A history of social psychological reactions tonew technology
Jim CarlopioIndustrial Technology Institute, PO Box 1485, Ann Arbor, MI 48106, USA
The historical development of new technology can be usefully viewed as a three-phase process with a number of intermediate forms. For example, technology may beseen as having progressed from dependent machines (e.g. bucket elevators), to semi-automatic machines (e.g. Jacquard loom) and, finally, to automatic machines (e.g.continuous process technologies). Dependent machines were labour-saving technolo-gies from the workers' point of view. They were generally positively regarded asthey eased our physical burden and allowed our intellectual advancement. Semi-automated devices only required that we tend to their needs. These machines were nolonger assisting us. We were, and in many cases still are, assisting them. These labour-enslaving devices require workers to perform semi-automatic tasks demanding littlemore than reflexive attention. The third phase in this history of technology may beseen from the workers' point of view as the introduction of labour-replacing processes.This technology totally replaces the human element in performing the actual work. Itremoves the worker from the production process, for example, into the processes ofsupervision, planning and/or maintenance of the equipment and systems. Unfortuna-tely, this phase also has the potential to devalue workers, undermine their power andskills, and displace many workers from their jobs.
From this historical review of workers' reactions to technology, workers arefound to react against two things: first, against exploitation or unsatisfactory workingconditions (e.g. job fractionalization or oversimplification) and, second, against jobdisplacement. Current academic concerns and innovative business practices (e.g. jobredesign, sociotechnical systems theory, participative styles), although not com-pletely satisfactory, address the first of the two problems traditionally associated withnew technology by attempting to modify workers' and managers' jobs and environ-ments to better suit their needs. The second problem, job displacement, has been toolong ignored by Europe and America. Although we seem to have progressed in the last200 years from Luddism to unionism, we are still within the same ' mind set' ofmanagement vs. the workers, the controlled fighting the controlling, that we were in200 years ago. It is this ' cultural conversation ' that we are in, which keeps manage-ment from seeing the long-range benefits in treating workers as their most valuablepartners. Management needs to see that it is wiser to devise production systems thatmake use of the flexibility and intelligence of people than it is to try and design all the' life ' out of production.
The historical development of ' new technology ' can usefully be viewed as a three-phase process with a number of intermediate forms. For example, Friedmann (1955)viewed technology as having progressed from ' dependent machines where feeding,control and regulation constantly depended on the hand of man ' to ' semi-automaticmachines ' which reduced the intervention of man, and finally,' born of the perfectingof the first two ' to automatic machines ' in which the worker is eliminated in the role
68 Jim Carlopioof operator' (pp. 177-178). Early attempts at mechanization such as transfermachines or bucket elevators are examples of dependent machines. The Jacquardloom is an illustration of Friedmann's semi-automatic machine. Finally, continuousprocessing technologies (e.g. power plants, oil refineries and chemical processingplants) are the archetypical' futty automatic ' machines in this conceptuatization.
When a new phase begins, examples of new technologies are introduced andspread. However, the use of equipment, machinery and methods from earlier stagesdoes not disappear. For example, when the European Industrial Revolution usheredin semi-automatic machines people did not stop using or inventing new dependentmachines. Likewise, when we moved into the (automatic) third phase we werestill exploiting the innovations associated with the factory and the US IndustrialRevolution was in fult swing. Thus, these phases are not discrete or mutuatlyexclusive. They are, however, illustrative of the major changes and technologicalinnovations which ted to the state of affairs we find ourselves in today.
Drawing from Friedmann's classification scheme and viewing these stages fromthe point of view of their impact on the worker teads to an interesting interpretiveschema from which to examine the effects different types of technology have had onworkers. At first, equipment and machines were used to assist people in doing theirwork. These ' dependent machines' were labour-saving technologies from theworkers' point of view. They were generally positively regarded as they eased ourphysical burden and allowed our intellectuat advancement. Technotogy becameincreasingty advanced as our sciences exptored the frontiers of knowtedge and webegan to create technologicalty advanced machines which no tonger merety aidedus in our effort, but actuatly did the majority of the work for us. These ' semi-automated ' devices only required that we tend to their needs. They were no longerassisting us. In fact we were, and in many cases stilt are, assisting them. Thesemachines went beyond the tabour-saving devices of the first phase to a new phase oflabour-enslaving devices. In this phase workers' jobs require them to perform semi-automatic tasks demanding littte more than refiexive attention. Workers, however,cannot be comptetety free from the process nor usuatty derive any intettectuat stimu-lation from it (Friedmann, 1955). The third phase in this history of technology may beseen from the workers' point of view as the introduction oi labour-replacing processes.This technotogy totatty reptaces the human element in performing the actuat work. Itremoves the worker from the production process, for exampte, into the processes ofsupervision, ptanning and/or maintenance of the equipment and systems. Thistabour-replacing phase has the potentiat to etevate the worker to new tevets withinorganizationat structures. Hazardous or mindless jobs are better performed auto-maticatty and new heights of production efficiency and quatity can be reatized byorganizations emptoying automation. Unfortunatety, this phase atso has the potentiatto devatue workers, undermine their power and skitts, and disptace many workersfrom their jobs. Social psychotogicat reactions to these three phases witt be discussedafter an examination of pre-industriat reaction to mechanization.
