DRAFT

Labor Process and Software Production

Late capitalist countries face competition with capitalist countries in all sectors.
Although final products are similar used technology and labor process differs for both
sides. It is not very explanatory just to mention high organic composition of capital in
capitalist countries compared to that of late capitalist ones. In order to fully
understand mechanisms of such economies it is necessary to have in depth
knowledge about the history of labor process. Keeping this perspective in mind it
might be fruitful to analyze evolution of software production which is extensively labor
intensive in production but the outcome is as sophisticated as running distant
factories under the supervision of same software.

Fordism
Fordism can be viewed in two senses. Fordism in narrow sense describes a labor
process where “conveyor belt" is in the central of production process. Meanwhile the
work is atomized to smaller pieces which coverts the contribution of individual worker
to final commodity. The basic underpinning is not different from pin factory of Adam
Smith (Smith, 1876) which is increasing transformation of more raw materials or
semi-finished goods to final commodities. Conveyor belt automates the workplace
defined by the management of the factory. Labor experiences real subordination to
capital during production process.

Tony Smith (2000) points that it is necessary to understand Fordism in terms of

circuit of accumulation (M-C-P-C’-M’). The first phase M-C is large scale production
facility capable of producing same unit in high amounts (Sayer,1986). Highly
specialized machines caused inflexibility in case there is need of changing product.
In the C-P-C’ phase of capital circuit new commodities are produced in the
production process. Single purpose machines lead to production of huge amounts of
standardized products. Product differentiation was limited due to high downtime
requirement for changing production process (Smith,2000).

Labor in fordist production system faces division of conception and execution. Core
of Taylorism is functional decomposition of tasks and direct supervision (Kraft, 1999).

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Hence job functions were clearly defined in organizational structure (Smith,2000).

Labor is dedicated to executing a single operation repeatedly (Sayer,1986).
Degradation of work leads to an average job reduced to mindless physical activity
(Wardell,1999).

Fordist production system faces many problems. first of all hands-on workers are
seperated from improving their own job which requires management to elaborate on
every detail of production process. The easiest strategy for performance is to speed
each labor process but there might be inbalances between output of each process
(Smith, 2000). High amount of stock of intermediate goods and raw materials lead
increased costs such as warehousing which is not related to real production process.

“Ample ‘inprocess inventories’ or ‘buffer stocks’ are maintained so that should

any stage of production disrupted, or should any component be defective, the
rest of the system continue to function” (Sayer ,1986)

Ratio of constant capital is very high in the overall process. Therefore, labor need to
run the means of production as much as possible. Achieveing fast pace leads to a
process which is more error prone. Hence fordist production requires hands-off
quality control systems for serving fault-free commodities to circuit of surplus
realization. Quality control schemes require time (Smith,2000) and increases
circulation time.

After Fordism
After the oil crisis hit capitalist economies of the world were forced a restructuring in
production systems. Oil crisis was an outcome of deepening tendency of rate of profit
to fall after Second World War. In order to depart from crisis “new” methods were to
take off that were significantly characterizing new form of organizing labor process.
Technical advances in information technology and systemic automation made such
a transformation possible. The change was intense but there were different
perspectives on restructuring. The most well known ones are flexible specialization
and lean production.

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Flexible specialization by Piore and Sabel. Mass production saturated -->flexible

technologies became affordable -->flexible responses to rapid shifts --> new form of
craft production has risen  skilled worker replaced deskilled worker
Production is established in smalll firms which focus on innovations. Both process
innovation and product innovation is performed by labor on shop floor.

Lean production
Japanese economy has collapsed during Second World War. In early 1950s
production systems were restructured facing both strong labor union power and
international competition. During a strike in Nissan in 1953. Goverment shifted work
regime in cooperation with factory owners. The new law brought factory labor unions
opposed to sectoral labor unions in the past. Lifetime work guarantee was the key to
convince high level workers to accept working in the environment.

