MAKE FREE
BY CORY DOCTOROW
Love the Machine,
Hate the Factory
We’ve heard a lot about how scary the industrial revolution was — the dislocations it
wrought on the agrarian population of the
early 19th century were wrenching and terrible, and
the revolution was a bloody one. From that time, we
have the word Luddite, referring to uprisings against
the machines that were undoing ancient ways of
living and working.
But the troubles of the 1810s were only the beginning. By the end of the century, the workplace was
changing again. Workers who’d adapted over three
generations to working in factories at machines, The biggest appeal of
rather than tilling the land and working in small
steampunk is that it exalts
cottage workshops, once again found their lives
being dramatically remade by the forces of capital, the machine and disparages
through a process called “scientific management.” the mechanization of
Scientific management (which was also called
Taylorism, for its most prominent advocate, Frederick
human creativity.
Winslow Taylor) was built around the idea of reducing
a manufacturing process to a series of optimized
simple steps, creating an assembly line where workers were just part of the machine. Each worker’s
movements were as scripted as those of a cog or
piston, defined by outside observers who sought to
make the work go as smoothly as possible, with as
few interruptions as possible.
Taylor, Henry Ford, and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth
used time-motion studies, written logbooks, high-speed photography, and other empirical techniques
to find wasted motions, wasted time, and potential
logjams in manufacturing processes. Practically
every industry saw massive increases in productivity
thanks to their work. The Gilbreths’ research gave
us modern surgical procedures, touch-typing, and
a host of other advances to human endeavour.
But all this gain was not without cost. The
“unscientific” worker personally worked on several
tricky stages of manufacture, often seeing a project
through from raw materials to finished product. He
or she could choose how to sit, which tool to use
when, and in what order to complete the steps. If
it was a sunny day with a fine autumn breeze, the
worker could choose to plane the joints and keep
the smell of the leaves in the air, saving the lacquer
for the next day. Workers who were having a bad day
could take it easy without holding up a production
line. On good days, the work could fly past without
creating traffic jams farther down the line.
For every gain in efficiency, scientific management
exacted a cost in self-determination, personal
dignity, and a worker’s connection with what he
or she produced.
For me, the biggest appeal of steampunk is that it
exalts the machine and disparages the mechanization of human creativity (the motto of the excellent
and free SteamPunk Magazine is “Love the Machine,
Hate the Factory”). It celebrates the elaborate
inventions of the scientifically managed enterprise,
but imagines those machines coming from individuals who are their own masters. Steampunk doesn’t
rail against efficiency — but it never puts efficiency
ahead of self-determination. If you’re going to raise
your workbench to spare your back, that’s your
decision, not something imposed on you from the
top down.
Here in the 21st century, this kind of manufacture
finally seems in reach: a world of desktop fabbers,
low-cost workshops, and communities of helpful,
like-minded makers puts utopia in our grasp. Finally,
we’ll be able to work like artisans and produce like
an assembly line.
Cory Doctorow lives in London, writes science fiction novels,
co-edits Boing Boing, and fights for digital freedom.
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Make: Volume 17
