Explaining Technological Change

Review: Explaining Technological Change Author(s): Walter W. Powell Review by: Walter W. Powell Source: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 93, No. 1 (Jul., 1987), pp. 185-197 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2779681 Accessed: 20-07-2016 21:16 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms

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Review Essay: Explaining Technological Change

From the American System to Mass Production 1900-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States. By David A. Hounshell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984. Pp. xxiv + 411. $38.50 (cloth); $14.95 (paper).

Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation. By David Noble. New York: Knopf, 1984. Reprint. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1985. Pp. xv + 409. $22.95 (cloth); $8.95 (paper). Work Transformed: Automation and Labor in the Computer Age. By Harley Shaiken. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1985. Reprint.

Lexington, Mass.: Lexington, 1986. Pp. 306. $17.95 (cloth); $10.95 (paper).

Walter W. Powell Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The history of technology and the spread of automated machinery are not

typical objects of sociological inquiry. But these topics have a fundamental influence on the distribution of inequality, both in the workplace and in the larger society, and they are of considerable importance to our theoretical understanding of both the nature of the labor process and how power is exercised. These three recent books by scholars in other fields display a sophisticated understanding of technological change. Their sociological relevance is quite basic: any change in technology almost necessarily entails a shift in the way of life, affecting individuals' standing in the stratification system as well as the employment aspirations of job

seekers. In the post-World War II era, the pace of technological change has quickened. The United States has undergone a far-reaching transformation from a manufacturing to a service-based economy. The loss of manufacturing jobs removes a source of security and good wages for a significant segment of the population. Today's workers face the prospect of earning less at jobs that are not as secure and that require different, often greater, skills. The task, then, of explaining technological change and its broad ramifications is one of the most urgent and interesting problems facing contemporary social science. We can learn a great deal from these important books. Their aim is to explain the long-term trend in manufacturing toward greater uniformity of production, increasing centralization of decision making, and more

X 1987 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0002-9602/88/9301-0007$01 .50

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automation. The authors' views have much in common. David Hounshell and David Noble both point to the highly significant role played by the U.S. military, although they disagree when it comes to the question of whether the military controls technological development. Noble contends, in Forces of Production, that the military has insinuated itself and its values into nearly every aspect of modern technology. Hounshell, in From the American System to Mass Production 1900-1932, prefers the better-documented argument that in the 19th century the military provided the crucial seed money to develop a model of production that was

later adopted on its merits by others for nonmilitary purposes. Hounshell and Harley Shaiken both employ a comparative approach and examine a wide range of industries; this large lens enables them to see how uneven and unplanned technological development can be. The dreams of engineers are not always realized in the ways they intended. Where the three authors part company is in their interpretative frameworks. Houn-

shell offers a remarkable diffusion model of the path of industrial development; Noble makes a forceful argument that the choice of technology reflects business and class interests; and Shaiken's focus, in Work Transformed, is the workplace itself, how technology and work are transformed at the point of production. Hounshell considers technology as a form of knowledge, Noble views it as a social production controlled by powerful

agents, and Shaiken sees technology to be a process involving negotiating and jockeying by labor and management. David Hounshell, a historian at the University of Delaware, offers a

convincing reinterpretation of mass production's 19th century roots and its eventual culmination in the cul-de-sac of Fordism. His story is an evolutionary one but not one of unilinear progress; instead, it is a bumpy path of fits and starts, a slow, frustrating process in which developments are unevenly distributed across firms and industries. The volume is engagingly written and replete with more than 150 wonderful illustrations. If, at times, the detailed discussion of technological processes is too demanding for Woody Allen-type "technophobes" like myself, the illustrations help greatly to clarify the discussion. Hounshell gives us a detailed analysis of antebellum small-arms production methods and a careful examination of manufacturing technology in such key industries as sewing machines, woodworking, farm machinery, bicycles, and automobiles. The research, based on extensive and thoughtful use of business records and blended nicely with artifactual and literary sources, exposes a number of widely held myths of American industrial progress (such as the idea that the use of interchangeable parts was widespread in the 19th century). This is an excellent history of the evolution of American production and a handsomely produced volume of which both the author and publisher may be proud. Hounshell's story begins with the federal armories of the early 19th century. Armory mechanics brought the development of special-purpose machines and tools together with the quest for interchangeable parts. This production system was dubbed by British observers the American 186


