I recently discovered these two terms, Fordism and Post-Fordism. I have recently been on the David Graeber tip,[graeber, re-reading Bullshit Jobs and some of his other essays on the Anarchist library. Dude was and still is 420% right about modern work and how/why it sucks, however I didn't really have that sort of deeper theory based framework of understanding why it sucks and how it came to suck so much.

I'm generally anti-work as the next leftie. However, I do think there is a lot of work that needs to be done and we should all do, but we should all not have to do it all the time for all of our lives. In general most jobs that need to be done can be done collectively or through a shared and equitable fashion. That said 93.7% of modern jobs don't needs to exist and the remain 6.3% of jobs could be radically re-imagined to be fairer and better for the worker.

Reading about Fordism and Post-Fordism I'm really understanding that capital-M "Management" in just about every industry all want to see a workforce strongly resembles that of a factory churning out repeatable products. Everything a process, that can be measured, and repeated, and traced, even the works themselves become a collection processes. I'm also listening to a podcast on Gramsci gramsci-heh and learning more about a theorist I never knew about.

While I knew of this sort of sentiment before I didn't really parse it through a Marxist lens until reading about it more thoroughly and experiencing it now that I'm "moving up" in my current bland MEGACORP job. I'm experiencing people around me trying to internalize this ideology in a weird modern way, like it's somehow "progressive™ ® © " to want to become a better cog. To self optimize your cog-y-ness, and to want to hyper specialize your cog-y-ness. The worst part of it all is that it's seen as "self-actualizing" and generally a good thing to want to turn yourself in to the cog. The manufactured desire of you wanting to debase yourself for your boss is just vile to me.

I guess I just want to share his discovery, and prove yet again Marx was right.

  • privatized_sun [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Taylorism, the foundational PMC ideology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylorism

    Taylorism, a technique of labor discipline and workplace organization, based upon supposedly scientific studies of human efficiency and incentive systems. It attracted European intellectuals, especially in Germany and Italy, from the fin de siècle to World War I

    Hmmm fascists who love anti-worker ideology based on the managerial logic of slave plantations...thinking-about-it

    Post-Fordist consumption is marked by increased consumer choice and identity.

    lol woke neoliberals are like "My ability to choose my preferred products in a free market is superior than Stalinist authoritarianism which oppresses individuals", reminds me of Liz Warren at OWS warren-snake-green https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/24/elizabeth-warren-i-created-occupy-wall-street

    want to become a better cog

    bourgeois terrorism against workers will continue until fascists in your mind take root and eat your brain completely. Thats what it means to be a "neoliberal subject".

    • LGOrcStreetSamurai [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Agreed on all counts. Work as is it currently exists is a racket build on slavery and fascism dressed up in pretty words from academics who try their best to bend all of understanding to justify its existence. It all sucks so much. It's all alienation all the way down.