Re: Analyzing technologies

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was taken by Michael P.'s discussion of the information economy of picking
melons. In the real world, it's the melon-picker who uses his or her
judgement to read the information about when or whether to pick melons. In
Michael's imaginary scenario, there would be a division of labor between one
worker who inspects the produce and writes a report on each individual melon
and another who reads the report and decides which melons to pick. I guess
then the first worker (or perhaps a third one) picks them.

What this says to me is that the growth of the so-called "information
economy" coincides with the process of deskilling that Braverman
highlighted. The second worker -- the symbolic analyst -- has taken some of
the first worker's decision-making power away, separating conception (by the
analyst) from execution (by the reporter and/or picker).

One of the reasons our society _needs_ all sorts of computers is that the
separation of conception from execution has centralized as much as possible
of the decision-making in a small number of hands, so that as much
information as possible must be put into those hands. Clear lines of
communication must be established between the conception center and the
execution peripheries. Of course, it also goes the other way: the
development of info-processing and communication technology facilitates and
thus encourages the deskilling of labor.

(My wife got me a miniature Tetris keychain for Xmas. Goodbye work effort.)

Jim Devine
jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
Academic version of a Bette Midler song: "you are the hot air beneath my wings."