In general M-C circuit of capital in lean production is flexible therefore means of

production can be shifted between configurations (Smith,2000). General purpose
machines were targeted in this phase leaving labor to operate more than one
configuratian and lead to differentiated commodities for circulation. Key target in this
phase is ‘reduction of setup times of machines2 Sayer, 1992). In Toyota factory
setup of a press was between 12 minutes and 1 hour while it was around 6 hours in
USA Sayer, 1986).

In C-P-C’ circuit, labor is organizaed to perform a set of tasks which is not limited to
one as compared to Fordist C-P-C’ circuit. Production units have control of the
specified task assigned to them. Management does not dictate every detail but
expect outcome of production which is called management by stress ( ). The relation
between production units is not hands-off nature that is stocks and inventories are at
minimum in the factory (Sayer, 1986) in order to decrease ratio constant capital in
production. The organization of production is distributed in close factories with high
level of coordination production in the core is sustained. Overtime and speedup style
management practices are widely used in supplier companies in to achieve sustain
productivity of factory in the center. Therefore, lean production in many instances
represent an updated form of scientific management (Friedman,1986). Instead of

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naked coercion (Burawoy,1979) management transfer some tasks to shop floor

laborers.
Lean production is characterised by Total Quality Management, Kaizen and Kanban
methods in general.
...

Labor Process, Deskilling and Beyond

Labor process theories build variety perspectives highlighting certain aspect of
capital-labor relation in circuit of capital. It is necessary to define the essential driving
force of the processes in given environment. Wardell (1999) defines workplace is the
ground where surplus value is produced and mystified. He asserts that workplace
reproduces key social forces that produce and reproduce class inequality. Burawoy
(1979) views labor process as specific combination of force and consent that elicit
cooperation in the pursuit of profit.

Taylor and his critics by Braverman (1974) focus on deskilling, fragmentation and
control of labor. This method is just one practice to maintain relative surplus high. On
the other hand it ia possible to claim that managers do not pursue single strategy for
all production systems (Friedman, 1986). Friedman proposes an analysis of
management strategies by Direct Control / Responsible Autonomy. Responsible
Autonomy strategy defines the goal for specific teams and transfer control
mechanism to peers. Direct Control strategy is a common strategy used by
management like in Fordist factories. In case studies it is possible to find both type of
strategies. Therefore, control in labor process appears much more complex and
convoluted than represented in Braverman (Friedman, 1986).

“Braverman thought he saw a historical trend of jobs becoming

increasingly subdivided into smaller fragments without necessarily
seeing this degradation of work in general” (Wardell,1999).

After initiation of labor process debate there has been schism in theorists regarding
to positioning of labor in the context. Braverman and followers were considered
classical in the sense that capital drives all the changes. On the other hand there is
another strand of literature viewing labor as primary actor of changes in the labor

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process ( ). Although there is friction between these two there has not been a
settlement.

Software Programming
Kraft (1979) gives an account on how software production emerged by focusing on
labor process and skill analysis. ENIAC was the first operational computer built
during World War II. The machine could operate millions of operations at a time. In
order to perform the correct functionality ENIAC need to be told all the details of a
specific task. This was considered as low skill job which could be fulfilled by women
as a clerical work. On the other hand ENIAC was actually a collection of electronic
switches which requires all the codes in machine language. Programming with
machine language required abstract logic, mathematics, electrical circuits and
machines. Consequently computer programmers were recruited with a collection of
above mentioned knowledge set.

Until 1960 programmers were in charge of complete set of activities for executing
final program. Some of the routines within production period could be divided into
different sets. This change would help control and standardization of the entire
process. SAGE project intended such a division in the process eventually leading to
creating a suboccupation called systems analyst (Kraft 1979). Analyst was in charge
of high level structuring of a specific program whereas coders were implementing the
language within boundary defined by analyst. In addition programmers/coders may
be combined with analysts in a project team which accepts much larger tasks and
work together on a much larger collection of jobs (Friedman, 1986).

