reparations & exploitation

Peter van Heusden pvh at egenetics.com
Mon Mar 12 07:32:54 PST 2001


On Mon, Mar 12, 2001 at 08:31:10AM -0500, kelley wrote:
> At 11:14 AM 3/12/01 +0200, Peter van Heusden wrote:
> >In turn, this feeds into a
> >kind of identification with the job which is exploited by managers,
> >what I've called in the past '2nd order Taylorism'.
>
> YES!!!!
>
> but it is the same for academics too, yes? (and probably every other
> profession -- which is how professionals are exploited in a specific kind
> of way without ever recognizing that they are).

I've noticed that the academics I work around take work home with them 'of free choice', etc. Not doing so is seen as proof for lack of ambition. I don't know about other professions - does this happen with doctors, for instance? And lawyers? I don't know enough of them to be sure. As Gordon says, productivity is difficult to measure when work isn't entirely routine and dumb, so fostering identification with the job is just about the only management technique which can tap more labour out of professionals.

what we write is hard
> work, yes. but it is dependent on all kinds of other labor: editors,
> janitors, reviewers, the cashier who makes/sells us our coffee, our
> students/peers with whom we get into arguments/discussions, the cook who
> makes our lunches, etc. a preface often reflect this dependence on others
> and heck it's even got a structure to it as to who you thank
> first: personal thank yous are last. (always reminds me of the preface to
> _End of the Line_ [a diss>book] where she thanks her therapist in the
> "personal" section!!!)
>
> but, in the end, it's the author(ity) who gets all the credit.

Yeah - at the end of the day it is still the author who is the authority - the contributions (sometimes substantial) of the others don't turn into cultural capital.
>
> more feminist theory is needed, to wit: "the everyday world as problematic"

Hm. Looks like you 'n Yoshie are having a competition for who can quote the most.

Good quotation, though. Takes the feminist engagement with 'experience' to a new level.

Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844 OpenPGP: 1024D/0517502B : DE5B 6EAA 28AC 57F7 58EF 9295 6A26 6A92 0517 502B



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list