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system, in contrast to European methods, which relied more on skilled labor. The goals of uniformity and standardization were only slowly realized, and at great expense, for limited production runs and in response to military demands. The U.S. Ordnance Department was the prime mover in this quest, and it spent extraordinary sums in the effort. Military support proved crucial because unit costs in the American system were significantly higher than those with traditional craft methods. But the special techniques and machines developed in the Springfield armory and the private factories in the 1830s and 1840s were broadly applicable, even though they were very slowly adopted in industries where the competition of the marketplace did not permit costly experimentation. Hounshell shows how mechanics who were schooled in armory practice became the fundamental agents in the diffusion of the new technology to other manufacturing industries.

The sewing machine industry was the first, in 1857-58, to adopt the techniques of the armories. The small Wheeler and Wilson factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut, "seemed a microcosm of Colt's armory" in Hartford (p. 70); its superintendent and key mechanics came from the firearms industry. However, Singer, by far the most successful sewing firm, continued to use the European approach until the early 1880s, when its annual production reached half a million machines. Hounshell argues, contrary to received wisdom, that it was not advanced production methods but a superior marketing strategy, including advertising, franchise sales techniques, and very high prices, that was decisive in Singer's success. (He does not suggest that skilled laborers produced a superior product.) Singer executives sought to change the firm's technology in the 1880s, but Singer never achieved the production levels of the Springfield armory, and manuscript records end before there is evidence that the changeover was successfully realized. The history of the McCormick reaper company closely parallels that of Singer. Although the farm-machinery industry is widely regarded as having played a key role in the development of mass production, it was in fact slow to introduce new methods. For over 30 years, McCormick relied on skilled labor and general-purpose machines. Not until 1880, when McCormick sacked his craft-trained brother and replaced him with an armory-trained mechanic, were the rudiments of armory practice introduced. Like Singer, McCormick deliberately sold at the top of the price list for its industry. Hounshell again suggests it was marketing, not new production techniques, that was the key to industry dominance. It was the bicycle makers who created a transitional industry, advancing the methods of the American system and pointing toward mass production. There were important regional differences in bicycle making, and it was a midwestern firm, with no armory contacts, that invented sheet-

metal stamping. This enabled bicycle parts to be turned out in large volume, but final assembly was still done by hand. Moreover, costs remained high: the best-selling bicycles sold for $125-$135. The Ford Motor Company brought together the techniques of armory 187



practice and the midwestern bike shops. Ford removed the assembly bottleneck that was plaguing many industries that were, by the turn of the century, turning out masses of parts. Hounshell devotes more than a quarter of his book to detailing Ford's production regime. He is particularly good on diffusion processes, showing the direct influence of Minneapolis grain-conveying machinery, Detroit breweries, and the Chicago

stockyards and food canneries on the development of the auto assembly line. The head of the engine department at Ford quipped, after a tour of Swift's Chicago slaughterhouse, "If they can kill pigs and cows that way, then we can build cars and motors that way" (quoted on p. 241). The profound change at the Ford Highland Park factory was one in which everything was put in motion and every man was brought to a halt. Fordism represented an entirely new epoch. Unlike previous manufacturers, Ford sought to produce the lowest-priced product and to use continuing price reductions to stimulate ever greater demand. Ford combined interchangeability, the extensive use of steel stampings, the installation of unprecedented numbers of special-purpose machine tools, conveyor systems, and the moving assembly line to bring about extraordinary improvements in productivity and costs. Hounshell shows clearly that Fordism preceded Taylorism, or modern "scientific" management. Certainly, Ford employed a time-study department as well as an infamous sociological department to handle personnel matters. And Ford had a sharp separation between labor and management; all these tenets of Taylorism were in place. But Taylor himself noted that they were undertaken "without the aid of experts" (p. 251). Ford's basic change-to eliminate labor by means of machinery-was much more far-reaching. Taylor took production hardware as a given and sought revisions in the way work was performed and organized; Ford mechanized work processes and found workers to feed and tend the machines. Productivity gains and reductions in labor costs at Ford were considerable, but, as Hounshell notes in a rare moment of attention to those who tended the machines, "So great was labor's distaste for the new machine system that toward the close of 1913 every time the company wanted to add 100 men to its factory personnel, it was necessary to hire 963" (p. 257). The turnover and unrest, as well as the realization that massproduction demands increased purchasing power, led Ford to offer his employees the then unprecedented $5.00 day. Shortly after its introduction, the housewife of an assembly line worker wrote to Ford (quoted on p. 259): "The chain system you have is a slave driver! My God!, Mr. Ford. My husband has come home and thrown himself down and won't eat his supper-so done out! Can't it be remedied? . . . That $5 day is a blessing-a bigger one than you know but oh they earn it."

