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diff --git a/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md b/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md deleted file mode 100644 index af891ce..0000000 --- a/books/sociedade/age-of-the-smart-machine.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1071 +0,0 @@ -[[!meta title="In the Age of the Smart Machine"]] - -## Index - -* Deskilling, diplacement of "the human body and its know-how" and reskilling, 57. -* Rebellion against the automated door, 21-23. -* Humanization (Marx) as "tempering animality with rationality" in the progress of civilization, 30. -* Uncivilized, savage worker's "spontaneous, instinctually gratifying behavior" - in the past, signaling the problem of "how to get the human body to remain in one place, - pay attention, and perform consistently over a fixed period of time", 31-34. -* Paradox of the body; body's dual role in production: effort and skill (No Pain no Gain), 36. -* "Singer Sewing Machine Company was not able to produce perfectly interchangeable parts. - As a result, they relied on skilled fitters to assemble each product.", 39. -* Continous Process as a possible way to break the effort-skill body paradox and the U-curve - of social integration, 50-56 -* Transition from oral communication to written communication (pages 77, 100); - it's followed by a transition where calculations were transferred from mental - operations to calculating machines. -* Characteristics of action-centered skills, 106. -* Typewriters, 115. -* Feminization of clerical work, 116-117. -* Secretaries: _dedicated_ (acting as buffers, sorters and organizers) versus _pool_ modes (treated as input-output devices), 122-123. - -## Impressions - -* Intro mentions a control room like the Star Trek bridge. It makes me relate - to the skilled worker at one of its limits - those of the austronaut. Highly - skilled and disciplined, could be an interesting comparison. - -* The pathway from motor knowledge to abstract knowledge recalls Piaget's discussion - about intelligence. - -* Also some bridges can be built with Nicolelis' discussion of technology - transforming itself in extensions of the brain. - -* I to, sometimes, can feel my systems. How they're running, which are - the bottlenecks, what should I look for. Load average from a server is - something you can "feel" just by delays in your terminal. - -* Transitional generations might feel a strange feeling. - -## Excerpts - -### Choices on knowledge, authority and collaboration - - The choices that we face concern the conception and distribution of - knowledge in the workplace. Imagine the following scenario: Intelli- - gence is lodged in the smart machine at the expense of the human - capacity for critical judgment. Organizational members become ever - more dependent, docile, and secretly cynical. As more tasks must be - accomplished through the medium of information technology (I call - this "computer-mediated work"), the sentient body loses its salience - as a source of knowledge, resulting in profound disorientation and loss - of meaning. People intensify their search for avenues of escape through - drugs, apathy, or adversarial conflict, as the majority of jobs in our - offices and factories become increasingly isolated, remote, routine, and - perfunctory. Al ternativel y, imagine this scenario: Organizational lead- - ers recognize the new forms of skill and knowledge needed to truly - exploit the potential of an intelligent technology. They direct their - resources toward creating a work force that can exercise critical judg- - ment as it manages the surrounding machine systems. Work becomes - more abstract as it depends upon understanding and manipulating infor- - mation. This marks the beginning of new forms of mastery and provides - an opportunity to imbue jobs with more comprehensive meaning. A - new array of work tasks offer unprecedented opportunities for a wide - range of employees to add value to products and services. - - [...] - - The choices that we make will shape relations of authority in the - workplace. Once more, imagine: Managers struggle to retain their tra- - ditional sources of authority, which have depended in an important - way upon their exclusive control of the organization's knowledge base. - They use the new technology to structure organizational experience - in ways that help reproduce the legitimacy of their traditional roles. - Managers insist on the prerogatives of command and seek methods that - protect the hierarchical distance that distinguishes them from their - subordinates. Employees barred from the new forms of mastery relin- - quish their sense of responsibility for the organization's work and use - obedience to authority as a means of expressing their resentment. - Imagine an alternative: This technological transformation engenders a - new approach to organizational behavior, one in which relationships - are more intricate, collaborative, and bound by the mutual responsibili- - ties of colleagues. As the new technology integrates information across - time and space, managers and workers each overcome their narrow - functional perspectives and create new roles that are better suited to - enhancing value-adding activities in a data-rich environment. As the - quality of skills at each organizational level becomes similar, hierarchi- - cal distinctions begin to blur. Authority comes to depend more upon - an appropriate fit between knowledge and responsibility than upon the - ranking rules of the traditional organizational pyramid. - - [...] - - Imagine this scenario: The new technology becomes the source of surveillance - techniques that are used to ensnare organizational members or to subtly bully - them into confor- mity. Managers employ the technology to circumvent the - demanding work of face-to-face engagement, substituting instead techniques of - remote management and automated administration. The new techno- logical - infrastructure becomes a battlefield of techniques, with manag- ers inventing - novel ways to enhance certainty and control while em- ployees discover new - methods of self-protection and even sabotage. Imagine the alternative: The new - technological milieu becomes a re- source from which are fashioned innovative - methods of information sharing and social exchange. These methods in turn - produce a deep- ened sense of collective responsibility and joint ownership, as - access to ever-broader domains of information lend new objectivity to data and - preempt the dictates of hierarchical authority. - - -- 5-7 - -### A paradox - - From the unmanned factory to the automated cockpit, visions of the future hail - information technology as the final answer to "the labor question," the - ultimate opportunity to rid our- selves of the thorny problems associated with - training and managing a competent and committed work force. These very same - technologies have been applauded as the hallmark of a second industrial - revolution, in which the classic conflicts of knowledge and power associated - with an earlier age will be synthesized in an array of organizational inno- - vations