Automata—pre-industrial influencesMumford (1934) suggests that the invention of automata (mechanicat objects,creatures and beings) had an important non-technological effect on people and on
Social psychological reactions to new technology 69society. These inventions influenced 17th-century phitosophicat thought becausethey suggested ' mechanicat attributes for men and extended the anatogies ofmechanization to more subtte and comptex organic facts' (p. 41). For exampte.Boring (1950) mentions the infiuence of mechanical humans on Descartes' appli-cation of the principles of physics to man and on his conception of the body as amachine. A body without a soul, whether it be an animal or a mechanical figure of aperson, was an automaton according to Descartes (1662). A little less than a centurylater. La Mettrie (1748) took Descartes' notions further and claimed that humans arebasicalty automata. Through this objective, materiatistic and naturatistic descriptionof behaviour he paved the way for tater behaviouristic psychotogy (Wertheimer,1970). During this extremely long pre-automation period (1200-1600) peopledeveloped both the physical, mechanical technology, and a philosophicat acceptanceof it which enabted them to adapt technotogicat principtes to work and tater to devetopspecificatty tabour-saving technotogies.
Reactions to labour-saving technology
In the mid-15th century, printing using type cast in an adjustabte moutd wasemptoyed and soon spread throughout Europe. Workers in 16th-century Itaty usedetaborate sitk-throwing machinery, and comptex manuat tooms were emptoyed forweaving figured fabrics. The Itatians atso made the first use of the screw press forstriking coins and making medats. In Hottand, the windmitt was used for poweringsaws and crushers, as welt as for traditionat grain mitting. The windmitt, scoop-wheetand Archimedian screw were hetpfut in draining and rectaiming tand. These tabour-saving devices, and many more tike them, ted to numerous positive changes inpeopte's tives; for exampte, iron reptaced wood, knitted sitk hose became avaitabte,forks reptaced fingers for eating, ate was transformed into beer, and the spinning-wheet and the sewing machine revotutionized the textite industry (Hatt, 1967). Ingeneral, labours were reduced and the impossible became possible with theintroduction of labour-saving devices.
The examples above ittustrate how labour-saving devices truly aided humans intheir work. The eyes, ears, knowledge and skilts of the artisan and craftsman werefacilitated by these earty automatic devices. Within this first phase the traditionattrades, skitts and crafts were either teft, for the most part, unchanged (e.g. the potter'swheet), or were truty enhanced by the introduction of the automatic mechanism (e.g.the printing press). During the Middte Ages and the period of the Renaissancepeople's horizons were widened by technotogy. Their standards of tiving rose. Weatthand the distribution of goods increased. Thus, the sociat psychotogicat reaction totabour-saving technotogies was generatly positive.
Reactions to labour-enslaving technology
From the dawn of human kind, through the Middle Ages, up to the creative andglorious period of the Renaissance there are countless examples of our technologicatgrowth and innovation. According to Hatt (1967), the Middle Ages stand out in the
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history of technology with the associated power revolution and agricultural inno-vations. During the Renaissance people merely built upon these gains and added titttebeyond an expansion of the size, scope and intricacy of machines and productioncapabilities. However, in terms of the history of technology, the Renaissance con-tained the seeds of creation. During this period the vatues, attitudes, and institutionsof society had changed. Western Europe turned from its spiritual-medievat thinkingto more enlightened, secular and quantitative approaches which were more ' open-minded ' and receptive to innovation and to development (Kranzberg, 1967). TheRenaissance stressed material goats. Peopte became more individuatistic and versa-tite, seeking to gratify the senses and to enjoy tife. Atso at this time there was a generalincrease in the economic wett-being of Europe, the New Wortd was discovered, andatt this eventuatty ted to the Industriat Revotution in the next century (Hatt, 1967). Itis the Industriat Revotution which gave tife to the seeds found in the Renaissancewhich eventually developed into today's technology. As automation shifted into itsnext phase, however, it no longer merely helped people to do their work. People atwork were actualty transformed from ' craftsperson ' using an automated procedureto ' machine operator' for exampte, forever changing society, cutture, peopte andtheir work.