Ford's output rose from 300,000 cars in 1914 to more than 2 million in 1923. In an era when most prices were rising, the Model T's cost dropped almost 60%. Because of Ford's success, the principles of mass production spread quickly to other industries. Yet, despite the rise and spread of its

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Review Essay ethos, Hounshell argues that the Ford revolution was short-lived. The company's 55% market share in 1920 dwindled to less than 15% in 1927.

Marketing and flexible mass production triumphed over single-purpose production. Alfred Sloan at General Motors recognized that automaking would be more successful if it followed the "laws" of Paris dressmakers. It

was important, he believed, to keep the customer dissatisfied. Sloan used credit financing, annual model changes, and advertising to induce consumers to abandon new cars for still newer ones. Henry Ford steadfastly resisted any change in his methods, and even when the issues were clearly

laid out for him in a January 1926 memo, his response was to fire the author of the memo. In a fascinating penultimate chapter, Hounshell describes the chaos that pervaded the wrenching changeover from the Model T to a diversified line of cars. Ford had created a nightmare of huge inventories and a rigid production system with enormously costly and inflexible plants. In his final and least successful chapter, Hounshell examines the ethos of mass production. Although his discussion of artistic responses to mass production, including Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and Diego Rivera's murals, is quite interesting, the chapter is an insufficient attempt

to recognize the human dimensions and costs of mass production. This otherwise superb history is written from the perspective of the mechanics and engineers who perfected mass production. Hounshell neglects almost entirely to discuss the work force; as a result, he fails to note, for example, that part of McCormick's enthusiasm for new machines in the 1880s stemmed from his desire to defeat union efforts (Ozanne 1967). While the last chapter raises questions about the U.S. embrace of mass production, the volume pays little attention to the fact that its spread meant more routinized and less satisfying work for the people who tended the machines.

David Noble, a historian at Drexel University, is much more concerned with the labor process; his view emphasizes the political and social forces that shape technology. For Noble, technology is at once "the vehicle and mask of domination." Those who decide which new technologies are adopted "are not autonomous agents of some disembodied progress" but rather members of society moved by motivations that reflect professional values, economic interests, and political ideologies (p. 43). He rejects the idea that technological development is analogous to the process of natural selection. This Darwinian view, he tells us, is a form of legitimation, reifying social power and lending to particular choices the sanction and dignity of destiny. Instead, he asserts that, if a particular technology develops in one direction and becomes ubiquitous, it is less a reflection of technical or economic superiority than of the power of those who chose it. The important historical question for Noble is, Whose interests are best served by a given technology, not which is a superior alternative. He maintains that "all technological options are not born equal" (p. 146). Forces of Production is a powerful and provocative, albeit flawed,

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American Journal of Sociology book. Among its many irritants are difficulties in trying to follow the simple chronology of the story; a tendency to rely on sources that, while plausible, are highly opinionated; an absence of any kind of hard, comparative data on wages or hours; and Noble's failure to convey how the machines and technologies he is writing about actually work. These minor problems are compounded by a heavy-handed conspiratorial theory (he calls his history a "complicated crime"): managerial, scientific, and military elites collaborate to use automated technology to destroy craft skill in order to win the class war and to drive smaller competing firms out of the market. Despite these shortcomings, this is an important study of a key period in the development of automated technology. What is remarkable about Noble's book is his analysis of "roads not taken." He reconstructs the development of automatically controlled machine tools in the years following World War II. Machine tools, the "guts of modern industry," have been the basic metal-cutting equipment since the 19th century. Skilled machinists have been militant in defense of their trade, and managers have been unable to control their output. Automated machine tools held out the promise of greater management control over the shop floor. Noble documents that there were two major alternatives in the design of automatically controlled machine tools: record play-