and new procedures for the production of goods and services, all - characterized by an unprecedented degree of labor harmony and widespread - participation in management process. I Why the paradox? - - -- 7-8 - -### Informate and automate: the duality of Information Technology - - Thus, information technology, even when it is applied to automati- - cally reproduce a finite activity, is not mute. It not only imposes infor- - mation (in the form of programmed instructions) but also produces - information. It both accomplishes tasks and translates them into infor- - mation. The action of a machine is entirely invested in its object, the - product. Information technology, on the other hand, introduces an ad- - ditional dimension of reflexivity: it makes its contribution to the prod- - uct, but it also reflects back on its activities and on the system of activi- - ties to which it is related. Information technology not only produces - action but also produces a voice that symbolically renders events, ob- - jects, and processes so that they become visible, knowable, and share- - able in a new way. - - -- 9 - - [...] - - An emphasis on the informating capacity of intelligent technology can provide a - point of origin for new conceptions of work and power. A more re- stricted - emphasis on its automating capacity can provide the occasion for that second - kind of revolution-a return to the familiar grounds of industrial society with - divergent interests battling for control, aug- mented by an array of new - material resources with which to attack and defend. - - -- 11-12 - -### The natural attitude - - The most treacherous enemy of such research is what philosophers - call "the natural attitude," our capacity to live daily life in a way that - takes for granted the objects and activities that surround us. Even when - we encounter new objects in our environment, our tendency is to expe- - rience them in terms of categories and qualities with which we are - already familiar. The natural attitude allows us to assume and predict a - great many things about each other's behavior without first establishing - premises at the outset of every interaction. The natural attitude can - also stand in the way of awareness, for ordinary experience has to be - made extraordinary in order to become accessible to reflection. This - occurs when we encounter a problem: when our actions do not yield - the expected results, we are caught by surprise and so are motivated - to reflect upon our initial assumptions. 2 Awareness requires a rupture - with the world we take for granted; then old categories of experience - are called into question and revised. For example, in the early days of - photography, the discrepancies between the camera's eye and the hu- - man eye were avidly discussed, but, "once they began to think photo- - graphically, people stopped talking about photographic distortion, as it - was called.,,3 - - -- 13 - -### The Control Room - -Whoa, the description of the Control Room from the Piney Wood Mill recalled me -the Cybersyn Control Room built -- and then destroyed -- less than a decade -before: - - Workers sit on orthopedically designed swivel chairs covered with a royal blue - fabric, facing video display ter- minals. The terminals, which display process - information for the purposes of monitoring and control, are built into polished - oak cabi- nets. Their screens glow with numbers, letters, and graphics in vivid - red, green, and blue. The floor here is covered with slate-gray carpet- ing; - the angled countertops on which the terminals sit are rust brown and edged in - black. The walls are covered with a wheat-colored fabric and the molding - repeats the polished oak of the cabinetry. The dropped ceiling is of a bronzed - metal, and from it is suspended a three dimen- sional structure into which - lights have been recessed and angled to provide the right amount of - illumination without creating glare on the screens. The color scheme is - repeated on the ceiling-soft tones of beige, rust, brown, and gray in a - geometric design. - - -- 20-21 - -### Technology, work and the body - - Technology represents intelligence systematically applied to the - problem of the body. It functions to amplify and surpass the organic - limits of the body; it compensates for the body's fragility and vulnera- - bility. Industrial technology has substituted for the human body in - many of the processes associated with production and so has redefined - the limits of production formerly imposed by the body. As a result, - society's capacity to produce things has been extended in a way that is - unprecedented in human history. This achievement has not been with- - out its costs, however. In diminishing the role of the worker's body in - the labor process, industrial technology has also tended to diminish the - importance of the worker. In creating jobs that require less human - effort, industrial technology has also been used to create jobs that re- - quire less human talent. In creating jobs that demand less of the body, - industrial production has also tended to create jobs that give less to the - body, in terms of opportunities to accrue knowledge in the production - process. These two-sided consequences have been fundamental for the - growth and development of the industrial bureaucracy, which has de- - pended upon the rationalization and centralization of knowledge as the - basis of control. - - [...] - - Throughout most of human history, work has ines- capably meant the exertion and - often the depletion of the worker's body. Yet only in the context of such - exertion was it possible to learn a trade and to master skills. Since the - industrial revolution, the acceler- ated progress of automation has generally - meant a reduction in the amount of effort required of the human body in the - labor process. It has also tended to reduce the quality of skills that a worker - must bring to the activity of making something. Industrial technology has been - developed in a manner that increases its capacity to spare the human body, - while at the same time it has usurped opportunities for the devel- opment and - performance of skills that only the body can learn and remember. - - -- 22-23 - - The progress of automation has been associated with both a general - decline in the degree of know-how required of the worker and a de- - cline in the degree of physical punishment to which he or she must be - subjected. Information technology, however, does have the potential - to redirect the historical trajectory of automation. The intrinsic power - of its informating capacity can change the basis upon which knowledge - is developed and applied in the industrial production process by lifting - knowledge entirely out of the body's domain. The new technology sig- - nals the transposition of work activities to the abstract domain of infor- - mation. Toil no longer implies physical depletion. "Work" becomes - the manipulation of symbols, and when this occurs, the nature of skill - is redefined. The application of technology that preserves the body may - no longer imply the destruction of knowledge; instead, it