Comment by sh34r | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sh34r | Hacker News Reader

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Taylorism is a current problem. All "modern" management pseudoscience boils down to the same ideas Taylor espoused at the turn of the century.

His name lives on because this man was absolutely reviled by his contemporaries, even among his own class. He was investigated by Congress in 1912, and they ruled in favor of his striking workers at Watertown Arsenal, banning Taylorism at their workplace. Let that sink in: this man and his dehumanizing practices were so widely hated, Congress ruled in favor of workers in 1912. Today, in 2023, Congress won't even give rail workers a damn sick day. Taylorism was viewed at the time as an affront to the Protestant work ethic, and to God himself, for that matter.

Henry Ford was a contemporary of Taylor's, and if you know anything about Ford, well, he wasn't a saint, to put it mildly. And yet, we call these hated ideas "Taylorism" because even Henry Ford wasn't as awful as Taylor. It took another century of disempowering labor in this country to get to this place today, where the worst excesses of Taylorism are everywhere you look, Where delivery contractors are contractors for the world's richest man and are forced to piss in bottles. Where your boss is tracking your every move with spyware, and has bugged your home under the guise of "work from home."

We speak of management pseudoscience not as a wicked and depraved ideology now, but as a legitimate field of study, like math or history. What an unbelievable farce.

"I already am eating from the trash can all the time. The name of this trash can is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively eating." -Zizek

> We speak of management pseudoscience not as a wicked and depraved ideology now, but as a legitimate field of study, like math or history. What an unbelievable farce.

I think you could also apply this to software developers or other professionals where there are relatively few who can distinguish between the engineering, science, craft or ignorance of the profession.

There are good managers and management theory as there are good warriors and war theory. Not the same but have some similarities. The average general couldn’t win a complex war. Many skills are needed beyond the specific studies you have (e.g. MBA).

I agree with you that management is a placeholder that hides the ignorance behind a title. This doesn’t mean there aren’t people who have merit and strong background in management.

No Doubt. But there needs to be someone who does his or hers best effort to hire, or fire people and does their best to make sure the workers can succeed in their task. Thye workers themselves can not do that because they can not hire themselves.

Good leadership is more art than science.

My critique of Taylorism was not directed at individual managers, by any means. It's firmly at that bean-counter view of the worker, as an input of "human resources" to be minimized at any cost. You'll note that Taylor was not the first person to call himself a manager.

If you want to see what Taylorism applied to war would look like, look no further than Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The spreadsheets said we have more ammo than Stalin did in WWII! It's impossible that they were all looted and all we have left are Mosins from the museum! What do you mean, sanctions prevent just in time manufacturing? We replaced all our professional soldiers with independent Wagner contractors on work release from prison and conscripted children. Why do they keep deserting? No one wants to work anymore!

You'll also note that the most famous military book of all time was not called The Science of War, but The Art of War.

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