." The authority that management gained over the worker was based on knowledge.
Lindsey's comparison to Japan is an interesting one given that many of the practices advocated by the likes of Deming and Juran are based in the principles that Taylor developed, namely that authority is knowledge-based and, as Taylor writes, "Every encouragement...should be given [the workman] to suggest improvements, both in methods and implements. And whenever a workman proposes an improvement, it should be the policy of the management to make a careful analysis of the new method and conduct a series of experiments to determine accurately the relative merit of the new suggestion and of the old standard."
This is exactly the principle that the Japanese have followed under their kaizen system. (Taylor himself advocated continuous improvement.) However it is not their real strength. The real strength is that the Japanese actually consider the relative merits of a new program rather than just picking up on every new fad in training programs or organizational concepts.
One should not be against bigness per se. The only companies in Japan that tend to use kaizen extensively are the very large organizations. While Lindsey has discussed many useful ideas in his article, especially in the area of self-managed teams and flatter organizational structures and no government intervention, I believe he misses the real issue. It is not because of scientific management that America lags behind the Japanese. It is rather a failure to adhere to its principles (the same principles that they use) and to treat some of Taylor's statements in the context that they were written. What the Japanese really have over you Americans is that they did not abandon reason: Rather, they encouraged it.
Mike Beverland
Auckland, New Zealand
Brink Lindsey replies: I never meant to suggest that America's industrial dominance was purely the result of World War II. Indeed, my article points out that the United States led the way in creating the world's first mass-production economy--a transformation that was largely complete by the 1920s. By contrast, the new techniques were not widely diffused throughout Europe and Japan until the 1950s. Nevertheless, America's relative economic strength was surely exaggerated temporarily by the destruction World War II visited upon the rest of the world. That unnatural dominance, in turn, bred sloppiness and complacency.
Furthermore, Mr. Underwood is simply wrong when he implies that America was so far ahead of the world that its protectionism was harmless. In selected industries, foreign competition was perceived by U.S. industries as a very real threat--that is why they clamored for protection. In particular, the United States imposed its first anti-dumping law in 1916 largely in fear of rising German industrial might. And Japan's textile industry was sufficiently developed by 1936 for the United States to slap on restrictive quotas. A note of common sense: These countries could not have made such a credible bid at conquering the world without formidable industrial bases.
As to Mr. Beverland, I tried my best within the space constraints of a magazine article to put Taylorism's sins in context. I pointed out that scientific management was responsible for enormous productivity gains; I further noted that the labor movement's collectivism would have ensured labor-management conflict even if Taylorism had never existed.
All that said, the truth remains that Taylor and his disciples thought of workers as idiots, and treated them accordingly. You can't read Taylor's writings fairly and miss this point. As a result, Taylorism encouraged a mindset among managers that was stubbornly resistant to any workplace innovations that would incorporate workers' brainpower into the production process. In turn, being treated as mindless cogs had to--and did--breed resentment and alienation among workers. Accordingly, I stand by my judgment that scientific management shares in the blame for the poisonous labor relations that have plagued America's great industrial enterprises.