may imply - the reconstruction of knowledge of a different sort. - - -- 23 - - There is reason enough to want to avoid exhausting work, but the - constancy of repugnance was not confined to forms of labor that were - extremely punishing. As noted earlier, in the membership practices of - some guilds, even the craftsworker was liable to be an object of con- - tempt because of the manual nature of that work. Such repugnance is - in itself an act of distancing. It is both a rejection of the animal body - and an affirmation of one's ability to translate the impulses of that body - into the infinitely more subtle behavioral codes that mediate power in - complex organizations. Once this translation occurs, the body is no - longer the vehicle for involuntary affective or physical displays. Instead, - it becomes the instrument of carefully crafted gestures and behaviors - designed to achieve a calculated effect in an environment where inter- - personal influence and even a kind of rudimentary psychological insight - are critical to success. In the interpersonal world of court society, the - body's knowledge involved the ability to be attuned to the psycho- - logical needs and demands of others, particularly of superiors, and - to produce subtly detailed nonverbal behavior that reflected this - awareness. - - -- 28-29 - - The differences between the work performed by the skilled - workers and the laborers was not of an "intellectual" versus manual - activity. The difference lay in the content of a similarly heavy manual - work: a content of rationality of participation for skilled workers versus - one of total indifference for laborers. 5 5 - - The work of the skilled craftsperson may not have been "intellec- - tual," but it was knowledgeable. These nineteenth-century workers - participated in a form of knowledge that had always defined the activity - of making things. It was knowledge that accrues to the sentient body - in the course of its activity; knowledge inscribed in the laboring body- - in hands, fingertips, wrists, feet, nose, eyes, ears, skin, muscles, shoul- - ders, arms, and legs-as surely as it was inscribed in the brain. It was - knowledge filled with intimate detail of materials and ambience-the - color and consistency of metal as it was thrust into a blazing fire, the - smooth finish of the clay as it gave up its moisture, the supple feel of - the leather as it was beaten and stretched, the strength and delicacy of - glass as it was filled with human breath. These details were known, - though in the practical action of production work, they were rarely - made explicit. Few of those who had such knowledge would have been - able to explain, rationalize, or articulate it. Such skills were learned - through observation, imitation, and action more than they were taught, - reflected upon, or verbalized. For example, James J. Davis, later to - become Warren Harding's Secretary of Labor, learned the skill of pud- - dling iron by working as his father's helper in a Pennsylvania foundry: - "None of us ever went to school and learned the chemistry of it from - books. . . . We learned the trick by doing it, standing with our faces in - the scorching heat while our hands puddled the metal in its glaring - bath. ,,56 - - -- 40 - -### The Scientific management - -Taylor, when "worker's know-how was expropriated to the ranks of management", -using information technology -- that _automates_ and _informates_ -- before -computer adoption, 41-44. - - Scientific management frequently meant not only that individual effort was - simplified (either because of labor-saving equipment or new organizational - methods that fragmented tasks into their simplest components), but also that - the pace of effort was intensified, thus raising the level of fatigue and - stress. Effort was purified-stripped of waste-but not yet eased, and resis- - tance to scientific management harkened back to the age-old issue of the - intensity and degree of physical exertion to which the body should be subject. - As long as effort was organized by the traditional practices of a craft, it - could be experienced as within one's own control and, being inextricably linked - to skill, as a source of considerable pride, satisfaction, and independence. - Stripped of this context and mean- ing, demands for greater effort only - intensified the desire for self- . 69 protectIon. - - Taylor had believed that the transcendent logic of science, together - with easier work and better, more fairly determined wages, could inte- - grate the worker into the organization and inspire a zest for production. - Instead, the forms of work organization that emerged with scientific - management tended to amplify the divergence of interests between - management and workers. Scientific management revised many of the - assumptions that had guided the traditional employer-employee rela- - tionship in that it allowed a minimal connection between the organiza- - tion and the individual in terms of skill, training, and the centrality of - the worker's contribution. It also permitted a new flexibility in work - force management, promoting the maximum interchangeability of per- - sonnel and the minimum dependence on their ability, availability, or - motivation. 70 - - [...] - - A machinist gained prominence when he debated Taylor in 1 914 and - remarked, "we don't want to work as fast as we are able to. We want - to work as fast as we think it's comfortable for us to work. We haven't - come into existence for the purpose of seeing how great a task we can - perform through a lifetime. We are trying to regulate our work so as - to make it auxiliary to our lives. ,,73 - - -- 45-46 - -Fordism: - - "The instruction cards on which Taylor set so much value, Ford was able to - discard. The conveyor belt, the traveling platform, the overhead rails and - material conveyors take their place. . . . Motion analysis has become largely - unnecessary, for the task of the assembly line worker is reduced to a few - manipulations. Taylor's stop-watch nevertheless remains measuring the time of - operations to the fraction of a second. ,,74 - - The fragmentation of tasks characteristic of the new Ford assembly - line achieved dramatic increases in productivity due to the detailed - time study of thousands of operations and the invention of the conveyor - belt and other equipment that maximized the continuity of assembly. - - [...] - - Effort is simplified (though its pace is frequently intensified) while skill - demands are reduced by new methods of task organization and new forms of - machinery. - - The continuity of assembly depended upon the production of interchangeable - parts for uniform products. - - -- 47 - -Effects: - - For the majority of industrial workers in the generations that followed, there - would be fewer opportunities to develop or maintain craft skills. Mass - production depended upon interchangeability for the standardization of - production; this principle required manufacturing operations to free themselves - from the particularistic know-how of the craftsworker. - - [...] - - Thus, applications of industrial technology have