Obviously the unions hated it and it was later outlawed.
I wonder how could one outlaw a thing like this. Suppose that most managers believe that Taylorism works, but it is illegal to use it (under that name). Wouldn’t they simply reintroduce the practices, step by step, under a different name? I mean, if you use a different name, different keywords, different rationalization, and introduce it in small steps, it’s no longer the same thing, right? It just becomes “industry standards”. (If there happens to be an exact definition, of course, this only becomes an exercise how close to the forbidden thing you can legally get.)
From the Wikipedia article, I got the impression that what was made illegal was the use of stop-watch. Okay, so instead of measuring how many seconds you need to make a widget, I am going to measure how many widgets you make each day—that is legal, right? The main difference is that you can take a break, assuming it will allow you to work faster afterwards. Which may be quite an important difference. It this what it is about?
I wonder how could one outlaw a thing like this. Suppose that most managers believe that Taylorism works, but it is illegal to use it (under that name). Wouldn’t they simply reintroduce the practices, step by step, under a different name? I mean, if you use a different name, different keywords, different rationalization, and introduce it in small steps, it’s no longer the same thing, right? It just becomes “industry standards”. (If there happens to be an exact definition, of course, this only becomes an exercise how close to the forbidden thing you can legally get.)
From the Wikipedia article, I got the impression that what was made illegal was the use of stop-watch. Okay, so instead of measuring how many seconds you need to make a widget, I am going to measure how many widgets you make each day—that is legal, right? The main difference is that you can take a break, assuming it will allow you to work faster afterwards. Which may be quite an important difference. It this what it is about?
I assume that that’s what happened. Some ideas from scientific management were taken and applied in less extreme ways.