Critical Evaluation of Taylorism and Fordism

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Taylorism is also known as scientific management which named after Frederick W. Taylor. It is a production efficiency methodology that breaks works into small and simple segments which can be easily analysed and taught. Taylorism was first mentioned in 1920s and 20 years later. Henry Ford, who was the founder of the Ford Motor Company, used the scientific management in the form of assembly line production as a method on the T-model car production of his company. This kind of production method then was developed into a new efficient methodology which is called Fordism. In this essay, it is going to critically evaluate the main features of Taylorism and compare it to Fordism and other later-developed production methodology. Firstly, it will illustrate the main features of Taylorism by using some typical examples from contemporary times. Secondly, it is going to show the principal criticisms from other socialists and critique some of them by using some modern features. Finally, Fordism, Post-Fordism and McDonaldisation are going to be mentioned for some further analysis.
The main and first principle of Taylorism is that “management should reduce the industry knowledge to ‘rules, laws, and formulae.’”(Haralambos&Holborn 2004:635) The main cause of the division of industrial knowledge of three main parts is ‘inefficiency’ which is the waste of resources, especially the waste of time. According to Taylor, before implement the scientific management, workers and managers are the two groups seen by him as causing inefficiency of work. For workers, they try to work as slow as they can and are not interested to give their best; this kind of act of omission to work is human nature, in Taylor’s word, called ‘natural soldiering’. More importan...

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...nd “predisposition and capacities which are aimed at making it possible to win customers”(Watson 2012:103).
To summarise, this essay has critically evaluated the main features of Taylorism and analysed some other later-developed production methodology as criticism. Taylorism is theoretically an efficient methodology but applies in a narrow space. Taylor’s idea of separating planning from doing is also far from reality. Treating workers as ‘ox’ cannot be a good idea as well. In reality, it can cause the action of trade union, which is the reason why trade union would be subdued in Fordism which developed from Taylorism. Then it used Piore’s idea of post-Fordism taking the place of Taylorism and Fordism in modern life as a criticism of them. It later mentioned the McDonaldisation and Disneysation to analyse the increasingly complex service industries in modern times.

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