simplified, and gen- - erally reduced, physical effort, but because of the bond between effort - and skill, they have also tended to reduce or eliminate know-how. 78 - - [...] - - Self-preservation would induce the worker to accept automation. - - [...] - - the machine assumes responsibility - - [...] - - In Braverman's influential critique of what he called the "degradation - of work" in this century, he used Bright's study to make a very different - point. Where Bright saw the glass half full because the physical demands - of work were curtailed, Braverman saw the glass being drained, as work- - ers' skills were absorbed by technology. For Braverman, the transfer of - skill into machinery represented a triumph of "dead labor over living - labor," a necessity of capitalist logic. As machinery is enlarged and per- - fected, the worker is made puny and insignificant. By substituting capital - (in the form of machinery) for labor, Braverman believed that employers - merely seized the opportunity to exert greater control over the labor - process. As the work force encountered fewer opportunities for skill - development, it would become progressively less capable and, thus, less - bl ... 85 - - -- 48-49 - -### The Transfer - -The transition from manual to automated, the process of transferring knowledged -from the body to the machine is a sistematization of the transference of -knowledge from art (work whose reproduction is challenging) to technics -(pragmatized art, the art of practical, efficient life): - - However, the term transfer must be doubly laden if it is to adequately describe - this process. Knowledge was first transferred from one quality of knowing to - another-from knowing that was sentient, embedded, and experience-based to know- - ing that was explicit and thus subject to rational analysis and perpetual - reformulation. The mechanisms used to accomplish this transfer were themselves - labor intensive (that is, they depended upon first-hand ob- servation of - time-study experts) and were designed solely in the con- text of, and with the - express purpose of, enabling a second transfer- one that entailed the migration - of knowledge from labor to manage- ment with its pointed implications for the - distribution of authority and the division of labor in the industrial - organization. - - -- 56-57 - - The worker's capacity "to know" has been lodged in sentience and - displayed in action. The physical presence of the process equipment - has been the setting that corresponded to this knowledge, which could, - in turn, be displayed only in that context. As long as the action context - remained intact, it was possible for knowledge to remain implicit. In - this sense, the worker knew a great deal, but very little of that knowl- - edge was ever articulated, written down, or made explicit in any fash- - ion. Instead, operators went about their business, displaying their - know-how and rarely attempting to translate that knowledge into terms - that were publicly accessible. This is what managers mean when they - speak of the "art" involved in operating these plants. - - -- 59 - -### From action-centered to intellective skill - - This does not imply that action-centered skills exist independent - of cognitive activity. Rather, it means that the processes of learning, - remembering, and displaying action-centered skills do not necessarily - require that the knowledge they contain be made explicit. Physical - cues do not require inference; learning in an action-centered context is - more likely to be analogical than analytical. In contrast, the abstract - cues available through the data interface do require explicit inferential - reasoning, particularly in the early phases of the learning process. It is - necessary to reason out the meaning of those cues-what is their rela- - tion to each other and to the world "out there"? - - -- 73 - - As information technology restructures the work situation, it ab- - stracts thought from action. Absorption, immediacy, and organic re- - sponsiveness are superseded by distance, coolness, and remoteness. - Such distance brings an opportunity for reflection. - - [...] - - The thinking this operator refers to is of a different quality from the - thinking that attended the display of action-centered skills. It combines - abstraction, explicit inference, and procedural reasoning. Taken to- - gether, these elements make possible a new set of competencies that I - call intellective skills. As long as the new technology signals only deskil- - ling-the diminished importance of action-centered skills-there will - be little probability of developing critical judgment at the data inter- - face. To rekindle such judgment, though on a new, more abstract foot- - ing, a reskilling process is required. Mastery in a computer-mediated - environment depends upon developing intellective skills. - - -- 75-76 - - [...] - - The second dimension of this crisis involves the ambiguity of action. - It is conveyed in the question, what have I done? The computer system - now interpolates between the worker and the action context, and as it - does so, it represents to the worker his or her effects on the world. - However, reading symbols does not provoke the same feeling of having - done something as one gets from more direct, organic involvement in - execution. There is a continual questioning of action-Have I done - anything? How can I be sure? - - -- 81 - -It seems clear to me that, despite de physical alleviation introduced by -intellectual work, it still does not free workers from fatigue. It just put it -in a different framework: mental exhaustion and -[burn-out](/books/sociedade/burnout-society). Only dead, abstracted "work" -won't lead tiredness. But then it won't be work anymore. - -### Evolution of white-collar work - - The evolution of white-collar work has followed a historical path - that is in many ways the precise opposite of that taken by blue-collar - work. Manufacturing has its roots in the work of skilled craft. In most - cases, that work was successively gutted of the elements that made it - skillful-leaving behind jobs that were simplified and routinized. An - examination of work at the various levels of the management hierarchy - reveals a different process. Elements of managerial work most easily - subjected to rationalization were "carved out" of the manager's activit- - ies. The foundational example of this process is the rationalization of - executive work, which was accomplished by ejecting those elements - that could be explicated and systematized, preserving intact the skills - that comprise executive craft. It was the carving out of such elements - that created the array of functions we now associate with middle man- - agement. A similar process accounts for the origins of clerical work. In - each case, the most easily rationalized features of the activities at one - level were carved out, pushed downward, and used to create wholly - new lower-level jobs. In this process, higher-level positions were not - eliminated; on the contrary, they came to be seen more than ever as - the depository of the organization's