Political Economy of Taylorism, Fordism and Teamwork

Abstract

The growth of teamwork as a form of organization of the labor process, which, to a certain degree, does away with bureaucratic forms of control over labor, has been interpreted by authors such as Adler (1998) as part of a tendency towards the socialization of production. The present paper develops an alternative conclusion: team- work as interpreted here has been effective from capital’s point of view precisely because it makes control over workers to spring from the workers themselves.

JEL Classification: B14.