Frederick Taylor- The Man With a Plan

2595 Words11 Pages
It's fashionable these days to dismiss the industrial era as a kind of Dark Ages from which, thanks to the integrated circuit, we have only just emerged. In this caricature of history, Frederick Winslow Taylor, father of "scientific management," figures as one of the chief villains. His hierarchical control systems and treatment of workers as brainless interchangeable parts stand in diametric opposition to the flattened organizations and "knowledge workers" that are touted by today's management gurus. Of course, caricatures are based on actual (and usually unattractive) features. And Taylor makes an inviting target: Much of his influence has indeed been godawful. But the full story is much more complicated, and much more interesting. A balanced look at his life and times reveals not a villain but a tragic hero. His innovations ushered in enormous productivity gains, which brought unprecedented affluence to the United States and the nations that followed its lead; at the same time, though, Taylor's system employed methods that misunderstood, and thereby grievously undermined, the full promise of the new mass production economy. It is fair to say that Frederick Taylor's career exemplified the Industrial Revolution he helped to lead: a mixture of beneficent achievements and malign shortcomings. Robert Kanigel's The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency tells Taylor's story comprehensively and fairly. The length of the book is somewhat forbidding, and in some sections excessive. Kanigel clearly immersed himself in his subject, and at times he is too eager to make sure we know it. Despite the page count, the book is highly readable and on the whole richly rewards the reader's investment of time. If you want to understand the history of American political economy during the 20th century, you really need to know about Frederick Taylor; he is,
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