skills. - - [...] - - White-collar employees used their bodies, too, but - in the service of actino-with, for interpersonal communication and coor- - dination. It was not until the intensive introduction of office machinery, - and with it scientific management, that this distinct orientation was - challenged. During this period, an effort was made to invent a new kind - of clerical work-work that more closely resembled the laboring body - continually actino-on the inanimate objects, paper and equipment, that - were coming to define modern office work. Automation in the factory - had diverse effects, frequently limiting human effort and physical - suffering, though sometimes exacerbating it. But the discontinuity in - the nature of clerical work introduced with office machinery, together - with the application of Tayloristic forms of work organization, did - much to increase the physical suffering of the clerk. While it remained - possible to keep a white collar clean, the clerk's position was severed - from its earlier responsibilities of social coordination and was con- - verted instead to an emphasis on regularity of physical effort and mental - concentration. - - -- 98 - - Many successful merchants and entre- - preneurs were well known for the speed of their mental calculations, - and Eaton's how-to book provides a chapter on tricks and shortcuts to - aid in rapid mental arithmetic. 6 Owner-managers frequently sur- - rounded themselves with sons, nephews, and cousins-a move that fa- - cilitated oral communication through shared meaning and context and - eased the pressure for written documentation. 7 - - [...] - - Detailed empirical studies of modern executives' work, several of - which have been published over the last thirty years, are greeted with - the curiosity and fascination usually reserved for anthropological ac- - counts of obscure primitive societies. It is as if these researchers had - brought back accounts from an organizational region that is concealed - from observation and protected from rational analysis. Perhaps this - sense of mystery surrounds top management activities because they - derive from a set of skills that are embedded in individual action, in - much the same way as those of the craftsperson. In both cases, skilled - performance is characterized by sentient participation, contextuality, - action-dependence, and personalism. - - What is different is that the craftsperson used action-centered skills - in the service of actino-on materials and equipment, while the top man- - ager's action-centered skills are applied in the service of actino-with. - Like the seventeenth-century courtier, the top manager uses his or her - bodily presence as an instrument of interpersonal power, influence, - learning, and communication. The know-how that is developed in the - course of managerial experience in actino-with remains largely implicit: - managers themselves have difficulty describing what they do. Only the - cleverest research can translate such embedded practice into expli- - cated material suitable for analysis and discussion. - - [...] - - "The process is the sensing of the organization as a whole and the total - situation relevant to it. It transcends the capacity of merely intellectual - methods, and the techniques of discriminating the factors of the situa- - tion. The terms pertinent to it are 'feeling,' 'judgment,' 'sense,' 'pro- - portion,' 'balance,' 'appropriateness.' It is a matter of art rather than - science, and is aesthetic rather than logical. For this reason it is recog- - nized rather than described and is known by its effects rather than by - analysis. ,,8 - - -- 100-101 - - Kotter stresses the implicit quality of the general managers' knowledge, - noting that their agendas tended to be informal, nonquantitative, mental road - maps highly related to "people" issues, rather than systematic, formal planning - documents. - - -- 102 - - Daniel Isenberg's research on "how senior managers think" has pen- - etrated another layer of this, usually inarticulate, domain of executive - management. 12 Isenberg found that top managers think in ways that are - highly "intuitive" and integrated with action. 13 He concluded that the - intuitive nature of executive behavior results from the inseparability of - their thinking from their actions: "Since managers often 'know' what - is right before they can analyze and explain it, they frequently act first - and think later. Thinking is inextricably tied to action. . . . Managers - develop thought about their companies and organizations not by ana- - lyzing a problematic situation and then acting, but by thinking and - acting in close concert.,,14 One manager described his own immersion - in the action cycle: "It's as if your arms, your feet, and your body just - move instinctively. You have a preoccupation with working capital, a - preoccupation with capital expenditure, a preoccupation with people - . . . and all this goes so fast that you don't even know whether it's - completely rational, or it's part rational, part intuitive. 15 - - [...] - - Kanter con- - cluded that the manager's ability to "win acceptance" and to communi- - cate was often more important than any substantive knowledge of the - business. The feelings of comfort, efficiency, and trust that come with - such shared meaning are triggered in a variety of ways by the manager's - comportment. The nuances of nonverbal behavior and the signals em- - bedded in physical appearance are an important aspect of such group - participation. Because the tasks at the highest levels of the corporation - are the most ambiguous, senior executives come to rely most heavily - on the communicative ease that results from this shared intuitive world. - - -- 103 - - Top managers' days and nights are filled to the breaking point with a myriad of - activities, contacts, events, discussions, and meetings, which tend to be - brief, rapid, and fragmented. Many students of managerial activity have - proposed ways - - -- 105 - - "Today the manager is the real data bank. . . . Unfortunately he is a - walking and a talking data bank, but not a writing one. When he is busy, - information ceases to flow. When he departs, so does the data bank.,,28 Lodged - in the body and dependent upon presence and active display, the implicit heart - of the executive's special genius appears to evade rationalization. - - -- 106-107 - -That's brilliant: - - In the case of executive activity, those elements most accessible - to explication, and therefore rationalization, were carved out of the - executive's immediate domain of concern. These more analytical or - routine activities were projected into the functions of middle manage- - ment, just as those functions were also absorbing new responsibilities - for planning and coordination that had resulted from systematic analy- - sis of the production process. Thus, the activities that made the execu- - tive most special, based on action-centered skill, were left intact, while - the more explicit and even routine aspects of executive responsibilities - were pushed downward and materialized in a variety of middle- - management functions. This