Phases in the history of any subject are rarety ctearty detineated in such a way thata precise statement regarding the causes of, or the beginning of, a certain event orperiod can be made with certainty. The history of technotogy is no exception. Thereare, however, several points central to the history of technology which are intimatelyentwined with the Industriat Revotution and which point to the conclusion regardingits importance in this history of technology. The general increase in manufacturingand production, the increase in factory work, population concentration in cities andtowns, and the interaction of these and other technologicat developments with econ-omic, social, culturat and potiticat changes which together produced the ' revotution-ary transformation in Western man's ways of working and tiving ' which is catted theIndustriat Revotution, make it a major milestone in the history of automation (Halt,1967, p. 107).
As a result of the Industrial Revolution, people's lives and work changed. Due tothe invention of new machines, new energy sources, and new organization of work,more goods were produced with less human effort (Kranzberg, 1967). New and variedproducts were availabte over a wider marketing area. Innovations in agricutturaltechnotogy allowed an adequate food supply necessary to support increased urban-ization. As the population moved from farm to town, so did the sources of weatthmove from tand to industriat production invotving a wider distribution of weatth.However, the move from farms to cities, from crafts to factories, from tabour saving totabour enstaving, did not onty mean ' great new horizons ' for society or for theworker. Mechanization, from the 17th century on, tended to standardize work pro-cesses and to make them capable of machine operation (Mumford, 1934). Workersoperating semi-automatic machines became 'machine-herds'. According toMumford, workers attended to their flocks of machines and fed, oiled and fixed them.Work in textile mills, stamping factories or straight-line assemblage became ' servilein character, and no amount of apology or psychological rationalization can make itotherwise: nor can the sociat necessity for the product motlify the process itself '
Social psychological reactions to new technology 71
(p. 411). Although the philosophical implications of Mumford's position were notlikely to be known to 18th- and 19th-century workers, they did react against theexploitative and degrading practices of employers. For example, great socialupheavals began to take place in Europe around the turn of the 19th century.
Amongst the notable labour disorders were the Lyons insurrections of 1831 and1834. Wright (1960) suggests that these riots, of the silk weavers in Lyons, occurredeither because of bitter resentment on the part of the workers regarding unfairlabour practices of employers or middlemen, or they were spontaneous hunger riots.Dunham (1955) suggests similar catalysts. After the revolution of July 1830, Lyonswas at its worst. Taxes were increased threefold for the working class but increasedonly minimalty for the bourgeoisie in control of both the government and industry. Atthe same time, two ' unions ' of a sort were being formed by the weaver foremen andhelpers. A committee of manufacturers and foremen met with government approvatto draw up a wage-scale agreement. When approval of the agreement was withdrawnin 1831, the weavers, resentful of both the government and the manufacturers,revolted.
English textile workers, and British society in generat, were following a coursesomewhat paraltel to the French. Bad harvests and the resulting high prices of pro-visions, along with a failure of South American trade, changes in fashion due to war,and high wartime taxation, atl contributed to great social distress in the early 1800s.On the labour front, there were disputes regarding wages and conditions of work.When negotiations broke down, and the American market collapsed, great socialdisruption occurred. The British did not react with ' surprising docility ' as Wrightnoted the French did when faced with similar circumstances. English workersresponded with widespread attacks on the machinery of production. The term' Luddism ' was coined in 1811 and has since been accepted as a generic label formachine breaking throughout English history (Thomis, 1970).
Machine breaking was not new in the 1800s. It had been a part of recordedlabour history since Restoration times (Thomis, 1970). Luddism seems to have as itsprimary objective the exertion of pressure on employers by employees for somespecific purpose. It may be seen as a form of' collective bargaining by riot' (Thomis,1970). For example:
# In 1710, a London hosier had his machine frames broken because he took on toomany apprentices.
# Coal miners in the 1740s won wage increases and in 1765 won the right to selectnew employers when their annual contracts expired.
# In the 1760s, looms were broken both to attack wage-cutting employers and toget workmen who were not contributing to the strike to do so.
