Deskilling of Workforce and Capital Flow in the 21st Century - Essay Example

Deskilling and flow of capital: Marginalised workforce in twenty first century The importance of technology and management has made a substantial change in the outlook of the industry worldwide. When technology is developing faster than the speed of the light, basic meanings of words such as labour, capital, skill and production have also changed to a great extent. The structure of today's industrial organisation is quite different from the twentieth century. Multinational companies have now their heads in developed world and other functioning bodies in developing world. The decisions are taken in the head office and its execution is in the emerging economies such as India and China. This organisational structural change has its impact in the socio-political economy of the whole world. While there are campaigns in developed world against flow of capital and jobs to the developing world, the latter is making huge financial gains from the new move. This has also helped in extending capitalist ideologies beyond the continents and diluting Marxist and Communist ideologies in many countries such as China, Vietnam and India. Decentralisation is catching up strongly in the industrial world and it is considered as a potential weapon for competitive advantage. Today workforce of an institution has been totally disintegrated, where one part of the organisation working in United States and other sections in other parts of the world such as China and India. It is the word "outsourcing", which conquered industrial hearts all over the world. Today it is easy to judge how skill levels of work force will affect the economy of a state or a region. At the same time there are remotely controlled management systems to judge the quality of work, which is done in a far away a place. In this context there is large scope to analise and examine the importance of technology in the skill level of labour force. In mid part of 20th century there were large debates and discussions over the impact of technology on the labour force. There were arguments that adaptation of newer technology and management practices would help the capitalist forces to alienate labour forces. The word deskilling got more attention during those debates. The politics and tactics of 'deskilling' was first mentioned by Harry Braverman in his famous book 'Labour and Monopoly Capital- The degradation of work in the twentieth century" in 1974. But there are also opinions that deskilling thesis has its genesis in Marx's model of capital control. (Whalley Peter, Deskilling Engineers The Labour Process, Labour Markets and Labour Segmentation Social Problems, 1984). But it was Harry Braverman, who has given clarity on the deskilling. According to his deskilling thesis, workers would be driven away from the production process while separating conception and execution of work assigned to them and specifying the methods of completing work tasks. His argument was that the deskilling of the labour would help the capitalist manager or owner to reduce cost and improve productivity. According to Braverman, deskilled labour is cheap and easily controllable. Braverman has introduced his thesis to counter two new schools of thoughts in America in the late 1960's, which emerged within social scientists. H Marcuse, a German social philosopher in his book 'One Dimensional Man' argued that the affluence of advanced capitalism has created a mass consumer culture among the working class and they were sans to be a working class no longer. Other School of thought was Human Capital Theory Chicago School, which says that in the post industrial society, technical change is eradicating physical or manual work in manufacturing and service sectors. Also it has been instrumental in the disappearance of working class. It also says that the change of trend in work culture due to technology is eliminating routine manual jobs and creating a new class of labour more skilled and knowledgeable. This school of thought argued that influence of capital in manufacturing sector has helped in creating more work forces in service sector. (Roger, Economic Social Lectures, Lecture 6, Centre for Applied Statistics). Braverman came against these arguments by saying that the impact of influenced capital has degraded and alienated the labour force. It can be seen that Braverman's argument has some influence of Marx's concept of labour power. Marx said productive powers of labour appear as creative power of capital. In first volume of Das Kapital he argues that work becomes just work, workers become abstract labour force and control over work becomes management prerogative. In deskilling thesis, Braverman says that growing corporate concentration and influence of managers would help in taylorism in all work forces. He said that new technologies are used to deskill jobs and eliminate workers in both blue and white-collar jobs. He was of the opinion that managers were always looking for ways to increase control over the labour process. Braverman termed the use of technology equivalent to exploitation of labour. However the deskilling thesis has a different connotation in the 21st century, where the flow of capital has been more aggressive and fast. The structure of industry in this era is cross continental and the skill of work force has been considered as nation specific. While the work force in countries like India and Philippines has competitive advantage in services sector, the work process and labour in China, Korea and Malaysia have upper skill levels in manufacturing sector. Many jobs from highly industrialised societies are moving to these new destinations in Asia and Latin America to make use the competitive advantage. China, which is a communist country, has no hesitation to welcome any new technology to increase the capital formation in that country. The Marx and Braverman had predicted alienation of work force primarly in manufacturing and service sector due to the impact of technology and capital. But the last few years, especially the first decade of 21st century has seen dissent voices from highly capitalist societies such as United States of America, France and Germany against flow of jobs to the low cost countries such as India and China. It was the technology, which made a historical change in the alienation of work force in capitalist economies. Today deskilling thesis has more importance in a multi country organisational structure rather than at domestic industrial level. It is a fact that software and business process outsourcing to third world countries such as India has necessitated growing corporate concentration and increased the number of managers in that particular countries. The manufacturing sector in communist country China and new emerging markets such as Korea and Brazil has also gained lot of benefit from the flow of jobs from the industrialised countries. An emergence of taylorism in these third world economies has necessitated deskill jobs. It was also instrumental in declining control over the labour process of workers in the industry. This can be correlated to the Braverman's deskill thesis. It is estimated that by 2006, service-oriented architecture will be at least partially adopted in more than 60 percent of new, large and systematically oriented application development projects. (Dion Wiggins, Dian Morello, Outsourcing Backlash: Globalization in the Knowledge Economy, Gartner, 2003). The new global trade order has demanded more focused approach from developing nations to increase their pie in total trade. The governments in China and India are now discussing ways to increase its population's English language expertise to catch more outsourcing jobs from USA and Europe. Braverman has said that manual and non- manual work were being deskilled and advaced capitalism is producing a proletarianiasation of work force. He has also argued for independent autonomy for labour process and creativity of worker. He cautioned that the technology would help capitalists to assume control over labour process. The fears of Braverman has different connotation in the twenty first century, where work has been dangerously globalised. In many developing countries, the capitalist forces got more recognition and it gained more control over the labour process. While boring and non creative work being outsourced to these economies, developed world is now feeling alienation of labours, both blue and white collar jobs. The outsourcing in all forms such as Business Process Outsourcing and Knowledge Process Outsourcing has increased the separation of mental and physical labour. According Braverman modern science and technology would help the capitalist to conquer the control over workers. Today nations, irrespective of socialist and communist countries, are flexible to the capitalist pressures due to higher trade potential offered to them. With the advent of globalization and opening up of economies, capitalist forces in developed world could control the labour process and production concentration in third world economies. These developing countries, once, which were totally against any capitalist manifestations, are now much eager to attract foreign direct investment and totally agree any conditions put forward by the capitalist (managers). Braverman's theory of separation of conception from execution is being executed in the new globalised economic order. Now developed world is controlling the workforce in the developing countries remotely by extending large capital gains. These third world economies are changing their labour laws and attitude towards production modes according to the whims and wills of managers sitting in a far away continent. Today production and consumption are happening in inter continental basis. Even the Research and Development jobs of multinational companies are flowing to these countries. Now the new globalised regime is making structural change in the labour force. The emerging scenario is that the decision-making and conception are being done in developed world such as USA and Europe and execution of job were done in third world economies such as China, India and Korea. In this context the labour forces in the emerging markets are aggressively deskilled to suit the needs of industry in developed market. While this has helped in alienating jobs in industrialised countries, the control of management on labour forces and labour increased substantially in developing countries. Deskilling thesis has to be reviewed on the context of migration of labour from one part of the world to other parts in this highly technologised global order. Reference: Braverman, Labour and Monopoly Capital: The degradation of work in the Twentieth Century. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1974. Pp. +465. 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