back (RP) and numerical control (NC). The RP system, developed by General Electric, captured on tape the motions of a machine tool run initially under manual control. In contrast, guidance of the machine tool with the NC system was derived from mathematical computations produced by computer programmers. Although both systems created selfacting, or automatic, machines and thus reduced the amount of skilled labor needed for production, the locus of control for RP was on the shop floor, while NC created a class-based division of labor, placing control in the hands of programmers and managers. Noble analyzes these alternative lines of development carefully, placing them in their Cold War social-political context. Numerical control turned out to be very expensive; initially, it was good only for machining precision aerospace parts for which cost was no object. Record playback was simpler, less expensive, and better suited to the needs of small- and medium-sized firms. Noble argues that NC won out not because it was a superior technology but because it advanced the interests of a number of powerful groups, in particular, the air force, the MIT engineering community, and private aerospace contractors. Record playback was, in Noble's view, too accessible; it did not increase managerial control over production. This drive to enhance employers' control was crucial and

combined with the desires of the air force for centralized, computer-based command and control systems and with the aims of MIT scientists who

saw in NC technology a means of promoting their own careers via air force funding for a costly and ambitious computer center. There was little chance for RP to win out over NC. The air force contributed $60 million over a decade to NC's development at the MIT Servomechanisms Labo-

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ratory and then spent another $100 million buying and installing NC machinery in the factories of private aerospace contractors. Without military support, NC would never have achieved the success it has enjoyed. The NC model was a realization of the common interests of the scientific, military, and industrial elites, who shared a general disregard for and distrust of workers' skills and a fascination with formal, abstract, complex solutions that eliminated any chance of human error.

Noble has done a fine job of showing how power and money shape technological development. But he has a much grander goal: his target is the very nature of American technological development. He aims for nothing less than a full-scale indictment of technology as a class-bound phenomenon. Certainly, class interests play an important role in the choice of one technology over another; however, Noble's thesis is far too simplistic and unsubstantiated. Take the role of the air force and MIT. In the case of NC, they joined forces with managers not, in my view, because they were natural allies in the class war but because NC was a means to further their own interests. Where Noble sees a single-minded pursuit of control, others will prefer arguments more attuned to the multiplicity of interests that are involved in these many-sided conflicts. In

addition, it will be clearer to others than it is to Noble that, no matter what specific technology is chosen, the pressures placed on manufacturers by the military will be intense. There is little doubt that technology reflects politics, but I would argue that precisely how politics and the dynamics of change in capitalist societies are played out departs considerably from Noble's account. Noble makes the assumption, following Braverman (1974), that the choice of a new technology by managers, who are driven by a desire to maximize their control, is intended to transform the labor process and deskill workers. This view fails to capture many of the realities of the workplace. It ignores the fact that control at the point of production may not be the most feasible form of control. Friedman (1977) offers one of the best accounts of how control can be achieved in alternative ways. He suggests that, under certain product and labor-market conditions, a strategy of "responsible autonomy" in which workers are given more say and treated in a cooptive manner is highly effective. The major shortcoming of both Noble and Braverman, however, is to assume that the problem of getting more work out of workers is resolved by mechanization and automation. It is wrong to assume that control by capitalists over the planning of work in itself enables them to control their workers better (for an elaboration of this view, see Lazonick [1983]). The introduction of any new technology rarely has a homogeneous effect. Labor processes emerge, as Harley Shaiken shows very well, from negotiations that are shaped by organizational politics, workplace cultures, and market forces. The definition of skill requirements is the result of bargaining within firms; the result depends on the balance of power between labor and management as well as on the distribution of knowledge.

