Deskilling

Deskilling, the transfer of a worker's dexterity and tacit knowledge to machine, is a pervasive feature of global labor. The notion of deskilling and the apprehension that it creates in the labor force have a perplexing prehistory in scientific management, the rationalization of time and motion in the premechanized 19th-century labor process called Taylorism. In the 20th century, not only was the brunt of this historical task accomplished, but also deskilling (skill redundancy) and skilling (skill formation) found their organic unity within the dynamics of labor process entwined with advanced technology. Thus, the differentia specifica, that is, the specificity, of skill formation relevant to present-day capitalism was born. In other words, critical understanding of the nature and meaning of skill in the contemporary world (and how it is created and destroyed) is a significant task that should be of interest across all social sciences—from public policy, industrial organization, and labor studies to political economy, sociology, and global studies.

The question is what the nature of this dexterity or skill is and how one tends to acquire or lose such a skill in a newly emerging system of skill formation. This question compels us to place the issue in a historical context and envelop the analysis with a well-defined evolutionary investigation. The traditional meaning of skill obtains its connotation from the immediate aftermath of the medieval era when the guild system and craft associations of the early modern premanufacturing came to flourish and dominate the sphere of production. These craft (and trade) associations were the forerunners of today's labor unions. The identity of the craft and skill has obtained an inseparable and durable unity, and then, through common usage of the language, has been similarly used in manufacturing, postmanufacturing, and modern and ultramodern production processes.

Neoclassical economists contend that, as technology advances, it correspondingly creates specialized skills that are conducive to, and useful for, further application. Thus, advances in technology are followed by gradual upgrading of education and skills within the economy as a whole. This orthodoxy is more or less replicated by conventional sociologists, as well as like-minded social scientists and education specialists in other disciplines today. In contrast, many neo-Marxian scholars argue that technological change in capitalism causes the continuous deskilling of the workforce, thus resulting in the “polarization” of workers’ skills. The focus of these writers is deskilling of crafts, which pertains to the transfer of worker dexterity and skill to a machine, a task that predates the method of skill formation in capitalism proper. Harry Braverman is the quintessential protagonist of this sizable group, and his Labor and Monopoly Capital has turned into a source of emulation for many radical economists, heterodox sociologists, and self-proclaimed Marxists in the world. Consequently, the subject of skilling and deskilling of labor has become a contending issue between these two broad schools of thought. And, as it turns out, neither the neoclassical nor the neo-Marxian school offers a germane theory of skills for contemporary capitalism.

Neoclassical economists view skill formation axiomatically and indeed intrinsic to the person of individual worker. For a typical mainstream economist, far from being a social concept, an individual skill in capitalism is considered to be a natural extension of the worker on the job. The notion of skill is treated as an autonomous entity subject to individual choice. The problem of skilling arises [Page 397]only when there is a mismatch in the process, in which case it has to be overcome. This view of skill assumes the worker is in possession of something called “skill” in complete dichotomy from the labor process and whether the worker works or is out of a job. Ironically, the neo-Marxian view subscribes to similar transhistorical thinking and reckons that to begin with a skill, similar to a craft, is intrinsic to the individual worker, which is only subject to diminishing by the unremitting pace of technological change. In other words, this fetishism of skill does not allow these scholars to see that skill is a commodity and that one needs to examine how it is being formed (and destroyed) in capitalism proper. Reading Braverman carefully, such deskilling (i.e., destruction of crafts) does not even know its own limit to be methodically meaningful for modern capitalism proper.

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