I'm going to try this one again because I think it's a tremendously important idea. I'm not saying it's necessarily right. It's just tremendously important. Why? Because the question I'm raising is about the integrity and coherence of a widely accepted management concept about productivity and employment. What I am saying is that the concept MAY be coherent, but if it is coherent that it must apply equally to the reduction and redistribution of work time. If it doesn't apply to the latter, then the concept isn't coherent. I would really appreciate getting some comment on this. Even exasperated incomprehension. Not least because I myself think it's an extremely peculiar insight. But also because it deals with historical changes in the labour process, which in my view is what historical materialism is all about. Michael Yates wrote, >the two most important control mechanisms, in my view, are the stress >now being placed upon our system and mechanization in the form of >computers. On an automobile assembly line, stress is delivered by >speeding up the assembly line, reducing the amount of materials >available to workers, or taking a person off the line. Sooner or later, >a bottleneck appears along the line, indicated by flashing lights. Then >the management focuses attention on the trouble spot and the workers, >usually grouped into teams, are expected to solve the problem, but >without the stress being removed. When they solve the problem (by >working faster, for example), management has gained a reduction in unit >cost. Let's take Michael's account of stressing the system as an accurate description of Kaizen. We should then call it, not "Kaizen", but negative or Yin Kaizen because it only experiments with the subtraction of inputs. A fully rounded Kaizen would also experiment with "stressing" the system in the other direction (or more accurately, with relaxing the system) by the addition of inputs. We could call this relaxed mode positive or Yang Kaizen (anagram alert: keynzian!). In either case, what is being engineered is not simply a quantitative adjustment of the factors of production but a qualitative change in the labour process. If the former was achievable without the latter, there would be no need for the problem-solving teams. I'd like to introduce a thought experiment here that touches on a concern that I know Michael and I share: the reduction and redistribution of working time. Would not the reduction and redistribution of working time provide the ideal occasion for the implementation of Yang Kaizen: a generous, beneficent, abundance-creating qualitative change in the labour process? If not, why not? And if not, why wouldn't the objections raised apply equally to Yin Kaizen? Regards, Tom Walker ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ #408 1035 Pacific St. Vancouver, B.C. V6E 4G7 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 669-3286 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The TimeWork Web: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/