# In 1779, framework knitters in Nottingham broke the frames of their employersbecause of the failure to secure parliamentary regulation for the hosiery trade.
Ctearty, these examptes itlustrate that attacks on machinery were not alwaysmeant as a show of resentment toward new technology or as resistance to innovation ingenerat. The immediate cause of Luddism was not the invention of new machinery.Darvall (1969) suggests that it was the economic conditions aggravated by the stop-page of trade with America. Thomis (1970) agrees and provides evidence in support of
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this conclusion. He holds that the working class was dissatisfied with high food pricesand low wages. Letters and petitions were received by the government, in November1811, predicting trouble if any further increases in grain prices or potatoes wereunaccompanied by equivalent increases in wages. By spring 1812 just such a situationhad developed.
The workers' grievances were many and varied but primarily concerned withmanagement and tabour practices. Workers reacted against wage reductions,emptoyers' efforts to defraud them of wages, the employment of unapprenticedworkers, and the detiberate manufacture of inferior products. Atthough workers wereinterested in reducing the number of tabour-reptacing machines, they were primarityconcerned with unfair tabour practices adopted by emptoyers, not with resistance tomachinery or to innovation. Workers resented and resisted being exptoited andabused.
Nobte (1984) agrees with this interpretation and says that modern trade unionofliciats and workers are threatened, as were the Luddites, not by the machineryitsetf but by ' managements' use of the machinery as a means of, and a camoufiage for,the attack on tabor ' (p. 249). Management uses numericat controt, for exampte, tocentratize controt, weaken unions, tower wages and intensify the work pace att in thename of progress. In the earty 19th century, the use of jigs and fixtures in metalworking was the heart of interchangeable parts manufacture. Eventually, this led toincreased specialization. Toolmakers became distinguished from machinists. Withthe introduction of scientific management and its attempt ' to shift the locus of skillfrom the production floor to the toot room ', management was abte to emptoy tessskitted, cheaper machine operators (Nobte, 1984, p. 80).
Mechanization and development of mechanical standards within the factorysystem, according to Mumford (1934), had three negative effects on workers. Firstwas the castration of skilt. Peopte were exctuded from craft apprenticeship, work wasspeciatized and subdivided to the point where skilt was nultified. The second was thedisciptine of starvation. Workers were without skitl or education and were forced bystarvation, ignorance and fear to work with machines in factories. The third was theremoval of alternative occupations by means of land monopoty and ' dis '-education.Peopte were generatty tacking the necessary mobitity or resources to overcome thesetrends.
In the tast 50 years, the effects, which began with the factory system's resuttingproductivity increases, have ' snow-balled ' into industrial managements' and indus-trial engineers' efforts to design jobs as simply as possibte. Scientific management'sconcern for saving time and increasing output, as wett as Ford's assembty tine, are twostrong factors teading to our current state of job simptification, rationatization andfractionization (Drucker, 1967; Guest, 1967; Mann & Hoffman, 1960). However, if itwas the move toward the factory system spurred by scientific management and theassembly line that workers have reacted against, why is it that the first to react wereLuddites and the people in Lyons who were mainly textile workers with no trueassembly lines and sometimes no factories per se? Walker (1967) contends thatbecause textiles were traditionalty a handicraft industry, because workers had titttecontrol over the methods, sequence and pace of their jobs, and because att decisionsnot programmed into the machines were made by management, the effects of the
Social psychological reactions to new technology 73
transfer of skitt from humans to machines ' is nowhere more strikingty exemptified '(p. 96). Weavers and spinners were once apprenticed, highly skilted craftspeopteenjoying considerabte prestige. With the introduction of automation technotogy,textite workers' retative status was reduced (Darvall, 1969; Walker, 1967) as theirskitts and jobs were reduced to repetitive, tow skilted, machine-tending tasks.Friedmann (1955) succinctly summarizes this process: ' The closer we come to auto-mation—without, however, reaching it—the more the share of labor left to manseems, in itsetf, stripped of att intettectual or technotogicat interest' (p. 178).