contrasts with the case of craft workers, - in which the action-centered skills that had made them so special were - resealched, systematized, and expropriated upward. To put it bluntly, - workers lost what was best in their jobs, the body as skill in the service - of actin8-on, while executives lost what was worst in their jobs, retaining - full enjoyment of the skilled body as an instrument of actin8-with. - - -- 107-108 - -In other words, automation and the robotization of the body that follows flows -downward in that particular kink of enterprise -- capitalist business and other -hierachical type of organizations with information-based management. From -_action with_ to _acting on_ (page 119). - -Intelligence is extracted from the worked, deskilled, automated and robotized. -From oral to written communication, from her memory to a memory bank of some -sort. From her artisan skills of interpersonal relationships to standardized -procedures. In a movement downward the hierarchy. - -How that phenomemon predates or is contemporanean to cybernetic-inspired -corporate management? - -Also, today we see a discourse on replacing even top management with A/I -working according to "smartcontracts", which might be an assymptotic -ideological consequence of automating things downward, but that might be proved -wrong if we consider that there's no way these organizations could work without -any craftsmanship at it's top. - -Sounds like if there's no way to fully automated a capitalist bussiness or -government body, even replacing it's management but at the same time there's -an urge to do just that. The net effect is an overconcentration of power -to an ever-diminishing managerial elite. - -If more value is given to non-automated work, then this overconcentration -is directly related to wealth concentration. - -I guess this whole mainstream discourse on automation is entirelly flawed. -It separates mind and body, hates the body, want it automated, a slave of the mind -enslaved in a dellusion to free itself even more as the mind is considered a slave -of the brain, it's material support. - -The next step after the creation of middle-management was it's removal from -the organization by downsizing/delayering/outsourcing which happened after -this book was published. - - In 1925, the same year that Mary Parker Follett made her speech - exhorting managers to become more scientific, William Henry - Leffingwell published his well-known text, Office Mana8ement: Principles - and Practice, which he dedicated to the Taylor Society in appreciation - of its "inspirational and educational influence." Leffingwell presented - a copy of his book to Carl Barth, one of Taylor's best-known disciples. - That copy bore the following inscription: "It is with deep appreciation - of the honor of knowing one of management's greatest minds that I sit - at your feet and sign my name." Leffingwell was obsessed with the - notion of bringing rational discipline to the office in much the same - way that Taylor and his men were attempting to transform the shop - floor. Though his was not the only treatise on the subject, it quickly - became one of the most influential. 56 In an earlier work, published in - 1 91 7, Leffingwell had discussed "mechanical applications of the princi- - ples of scientific management to the office." His new text was written - to address the need for "original thought" concerning the fundamental - principles of his discipline and their relationship to office management. - Leffingwell summed up the message of his book with one sentence: - "In a word, the aim of this new conception of office management is - simplification. " - - [...] - - The overwhelming purpose of Leffingwell's approach to simplifica- - tion was to fill the clerical workday with activities that were linked - to a concrete task and to eliminate time spent on coordination and - communication. This concern runs through almost every chapter of his - 850-page text; it is revealed most prominently in his minutely detailed - discussions of the physical arrangement of the office and in his views - on the organization, flow, planning, measurement, and control of office - work. - - Leffingwell advocated what he called "the straight-line flow of - work" as the chief method by which to eliminate any requirement for - communication or coordination. The ideal condition, he said, was that - desks should be so arranged that work could be passed from one to the - other "without the necessity of the clerk even rising from his seat. . . - - [...] - - . . . Routine. . . tends to reduce communication. ,,58 Layout, - standardization of methods, a well-organized messenger service, desk - correspondence distributors, reliance on written instructions, delivery - bags, pneumatic tubes, elevators, automatic conveyors, belt conveyors, - cables, telautographs, telephones, phonographs, buzzers, bells, and - horns-these were just some of the means Leffingwell advocated in - order to insulate the clerk from extensive communicative demands. - - -- 117-119 - -Mind how such changes of reducing interpersonal communication, despite -raising production efficiency, also reduces worker self-organizing capacity -and class awareness. - - The requirements of actino-on associated with these new clerical jobs - demanded more from the body as a source of effort than from skilled - action or intellective competence. It is only at this stage, and in the - context of this discontinuity, that the fate of the clerical job can be - fruitfully compared to that of skilled work in industry. - - [...] - - Frequently, the jobs that were created had the - effect of driving office workers into the role of laboring bodies, en- - gulfing them in the private sentience of physical effort. Complaints - about these jobs became complaints about bodies in pain. In 1 960 the - International Labour Organization published a lengthy study of mecha- - nization and automation in the office. - - [...] - - Clerks complained of being "treated like trained animals" because of the - "uniformity and excessive simplification of the work of many machine - operators." - - -- 119-120 - -Another form of [labor camp](/books/historia/ibm-holocaust), it's mirror image: - - "Tabulat- ing machine operators, for instance, even when the controls are set - for them and an automatic device stops the machine when something goes wrong, - cannot let their attention flag. . . . The strain of this kind of close - attentiveness to a repetitive operation has resulted in a rIsIng number of - cases of mental and nervous disorders among clerical work- ers . . . physical - and intellectual debility; disturbances of an emotional nature such as - irritability, nervousness, hypersensitivity; insomnia; vari- ous functional - disturbances-headaches, digestive and heart troubles; state of depression, etc. - ,,61 - - -- 120-121 - - The Office, featured an article in 1 969 by the director - of a New Jersey industrial engineering firm who said: "We know from - our company's studies that manpower utilization in most offices-even - those that are subject to work measurement controls-rarely exceeds - 60%. In some