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American Journal of Sociology Even when deskilling does occur, it is typically the job, not the individual, that is deskilled. Noble joins Braverman and Marx in a long analytical tradition that has made capital the sole mediator of production and

consequently diminished the role of workers. (On this point, see the review essay by Price [1984].) But technology does not simply dictate how

work must be performed. Just because a job is deskilled, a skilled machinist is not denuded of his talents. As Shaiken shows clearly, there are myriad ways in which workers can resist changes and foul up the work process. Indeed, evidence suggests that the introduction of automated equipment creates new problems that, far from being solved by the new technology, are often exacerbated by it. Halle's (1984) extensive study of chemical plants reveals a great deal of worker control over production, stemming from employee "secrets"-special knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of highly automated production processes. Noble fails to see that a given technology can be utilized in a wide variety of ways. Gallie (1978) found considerable variation in worker autonomy in jobs that were similarly technologically advanced. On the basis of field studies of firms in Western Europe and the United States, Sabel (1982) argues that effective use of NC machine tools often requires that programmers have substantial knowledge of machining and that operators have detailed knowledge of programming. For example, at Caterpillar Tractor the introductory training film for NC operators explains how to regulate the speed of the machines. This is the kind of control over the pace of work that Noble asserts that managers ought not to want workers to possess (Sabel 1982, p. 66). Noble's own discussion of

the installation of NC in the aircraft engine department at GE's Lynn, Massachusetts, plant is a revealing case of the extent to which machinists maintained a considerable amount of shop-floor autonomy. Sadly, Noble tries to explain this away as a "contradiction."

Noble repeatedly refers to the advertisements of the machine-tool manufacturers that promised managers TOTAL CONTROL over their work force. These boasts and the desirous longings of management that Noble documents quite well are, however, only part of the story. Noble concludes his history in the early 1970s. For a historical case study this decision is reasonable, but he wants his case to be an exemplar of all forms of American technological development. Unfortunately, by assuming that the effects of technological change are continuous and not subject to change, he ends his story too soon. The machine-tool industry has evolved in a fashion that, while not detracting from his fine study of its early development, casts considerable doubt on his larger thesis. For at least 20 years, by Noble's own account, NC was adopted by industry only when it was underwritten by the Department of Defense. It was not until the mid-1970s that NC became more widely adopted. The reason for this change, according to Sabel (1982), is that the technology of NC became more accessible to small firms because of the development of computer numerical control: small computers, mounted on or near the machine

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Review Essay tool, that allow operators to type in their own instructions. Sabel (1982, p. 66) contends that "if large capitalists had even half-formed conspiratorial thoughts of putting an end to their smaller competitors, they chose the

wrong method." Moreover, by 1980, Japanese and West German firms had come to play a dominant role in the world market for machine tools. The key to their success is the production of general-purpose NC equipment that is easily programmed by operators and ideally suited for small-

and medium-sized job shops (Piore and Sabel 1984, p. 217). The crucial point made by Sabel (1982), Friedman (1977), and others, but missed by Noble, is that how a technology is deployed depends on factors such as the evolution of product markets, the availability of skilled labor, and macroeconomic pressures. Sabel (1982, p. 69) suggests that "regardless of size, firms producing specialized products tend to man NC machines with craftsmen with programming skills; firms, again regardless of size, turning out long runs of standard products are constantly tempted to man NC machines with unskilled labor." This more contingent view is surely less grand than Noble's sweeping thesis; moreover, it suggests that future research will need to proceed on three levels: the micropolitics of the workplace, the broader social-political context in which technological change occurs, and the organizational and economic factors that shape how work is structured. Harley Shaiken's Work Transformed is much closer to a contingent

view of the labor process. He does not believe that specific technologies impose a particular job designation. Instead, he argues that whether jobs are narrowed or broadened remains discretionary. The core of his analysis is a view that tragic costs result when technology is designed in a way that throttles rather than expands the enormous creative potential of human beings in the workplace. To this end, he provides several telling cases of how machines are designed differently when those who use them have an active part in the design process. Shaiken shares the view with Noble that managers promote automation in order to reduce the amount of direct labor and to increase their control over the work process. This goal of extending managerial authority is reinforced by an engineering ideology that stresses predictability and the near total separation of the people who design machines from those who use them. Unlike Noble, Shaiken does not subscribe to a single big theory of technological change. Because of his intimate knowledge of the

workplace, based on a previous career as a skilled machinist, he rejects any simple cause-and-effect relationship between the potential of a new technology to transform work and the ultimate shape of the workplace.