Computers were operating on machine language. Initiation of high level languages

changed requirement for skill set of programmer. Codes written in high level
language were transformed into machine language tasks by the interpreter.
Eventually, programmers need not to have in depth knowledge about signals and
electronics anymore. Canned programmes and structured programming emerged in
addition to high level languages leading to further routinization of programming (Kraft
1979). Canned programs were batch programs for a very specific task and a set of
tasks. These programs have impact on automation of clerical, accounting, etc. style

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jobs. Structured programming goal was to demystify the program developed in the
past to someone reviewing the same program.

“Structured programming in particular was a technique developed specifically

to reduce the originality of programming work to make the finished program
more easily understandable to others.” (Friedman, 1986)

Structured programming may have some use for large projects to be realizable. If
there are 1000 programmers working on a software there is need for interoperating
these codes to final assembly. Structured programming make use of simplicity, order
(Kraft, 1979). Substructures called modules were distributing tasks to different
programmers who does not need to have any idea about the whole meaning of
project. The application of this practice achieved management goals. Companies
were not bound high level computer programmer in design and writing of programs
and task based fragmentation. Hence, programming has experienced a steady
process of fragmentation and routinization while programmers as a group
experienced a rapid deskilling (Kraft, 1979).

Introduction of Operating systems like Windows or Linux used today changed

programming environment, too. Operating systems were similar to high level
languages in handling common routines to another level. A programmer need not
write a program for a printer in each program. This routine is escalated to OS for all
Input/Output devices or other common applications. Introduction of operating system
layered software and its developers. An individual laborer is no more just a
'programmer' of any kind but a programmer operating on a specific operating system
or a specific high level language. This places the programmer as an extension to that
operating system or language. Although there is possibility of learning new platforms
this certainly have limitations for a programmer. The interrelation between operating
system or programming language and programmer is significantly determining the
relative power of labor against capital.

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How to analyze?
There are quite different labor processes for similar final tasks products. Keeping in
mind above mentioned perspectives how can we analyze following:
*Work team in Microsoft- India collaborating with Microsoft-USA for new OS?
*Programmers and analysts working in Aydın Yazılım (Defense industry company)
subcontracted by Lockheed Martin?
*Production of GNU/ Free software and use value

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References

Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degredation of Work in the
Twentieth Century,. New York, Monthly Review Press.
Burawoy, M. (1979), Manufacturing Consent : Changes in the Labor Process Under
Monopoly Capitalism, University of Chicago Press
Friedman, A. (1986). "Developing the Managerial Strategies Approach to the Labour
Process." Capital and Class(30): 97.
Harvey, D. (1999), “Limits to Capital”, Verso Books
Kraft. P. (1979), 'The Industrialization of Computer Programming: From Programming
to 'Software Production', in A. Zimbalist (ed.) Case Studies on the Labor Process,
New York, Monthly Review Press
Nichols, T and Sugur, N. (2004), “.Global Management, Local Labor: Turkish workers
and modern industry”, Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Özuğurlu, M. (2005), “Anadolu’da Küresel Fabrikanın Doğuşu”, Emek Çalışmaları
Merkezi, İstanbul
Sayer A, 1986, "New developments in manufacturing: the just in time system" Capital
and Class 30 43 - 72
Sayer A, Walker R, 1992 The New Social Economy: Reworking the Division of
Labour, Blackwell, Oxford
Smith, T. (2000).. “Technology and Capital in the Age of Lean Production”, State
University of New York Press, Albany
Vilkie, R. (2003), Video Games and the (De)Skilling of Labor, Red Critique, website
http://www.redcritique.org/FallWinter2003/videogamesandthedeskillingoflabor.htm
access date: 28.4.2005
Wardell, (1999), “Rethinking the Labor Process” Thomas Steiger & Peter Meiksens,
eds. State University of New York Press.

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