There are philosophicat arguments against automation/mechanization as well.Mumford (1934) points out three. He holds that manufacture cuts at the root ofindividual labour power transforming the worker into a cripple by forcing the devel-opment of highly specialized dexterity. Mumford also points out that Kant's doctrinestating that humans should be treated as an end, not as a means, was formutated just asworkers were beginning to be exptoited, mined, exhausted and then discarded, aswas the landscape. According to Mumford, industriatization atso attows employers'responsibitity for workers' tives and heatth to end with the payment for the day'swork. He views the manufacturing process as ' a system which tent itself toadulteration and to deteriorated standards of production almost as much as it lentitself to technical improvements' (p. 146). He points to the textile industry as anexample of the rapid and violent degradation which takes place. He concludes that' asindustry became more advanced from a mechanical point of view it at first becamemore backward from a human standpoint' (p. 146). Mumford proposes that the' factory system is perhaps the most remarkable piece of regimentation . . . in the lastthousand years ' (p. 174). In part, this seems to be due to the unfortunate altiance ofmechanization with mititarization which restricts actions and encourages the use ofrough and ready tactics (Mumford, 1934). Modern theorists continue to hold thisview. Noble (1984) regards the ' new computer-based ideology of total control' asseductive and contagious. Spurred by ties to the military and the mititary-sponsoredtechnicat community, industry managers caught the enthusiasm associated withprofitabte contracts, prestige and patriotism. Unfortunatety, this atso propagatestraditionat betiefs regarding work simptification, efficiency and management controlover production and labour ' as an end in itself, in order to safeguard and to extendmanagement's rights ' (p. 57).
Reactions to labour-replacing technology
Another reason for workers to resist industrial innovation and machine invention wasthat they feared losing their jobs as a result. For example:
• In the earty 1600s in London, workers complained against ' engines for work-inge' which altowed one man to do more work than seven had previousty. In1638 the use of these machines was banned.
• Three days of riots against machines, which attegedty coutd do the work of 20men, occurred in Spitatfietd in 1675.
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# Finishers in Lancashire in 1737 reacted against machinery which cut the cost ofcloth dressing to one-third of the normal, thus causing great loss of work.
• Weavers in January 1768 attacked machines which could do six times the normalamount of work.
An example from France is the problem created by the invention of the Jacquardloom. Developed by 1804, Joseph-Marie Jacquard's toom eliminated the need for awhole army of helpers who had pulled the cords operating the many lifts necessary inweaving a pattern. This fact was appreciated almost immediately in Lyons where it' threatened such widespread unemployment that serious riots of the silk workersbroke out and Jacquard's life was in danger ' (Dunham, 1955, p. 253). The loom wasintroduced successfully in numerous other locations over the next 50 years where itscontribution to the ' art' generated such contagious enthusiasm that ' few seemedto realize that the endless changes involved were important causes of sudden anddisastrous overproduction, crises, and unemployment' (Dunham, 1955, p. 256).More modern examples are: telephone operators being reduced by 80 per cent withthe introduction of an automated switching mechanism; in American textile plantsone worker now supervises 1200 spindles; automated cargo vessels requiring 32 crew,down from 56; and pultey-block machinery allowing 10 workers to replace 110.
Fears regarding the labour-replacing consequences of machinery and auto-mation have been with us so long that they are part of our language and history. Forexample, the word ' sabotage ' originated in the 1800s when French workers threwtheir wooden shoes, or sabots, into machines to halt production (World BookEncyclopedia, 1985). The most modern meaning of the word is more related to thewartime practice of damaging production and communication in enemy countries.In an early industrial psychology text, Alport (1932) wrote that the 'prevalentunemployment' of the day was ' due in no small part' to workers being reptaced by' machinery and new scientific processes of manufacturing ' (p. 247).
Thus, we have reached our latest phase of technologicat devetopment: tech-notogy leading to the replacement of the human in the production or work process.Continuous process technologies, such as those used in the early 20th-century electricpower plant, are good examples. One person operating a crane moves coal from thetrain or barge to a mechanical feeder. From this point on, automatic technologytakes over the entire process. Workers are employed as observers, regulators andsupervisors, not as producers (Mumford, 1934).
Conclusion
Mumford (1934) believes that we historically resisted mechanical improvementsthemselves by smashing the machines or by murdering their inventor. We resistmechanicat organization because in a ' world of ideas [where] romanticism and utili-tarianism go side by side ' (p. 284) mechanization directly makes us materialistic andrational, and indirectly makes us hyper-emotional and irrational. This was a popularnotion in the early to mid-1900s. Fritz Lange's famous silent movie Metropolis,released in 1926, illustrates the popular ideas that mechanization dehumanizes
Social psychological reactions to new technology 75
people, and that concern for our feltow humans and love witt triumph over theenstaving march of progress which drives a wedge between the controtted and thecontrolling classes of society.