His evidence is largely anecdotal, in contrast to the careful historical work of Hounshell and Noble, and drawn primarily from the auto industry. But Shaiken's feel for the workplace is palpable, his understanding of workplace realities and politics exceptional. The transformation described by Shaiken, an associate professor of work and technology at the University of California, San Diego, is so

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American Journal of Sociology dramatic that "superautomation" is perhaps the most apt description of new work systems that are qualitatively different-in terms of flexibility,

the scope of application, and the rate of change-from what has come before. He deals with technological developments that are revolutionizing the office, the assembly line, the supermarket, the engineering department, and the loading dock. In short, these changes are creating an unprecedented restructuring of the organization of production.

Bargaining and resistance are at the core of technological change. Shaiken makes it very clear that it is mistaken "to assume that designing technology to minimize skills or limit human input and fully accomplishing these purposes are the same thing" (p. 14). He stresses that the effect of a new technology must be analyzed in the unpredictable environment of the shop floor. He recounts incredible stories of complex control systems, designed to transform the tool-and-die shops in automobile and aircraft plants, that had to be abandoned because of the opposition of skilled machinists. Shaiken provides an insightful analysis of why workers have so much commitment to work rules. These narrow job definitions, originally introduced by management as part of a Taylorist strategy to splinter work into narrow parts, are now strongly defended by many skilled workers as a basis of job security (more workers are needed under this system) and informal control (the rules restrict management's ability to deploy workers and provide a bargaining chip for workers when a company faces production deadlines). He shows how worker tactics, such as slowdowns or work-to-rule, that seem petty and obstructionist frequently stem from the inability of employees to affect their immediate working conditions in any other way. These endless picayune struggles are in fact disputes over fundamental matters of power and job security. But skilled workers are not the only people who can be resentful about threats to remove their status. He describes the attempted introduction of

an extraordinarily complex, total operations planning system (TOPS) at the mammoth tool-and-die building at the Ford Motor Co. Rouge complex. The installation of TOPS was a huge failure because, in seeking to make operations more efficient by collecting more production information at every step, TOPS altered the relative power of division managers, production managers, and shop-floor leaders. The combination of techni-

cal flaws, shop-floor resistance, and, most important, discontent among production managers whose authority was undermined, scuttled the system.

Status battles are not the only deterrent to change. Shaiken suggests that management's basic predisposition toward systems of "breathtaking complexity" can backfire. For example, flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) use computers to link individual pieces of automated production

equipment into automatic manufacturing cells or, in some cases, entire factories that operate with minimal human intervention. But when a problem occurs in one of these complex electronic systems, it can trigger a domino effect that can halt the entire operation. Thus, the effort to mini-

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Review Essay mize reliance on direct labor increases the reliance on indirect labor, on

maintenance and repair personnel. These expensive ($3-$5 million is a ballpark estimate) disaster-prone systems end up having long down times, with utilization rates as low as 20%.

Shaiken is no Luddite. He is keenly aware of the new productive possibilities of automation. He observes that computer-aided design (CAD) enlarges the number of design alternatives, enhances the ability to make revisions, integrates design and manufacturing, and removes the limits of time and geography. Similarly, computerized machine tools offer

better quality, fewer fixtures and start-ups, the capability to machine more complex parts; and they allow programs to be reused to repeat a particular job. But these technologies can also be the means by which Taylorism is introduced into intellectual work and designers are removed

even further from the realities of production. For example, CAD, a system that allows engineers to work on computer terminals rather than on

paper, is often used to give elite engineering teams greater control. As a result, the majority of manufacturing engineers, who used to plan how

parts proceed from step to step during production, are made redundant by a computer system that monitors tooling and manufacturing. Shaiken also illustrates how sophisticated management information systems (MIS) allow top management to closely monitor middle managers, who are no longer able to resolve problems before those at the top learn about them.

At the same time that automation threatens to deskill white-collar workers, other changes, such as artificial intelligence programs, allow management to put much greater expertise in the hands of less trained, lower-

salaried clerical and blue-collar workers. It is Shaiken's vision that machinists and programmers should collaborate in the design of computer-assisted equipment. He finds, however, that the conflict between the desire for managerial control and the need for machining know-how is often resolved either by making programmers out of managers who were once machinists or by promoting machinists into a new position, removing them from the shop floor. Collaboration

between machinists and engineers is hampered, he tells us, by perceived class differences between the two groups; hence, much useful worker input never reaches higher levels. This happens not only because workers protect their knowledge but also because neither management nor en-

gineers ask for workers' assistance. Shaiken is excellent at observing the paradoxes of the brave new workplace. He notes that one cost of reducing machinists' skills is greater dependence on programming staff. Similarly, he points out that the increased managerial control that stems from a relaxation of work rules and the consequent flexibility to deploy workers

across a range of different tasks may also serve to widen the content of workers' jobs. This book paints a portrait of new work roles that, at virtually every level, entail high levels of stress. Yet, he reminds us that it is possible to develop technology so that work is not boring, stressful, or demeaning of

