> What I
> don't know is how much of the total necessary labor can be
> restructured as craft and hence play.
In principle, quite a lot, I'd say.
It's remarkable how people seize upon any offered opportunity to be creative. The way you arrange your tools, the way you hold them, the sequence of motions you devise -- all the choices that Taylorism tries to take away from you -- are a source of pleasure.
The work would still get done if the scope for that kind of pleasure were expanded.
Would the return on investment be diminished? Maybe, but even that is not entirely certain. After a lifetime earning daily bread in the corporate workplace, I've come to feel that control for control's sake is part of its organizational life-process. Everything not forbidden is compulsory, whether it can be seen on the bottom line or not.
Efficiency is the rationalization, not the reason.
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com