operations the percentage of utilization may fall below - 40%. At least 17% of the time, employees are literally doing nothing - except walking around or talking. . . . While many companies have - squeezed out much of the excess labor costs in their production opera- - tions, only a few have given serious attention to the so called indirect - labor or service operations. ,,62 - - [...] - - "Clerical jobs are mea- sured just like factory jobs. - - Clerical costs can be controlled on - any routine, Le., repetitive or semi-repetitive work. Non-repetitive - tasks, such as research and development, cannot be economically mea- - sured. Similarly, jobs such as receptionists, confidential secretaries, - etc., do not lend themselves to control. ,,65 - - -- 121-122 - -### Office technology as exile and integration - -The whole chapter is worth reading. Some excerpts: - - One afternoon, after several weeks of participant observation and - discussions with clerks and supervisors, I was returning to the office - from a lunch with a group of employees when two of them beckoned - me over to their desks, indicating that they had something to show me. - They seated themselves at their workstations on either side of a tall - gray partition. Then they pointed out a small rupture in the orderly, - high-tech appearance of their work space: the metal seam in the parti- - tion that separated their desks had been pried open. - - With the look of mischievous co-conspirators, they confided that - they had inflicted this surgery upon the wall between them. Why? The - small opening now made it possible to peek through and see if the - other worker was at her seat, without having to stand up and peer over - or around the wall. Through that aperture questions could be asked, - advice could be given, and dinner menus could be planned. At the time - I took this to be the effort of two women to humanize their surround- - ings. While I still believe that is true, the weeks, months, and years that - followed led me to a fuller appreciation of the significance of their - action. - - Installing those partitions was the final step that completed the - clerks' relegation to the realm of the machine. Exiled from the inter- - personal world of office routines, each clerk became isolated and soli- - tary. That interpersonal world involves the work of managing; it is the - domain in which coordination and communication occur. These clerks - not only had been denied benign forms of social intercourse but also - had been expelled from the managerial world of actino-with that had - formerly required them to accept, in some small degree, responsibility - for the coordination of their office. Installing the partitions was one - concrete technique, among others, designed to create the discontinuity - needed to achieve Leffingwell's goal: to convert the clerk from an inter- - personal operator to a laboring body, substituting communicative and - coordinative responsibilities with the physical demands of continuous - production. - - -- 125 - - In many cases, organizational functions, events, and processes have been so - extensively informated-converted into and displayed as information-that the - technology can be said to have "textualized" the organizational environment. - - -- 126 - - Why was it felt to be important and natural to check the ledgers? - Many of the clerks experienced a loss of certainty similar to that of the - pulp mill operators when they were deprived of concrete referents. In - the office the referent function operated at a higher level of abstraction - than in the mills. For these clerks, written words on pieces of paper - had become a concrete and credible medium-for several reasons. - First, paper is a three-dimensional object that carries sensory weight- - it can be touched; carried; folded; in short, dominated. Secondly, writ- - ing is a physical activity. The pen gives voice to the hand. Each written - word is connected to the writer both through the intellectual relation- - ship of authorship and through the immediate physical relationship of - fingers and pen. In the act of writing there is a part of the self that is - invested in and so identified with the thing written. It comes to be - experienced as an extension of the self rather than an "otherness." - This identification occurs so subtly, that it is rarely noticed until it has - been taken away. Electronic text confronts the clerk with a stark sense - of otherness. Text is impersonal; letters and numbers seem to appear - without having been derived from an embodied process of authorship. - They stand autonomously over and against the clerk who engages with - them. A benefits analyst described the sensation: - - You can't justify anything now; you can't be sure of it or prove it - because you have nothing down in writing. Without writing, you can't - remember things, you can't keep track of things, there's no reasoning - without writing. What we have now-you don't know where it comes - from. It just comes at you. - - -- 130-131 - -Concentrating on concentrating: nano-genealogy of clerical work ---------------------------------------------------------------- - -Sounds like there's a paradox between the simplification of work -- the diminishing -knowledge required to do the task -- and the increased need for concentration in -the task accomplished -- not only because it was dificult to rollback transactions, -but also because of an increased pressure to do more. - - We really did not have a need for such intensive concentration be- - fore. There are times when you are looking at the screen but you - are not seeing what is there. That is a disaster. Even when you get - comfortable with the system, you still have to concentrate; it's iust - that you are not concentrating on concentrating. You learn how to - do it, but the need doesn't go away. - - -- 131 - -Here I get a curious feeling. Which makes me get back to the origin of the term -"clerk" and "clerical work". This is what Norbert Elias tells us from his second -volume of "Civilizing Process": - - They entered this appararus by two main routes: 103 first through their growing - share of secular posts, that is, positions previously filled by nobles; and secondly - through their share of ecclesiastical poset, that is as clerks. The term _clerc_ began - slowly to change its meaning from about the end of the twelfth century onwards; - its ecclesiastical connotation receded and it referred more and more to a man who - had studied, who could read and write Latin , though it may be that the first - stages of an ecclesiastical career were for a time a prerequisite for this. Then, in - conjunction with the extension of the administrative apparatus, both the them - _clerc_ and certain kinds of university study were increasingly secularized. People - no longer learned Latin exclusively to become members of the clergy, theu also - learned it to become officials. To be sure, there were still bourgeois who entered - the king's council simply on account of their commercial or organizational - competence. But the majority of bourgeois attained the higher regions of - government through