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human contributions. It is, he asserts, as feasible to design work systems in which humans and machines interact as it is to design ones in which humans merely cope.

But who will generate and pursue the ideal of a workplace with more democratic control over the introduction of new technology? Although Shaiken ends his book with suggestions that would enlarge labor's role in shaping new forms of production, he is, nevertheless, skeptical of organized labor's ability to gain the right to participate in these decisions. He is worried that the labor movement will merely be a survivor, closed to new ideas, unable to garner any control over technological change. He fears that labor is resigned to automation as inevitable; thus, relatively few attempts have been made to negotiate automation-related issues. In their defense, labor unions are commonly faced with the daunting choice of losing jobs to either automation or overseas production. In the face of international competition and shrinking job opportunities, Shaiken realizes that fewer jobs will be lost if U.S. firms become more competitive. Doing so requires exploiting technological advances and, at some companies, entails some form of greater worker participation. But for labor to trade in formal work rules for a more cooperative relationship and the vague promise of future viability (especially when the new competitiveness comes from unions giving up hard-fought-for gains) represents a considerable risk. Shaiken's analysis indicates a scenario altogether different from his hoped-for goal: the development of a two-tier work force, with a number of highly skilled workers with secure employment at the top and a larger number of people with relatively low skills and correspondingly low wages and no employment guarantees. This trend may satisfy the desires of managers by providing them with more control over the determination of which jobs will require high levels of skill, but there is little evidence that these new gains will save American industry.

A recent study of the deployment of flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) in Japan and the United States suggests that the United States is failing to exploit the flexibility of new technologies and is falling further behind (Jaikumar 1986). The United States, it appears, is finding that the mass production ethos is very hard to escape. For example, U.S. firms are using FMS to produce large runs of a few products, while the Japanese make much greater use of the machinery to turn out small runs of many different products. Jaikumar's research indicates that the average number of parts made by an American FMS was 10, in contrast to the Japanese average of 93, and the Japanese used their FMS to handle 22 new parts for every one introduced by U.S. firms. At the root of this gap is a basic difference in approach: Japanese workers and managers have a much greater understanding of what modern technology can do and rely far more on the judgment of people on the shop floor. Each of these books emphasizes, albeit in different fashions, the social determination of technology. Hounshell shows how mobility patterns and

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Review Essay diffusion processes shape the adoption of new technologies. Noble analyzes the power holders behind a particular, highly important instance of

technological change. Shaiken pays closer attention than Noble or Hounshell to the characteristics of new technologies and their deployment,

suggesting that automated technologies can embody specific forms of power and authority. Sociologists ought to be alert to these studies of technological change, both because the question of how social forces influence the development of machines is an important theoretical debate

that we should participate in and because the utilization of automated technologies has dramatic consequences for the society we live in. The spread of automation means that entire categories of workers-both blue

and white collar-will be made redundant, while other occupations will undergo either upgrading or deskilling. These wrenching transformations

will have a powerful effect on our educational and stratification systems and may ultimately determine the United States' place in the world economy. In sum, there are few other topics as important as the issue of the determinants and effects of technical change. Sociologists should not leave this vital terrain to other disciplines.

REFERENCES Braverman, Harry. 1974. Labor and Monopoly Capital. New York: Monthly Review. Friedman, Andrew. 1977. Industry and Labour. London: Macmillan.

Gallie, Duncan. 1978. In Search of the New Working Class. New York: Cambridge University Press. Halle, David. 1984. America's Working Man: Work, Home, and Politics among BlueCollar Property Owners. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jaikumar, Ramchandran. 1986. "Postindustrial Manufacturing." Harvard Business Review 64(6):69-76. Lazonick, William. 1983. "Technological Change and the Control of Work." Pp. 111-

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