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The scientific management of the consumer interest

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 49; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00076790701428703

1743-7938

Chris Nyland, Amanda McLeod,

Accounting and Organizational Management

Abstract Beginning in the late 1980s, the widely held assumption that scientific management (Taylorism) was an authoritarian and mechanical body of thought and practice began to be subjected to sustained challenge. Underpinning this contest was a growing understanding that, in his last years, Frederick Winslow Taylor became acutely aware that the ability of business interests to dominate enterprise governance was a major barrier to the development of forms of management in which scientific knowledge, rather than vested interests, dictate decision making. Building on this new understanding, scholars have subsequently uncovered a number of the ways by which Taylor and his colleagues and heirs sought to broaden access to management knowledge and assist the creation of a democratic social and intellectual space within which a science of management could flourish. One aspect of this history not previously brought to light is the fact that Taylor and a number of his disciples utilized their technical and political skills to assist consumers to gain access to the knowledge they required if they were to adequately defend themselves against the interests of business and the state. In this article, we seek to correct this omission by detailing the three major ways in which Taylor and his colleagues sought to increase the ability of the consumer to make informed decisions. In so doing, we also explain why their efforts attracted a level of business hostility that in the 1930s became vitriolic and subsequently drew the attention of the House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee. Keywords: Collaborative ManagementSweated LabourCold WarConsumer ActivismConsumer ProtectionConsumerismMcCarthyismScientific ManagementTaylorism Notes 1 Schachter, Frederick Taylor and the Public Administration Community, 563–578; Nyland, "Taylor and the Mutual Gains Strategy"; idem, Reduced Worktime and the Management of Production. 2 Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism; Glickman, "The Strike in the Temple of Consumption." 3 Fraser, Labor Will Rule; McKelvey, AFL Attitudes Towards Production; Nadworny, Scientific Management and the Unions; Nyland, "Taylor and the Mutual Gains Strategy." 4 Bixby et al., "The Consumer's Control of Production"; idem, "Work of National Consumers' League." 5 US Supreme Court, Muller v. State of Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908), 208 U.S. 412 CURT MULLER, Plff. in Err., v. STATE OF OREGON. No. 107. Argued 15 Jan. 1908. Decided 24 Feb. 1908. Available from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=208&invol=412 (accessed 12 May 2006). 6 Brandeis, assisted by J. Goldmark, "Women in Industry: Decision of the United States Supreme Court in Curt Muller vs. State of Oregon: Upholding the Constitutionality of the Oregon Ten Hour Law for Women and Brief for the State of Oregon. New York." Reprinted by the National Consumers League, 1908; see also Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism, 44–45; Vose, "The National Consumers' League and the Brandeis Brief." 7 Clark and Wyatt, Making Both Ends Meet. 8 Nyland and Rix, "Mary van Kleeck, Lillian Gilbreth and the Women's Bureau Study of Gendered Labor Law", 248–271. 9 Taylor, "Taylor's Famous Testimony before the Special House Committee," 104. 10 Cunningham, "Scientific Management in the Operation of Railroads." 11 Mason, Brandeis: A Freeman's Life; Nadworny, Scientific Management and the Unions. For the response of the railway firms see: "The Railways and Scientific Management." 12 Layton, The Revolt of the Engineers, 161. 13 Ibid., 162, 163. 14 Ibid. 15 McKelvey, AFL Attitudes Towards Production; Nadworny, Scientific Management and the Unions. 16 Christie, Morris Llewellyn Cooke, 11; Cooke, "Giant Power and Coal"; idem, "The Early Days of the Rural Electrification Idea"; DeGraaf, "Corporate Liberalism," 11. 17 Nyland and Bruce, "Scientific Management." 18 Chase and Schlink, Your Money's Worth, 261. 19 Rutgers University Library, A Guide to the Records of Consumers' Research Inc. Available from http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/scua/consumers_research/Consumers_research_menu_4.shtml (accessed 31 Aug. 2005). 20 O'Connor, "Back on the Way to Empowerment," 25; Tead, "The British Reconstruction Programs," 64, 72. 21 Tead, "The Problem of Incentives and Output," 170. 22 Tead, "An Interpretative Forecast of the NRA," 78. 23 Nyland and Heenan, "Mary van Kleeck"; see also van Kleeck, "The Social Meaning of Good Management"; idem, "Discussion of E. Smith's Financial Incentives." 24 van Kleeck, "Women's Invasion of Industry." See also Selmi and Hunter, "Beyond the Rank and File Movement"; Oldenziel, "Gender and Scientific Management"; Nyland and Rix, "Mary van Kleeck"; McGuire, "Making the Case for Night Work Legislation." Available from http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jga/5.1/mcguire.html (accessed 12 May 2006). 25 Fisher, The Money Illusion; Gilbreth et al., "The Women's Industrial Conference"; van Kleeck, "Scientific Management." 26 Jacobs, "'How About Some Meat?'," 915. 27 Cohen, A Consumer's Republic, 18–19. 28 Cooke, "Centralization of Administrative Authority"; Tead, "Centralization of Administrative Authority." 29 Cohen, A Consumer's Republic, 31. 30 Person, "Price of Coal"; Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 5–29; Tead, "Discussion of M. Cooke's Industrial Employment Code"; idem. "Prosperity, Profits and Payrolls." 31 Glickman, "The Strike in the Temple of Consumption"; Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism; idem, "Red Scare Politics." 32 Glickman, "The Strike in the Temple of Consumption," 101. 33 Selmi and Hunter, "Beyond the Rank and File Movement," 79. 34 Layton, The Revolt of the Engineers. On the Taylorists' support for union rights see, for example, Rose Schneiderman, a foundation board member of CU and president of the National Women's Trade Union League of America, who was a strong supporter of Cooke's Industrial Employment Code: "Discussion of M. Cooke's Industrial Employment Code. Tentative Draft Presented for Discussion Only by the Industrial Code Committee."Bulletin of the Taylor Society. An International Society to Promote the Science and the Art of Administration and of Management XVI, No.1 (Feb. 1931): 30, 31. 35 Person, "The Manager, the Workman and the Social Scientist." 36 Ibid., 2. 37 Storrs, Civilizing Capitalism, 94; see also Cooke, "Who is Boss in Your Shop?"; Person, "The Call for Industrial Statesmanship." 38 Matthews, Current Biography; Tugwell, "The Principle of Planning." 39 Buckley, The Committee and its Critics, 100; Rutgers University Library, A Guide to the Records of Consumers' Research Inc.; Warne, The Consumer Movement, 146. 40 Heale, McCarthy's Americans, 9–14. 41 Warne, The Consumer Movement, 148. 42 National Academy of Engineering, "Electrification History 2: Rural Electrification." In Greatest Engineering Achievements of the Twentieth Century. Available from http://www.greatachievements.org/?id=2990 (accessed 24 May 2006). 43 Douglas, "Prices and Labor under the NRA." 44 Glickman, "Strike in the Temple of Consumption," 126. 45 Jacobs, "How About Some Meat?" 46 Goodwin, "The Patrons of Economics." 47 Ibid., 60–61. Additional informationNotes on contributorsChris Nyland Chris Nyland is Professor of International Business Amanda McLeod Amanda McLeod is a post-doctoral fellow, both at Monash University, Australia.