Today, as throughout history, workers generatty do not resist technological inno-vation. Technologicat innovation usually promises better quality of work life andbetter quatity of tife in generat for many workers. However, workers justifiabty reactbitterty against exptoitation, degradation and unheatthy or unsafe working con-ditions. They fight management and unfair tabour practices any way they can.Sometimes they break machines. Sometimes they withhotd their tabour.
Nobte (1984) points out that the idea that tabour is against technotogicat changehas become a stapte of poputar, management and academic wisdom about progress.He cites John Diebotd, Edward Shits (Wharton Schoot management consuttant) andNiel Chamberlain (Yale University) to illustrate this belief. However, as far as themodern worker is concerned, this notion is fundamentally mistaken (Noble, 1984).Noble cites several recent studies (e.g. at University of Michigan and MIT) providingevidence that workers are non-resistant and often accommodating of the technologi-catty driven changes they often perceive as necessary and inevitabte. From 1948 to1979, the United Auto Workers' Union (UAW) nationat agreement with US autocompanies inctuded a ctause which stated that organized tabour recognized theprincipte that a continuing improvement in the standard of living of employeesdepends upon technologicat progress, better tools, methods, processes and equip-ment, and a cooperative attitude on the part of alt invotved parties. It further recog-nized the principle that to produce more with the same amount of human effort is asound economic and social objective. According to an article in the more recent UAWResearch Department's Bulletin (1985),' The UAW has always welcomed new tech-nology and the higher productivity it brings—provided workers share fairly in itsfruits, and are protected against its adverse effects' (p. 1). Similarty, Turniansky(1986) studied 25 instances of the implementation of new technology, in union andnon-union manufacturing, and found evidence of ' very little ' personal resistance totechnologicat change.
British studies, carried out in the early 1980s, also provided evidence that' workforce and union opposition has not been among the major obstacles to introducingnew technotogy ' (Northcott, Fogarty & Trevor, 1985). Davies (1986) reviewed the(European) titerature concerned with worker resistance to technotogicat change andfound very little evidence of worker resistance being a major obstruction to techno-logicat progress. In fact, there is a growing belief among some experts that middte andtower tevet managers have as many, or more, reasons to resist new technotogy, as theysee their power bases being eroded and their jobs disappearing, as do workers. Davies(1986) provides severat examptes of how manageriat resistance to new technotogy isprevatent and has been a more significant factor than worker resistance.
From our historical review of workers' reactions to technology we find workersreacting against two things: first, against exptoitation or unsatisfactory working con-ditions (e.g. job fractionatization or oversimptification) and, second, against jobdisptacement. Current academic concerns with quatity of work tife as illustrated bysociotechnical systems theory, job redesign, and pay and organizational developmentconcerns, among others, have been reflected in the business wortd by increases in
76 Jim Carlopio
autonomous work groups, quality circles, Scanolyn plans, and participative manage-ment and decision-making practices. These practices address the first of the twoproblems traditionalty associated with new technology by attempting to modifyworkers' and managers' jobs and environments to better suit their needs. Thesepractices, however, have not had the effect academicians theorized they would. Manyworkers and their unions, for exampte, view participation and the QWL movement asanother management scheme to de-power and to exptoit workers (Parker, 1985).
The second probtem, job disptacement, has been too tong ignored by Europe andAmerica. Unfortunatety, the probtem of worker disptacement witt onty get worse inthe future if left unchecked. As the targest segment of our poputation gets older, andmore workers are displaced by automation, we witt not onty find a decrease in percapita nationat productivity but that society witt be faced with a staggering number ofunemptoyed retirees forced to live on fixed incomes derived from savings, invest-ments, pensions, and social security (if it stilt exists). What witt happen to those whowant to work? Witl they be retrained by the organization and eased into new positionsof supervision and respect? Witt the workers too numerous for the few newty createdsupervisory positions to be retrained by the organization, be retrained by society andintegrated into the workforce? Is it society's or the organizations' responsibitity to dothis retraining and integrating?
Atthough we seem to have progressed in the tast 200 years from Luddism tounionism, we are stitt within the same ' mind set' of management vs. the workers, thecontrolted fighting the controtting, that we were in 200 years ago (e.g. Levitan &Johnson, 1983). It is this ' cultural conversation ' that we are, which keeps manage-ment from seeing the tong-range benefits to treating workers as their most vatuabtepartners. Management needs to see that it is wiser to devise production systems thatmake use of the flexibitity and intettigence of peopte than it is to try and design all the' life ' out of production.
Acknowledgement
The author thanks David Roitman for his helpful comments and advice on an earlier draft of thisarticle.
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