study, through knowledge of canon and Roman law. Study - became a normal means of social advancement for the sons of leading urban - strata. Bourgeois elements slowly pushed back the noble and ecclesiastical - elements in the government. The class of royal servants, of ''officials", became -- - in contrast to the situarion in Germany -- an exclusively bourgeois formation. - - [103] https://www.worldcat.org/title/philippe-le-long-roi-de-france-1316-1322-le-mecanisme-du-gouvernement/oclc/489867779 - - -- 332 - -The same excerpt but from the portuguese translation: - - Eles ingressaram na máquina do governo através de dois caminhos principais:103 - inicialmente, graças a sua crescente participação em cargos seculares, isto é, - em posições antes ocupadas por nobres e, depois, devido a sua participação em - postos antes eclesiásticos, isto é, como amanuenses. O termo _clerc_ começou a - mudar lentamente de significado a partir de fins do século XII, recuando para - um plano inferior sua conotação eclesiástica e aplicando-se mais e mais a - indivíduos que haviam estudado, que podiam ler e escrever latim, embora possa - ser verdade que os primeiros estágios de uma carreira eclesiástica fossem, por - algum tempo, precondição para isso. Em seguida, em paralelo com a ampliação da - máquina administrativa, o termo _clerc_ e certos tipos de estudos universitários - foram cada vez mais secularizados. As pessoas não aprendiam latim - exclusivamente para se tornarem membros do clero, mas também para ingressar na - carreira de servidores públicos. Para sermos exatos, também havia burgueses que - passavam a integrar o conselho do rei simplesmente devido a sua competência - comercial ou organizacional. A maioria dos burgueses, porém, chegava aos altos - escalões do governo através do estudo, do conhecimento dos cânones e do Direito - Romano. O estudo tornou-se um meio normal de progresso social para os filhos - dos principais estratos urbanos. Lentamente, elementos burgueses suplantaram os - elementos nobres e eclesiásticos no governo. A classe de servidores reais, ou - “funcionários”, tornou-se —, em contraste com a situação vigente nos - territórios germânicos — uma formação social exclusivamente burguesa. - - -- Da seção 22 da parte "Distribuição das Taxas de Poder no Interior da Unidade - de Governo: Sua Importância para a Autoridade Central: A Formação do “Mecanismo - Régio”" - -The development both of the term _clerc_ and the change this activity took deserves -some attention. - -In a sense, the clergy lives in a form of isolation, of exile. - -Or, in another sentence, a clerc was someone who renounced the sensorial and the -material word to live a monastic life. What I just said? - - monastery (n.) - - c. 1400, from Old French monastere "monastery" (14c.) and directly from Late - Latin monasterium, from Ecclesiastical Greek monasterion "a monastery," from - monazein "to live alone," from monos "alone" (from PIE root *men- (4) "small, - isolated"). With suffix -terion "place for (doing something)." Originally - applied to houses of any religious order, male or female. - - -- https://www.etymonline.com/word/monastery - - men- (4) - - Proto-Indo-European root meaning "small, isolated." - - It forms all or part of: malmsey; manometer; monad; monarchy; monastery; - monism; monist; monk; mono; mono-; monoceros; monochrome; monocle; monocular; - monogamy; monogram; monolith; monologue; monomania; Monophysite; monopoly; - monosyllable; monotony. - - It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: - Greek monos "single, alone," manos "rare, sparse;" Armenian manr "thin, - slender, small." - - -- https://www.etymonline.com/word/*men-?ref=etymonline_crossreference - - Noun - - monastērium n (genitive monastēriī); second declension - - (Medieval Latin) monastery quotations ▼ - (Medieval Latin) cell; area used by a monk. - - -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/monasterium - - From Old French monastere, from Latin monastērium, from Ancient Greek - μοναστήριον (monastḗrion, “hermit's cell”), from μόνος (mónos, “alone”). - Doublet of minster. - - -- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/monastery - -Clerical work can be considered those isolated, repetitive, monotonous tasks -separated from the daily, communal life. - -Curiously enough, the `*men-` root also means: - - men- (1) - - Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to think," with derivatives referring to - qualities and states of mind or thought. - - It forms all or part of: admonish; Ahura Mazda; ament; amentia; amnesia; - amnesty; anamnesis; anamnestic; automatic; automaton; balletomane; comment; - compos mentis; dement; demonstrate; Eumenides; idiomatic; maenad; -mancy; - mandarin; mania; maniac; manic; mantic; mantis; mantra; memento; mens rea; - mental; mention; mentor; mind; Minerva; minnesinger; mnemonic; Mnemosyne; - money; monition; monitor; monster; monument; mosaic; Muse; museum; music; - muster; premonition; reminiscence; reminiscent; summon. - - It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: - Sanskrit manas- "mind, spirit," matih "thought," munih "sage, seer;" Avestan - manah- "mind, spirit;" Greek memona "I yearn," mania "madness," mantis "one who - divines, prophet, seer;" Latin mens "mind, understanding, reason," memini "I - remember," mentio "remembrance;" Lithuanian mintis "thought, idea," Old Church - Slavonic mineti "to believe, think," Russian pamjat "memory;" Gothic gamunds, - Old English gemynd "memory, remembrance; conscious mind, intellect." - - [...] - - men- (2) - - Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to project." - - men- (3) - - Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to remain." It forms all or part of: - maisonette; manor; manse; mansion; menage; menial; immanent; permanent; remain; - remainder. - - -- https://www.etymonline.com/word/*men-?ref=etymonline_crossreference - -To think in isolation, projecting, calculating. "Automaton" shares the same root. - -We can also say tha clerical work can refer to a dedication to spiritualism or -philosophycal inquiry, freed from mundane affairs, desires an necessities. - -To be continued: - -* The monastic way is a mode of existence. But is different if someone chooses this path or is forced to it. -* Monotasking during large periods of time was enabled by civilization. Multitasking was the way if you had to pay attention all the time - for dangers to your life. See [The burn-out society](/books/sociedade/burnout-society) for discussion. It's related to the - differentiation, specialization and automation of tasks. One needs someone's else, a third-party protection to be able to abstain from - the environment and even from oneself and focus on abstract and to be able to deep reflection and medidation. -* How some contemporaneous clerical work tends more to multitasking and attention deficit. -* Any equivalent term in portuguese to "clerical work"? -* Class differentiation among both the catholic clergy and the modern monastic automated office, with high ranks of technomonks - doing the thinking (and acting-with) and the lower clerks acting like automatons (acting-on). |