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This content is published by the People's Publishing House to talk about the world in a 20-volume series
The achievement of capitalism in this regard (to increase the productivity of labor) is the Taylor system.
Like all other progressive things in capitalism,
it is the most ingenious and cruel means of bourgeois exploitation,
It also contains a series of the richest scientific achievements.
- Lenin
As the father of "scientific management", Taylor's gritty appearance hides a calm heart, in addition to rigorous work attitude, Taylor is also a famous sports enthusiast, he once won the 1881 NATIONAL Tennis Championships doubles title with Clarens Clarke, the predecessor of the US Open.
The second industrial revolution caused profound changes in production management, and the scientific "Taylor system" management method began to rise.
Taylor's early preparations
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was born in Philadelphia, USA, to a family of lawyers, a relatively well-off family, and was admitted to the law department of Harvard University at the age of 18, but had to drop out of school the following year because of an eye disease. In 1875, he entered a small machinery factory as an apprentice. In 1878, Taylor moved to Philadelphia's Midvale Steel Works as a mechanical worker. During this period, due to his hard work and outstanding performance, he was promoted to administrator, team leader, foreman, technician, cartographer and chief engineer, and obtained a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering on the basis of part-time study. It is with these experiences that Taylor has a full opportunity to directly understand the attitudes and problems of workers, and in the process of multifaceted learning and in-depth research, he sees great possibilities for improving management level.
From experimentation to theory
Taylor spent most of his life focusing on how to improve production efficiency, which of course required not only reducing production costs and increasing profits, but also increasing workers' wages by increasing labor productivity. Taylor believed that in the social conditions of the time, productivity was a problem ignored by both labor and management, and capitalists and workers were too concerned about the distribution between wages and profits, and almost ignorant of the increase in production efficiency so that both labor and management could get more rewards. Beginning in 1881, Taylor conducted a "metal cutting test" at the Midval Steel Works, from which he studied the reasonable workload of each metal cutter per working day. After two years of preliminary experiments, he set a set of workload standards for workers, which was the beginning of a study of working hours. Metal cutting tests lasted for 26 years, more than 30,000 tests were carried out, 800,000 pounds of steel were cut into chips by the tools used in the experiment, a total cost of 150,000 US dollars, but the results of the test found high-speed tool steel that can greatly improve the output of metal cutting machine workers, and obtained the appropriate speed and tool intake of various machine tools and cutting standards. During Taylor's employment with the Bethlehem Steel Company, he conducted the famous "Pig Iron Block Test" and "Shovel Experiment". The pig iron block trial was conducted by 75 workers at the company, and the study improved the operation method, trained the workers, and increased the amount of pig iron block handled by 3 times. The shovel experiment is a problem of systematically studying the load of the shovel, studying the shape and specification of various materials that can reach the standard load of the shovel, and the best way to mount a shovel for various raw materials. In addition, Taylor studied the exact timing of each set of movements, resulting in the amount of work that a "first-class worker" should do every day.
In May 1881, a watercolor painting depicting the Bethlehem Steel Company, with which Taylor had been employed, featured tan colors and tones of white and gray to adjust the atmosphere of the entire picture.
Positive theoretical propaganda
Taylor's practices and ideas were not accepted from the outset, but were on the contrary protested by people, including trade union organizations. A young socialist named Sinclair wrote to the editor-in-chief of American Magazine accusing Taylor of raising his salary by 61 percent while his workload by 362 percent. Taylor also faced opposition from the administration as well as the citizens of Bethlehem. The U.S. Congress held hearings on the Taylor system and other factory management systems in 1912. In the face of hostile members of Congress, Taylor had to defend his views, and his wonderful speech in the House of Representatives publicized the principles of scientific management and its specific methods and techniques to the public, which became the best explanation he made of his scientific management principles, causing a great sensation. Taylor proposed the theory of scientific management in his major book, Principles of Scientific Management (1911). Since the twentieth century, scientific management has been very popular in the United States and Europe. For more than 100 years, scientific management thinking still plays a huge role. After 1901, Taylor spent most of his time consulting, writing, and lecturing to promote his ideas on scientific management.
Around 1905, Taylor held a consulting position at the Tabor Company, where he practiced his scientific management philosophy, pictured as a working mechanic.
Knowledge Link: Specific Concepts of Taylor's System
The scientific management method of the "Taylor System" mainly refers to the use of time-action research methods to conduct scientific research on work, design reasonable work procedures, and propose labor quota management that workers should match their physical strength with work. Taylor summarized scientific management as: science, rather than experience alone; harmony, not cooperation; cooperation, not individualism; to maximize output, instead of limited output, everyone exerts the greatest efficiency and achieves the greatest success, that is, to replace low-cost production methods with efficient production methods to strengthen labor cost control.
"Talking about the World" is a project of the National Publishing Foundation, which is composed of well-known professors and researchers of world history, and the creative team is composed of professors and doctors of world history. "Talking about the World" consists of 20 volumes, each volume is about 250,000 words, and is accompanied by about 450 exquisite pictures, covering the history of the world from prehistory to 2018. It introduces all aspects of world history in detail and full energy, shows the tortuous development trajectory of world history in a panoramic way, and reproduces the historical scene with rich and exquisite pictures.
【Introduction】
"The Age of Labor" (to be published) is the 12th volume of "Talking about the World", this book is illustrated and illustrated About the beginning and development of the industrial revolution, the formation and development of the working class, the early workers' struggle, the workers' movement, the October Revolution, the emergence and development of workers' organizations, the ideological theory of the labor movement, marxism in multiple dimensions vividly narrates the development history of the world labor movement from the industrial revolution to the 20th century, focuses on the major historical events in the development of the world labor movement, expounds the world labor movement and utopian socialism, The intrinsic links and mutual influences between scientific socialism, Marxism and the international communist movement.
【Editor-in-Chief Profile】
Yan Yuqiang, Master of British History, Department of History, Nanjing University, 1989. After graduation, he worked as an editor at the People's Publishing House. In 1995, he co-founded Beijing Dajiangliu Culture Communication Co., Ltd. with his predecessors in the publishing industry, serving as the editor-in-chief. Since 2015, he has been an independent book curator. Representative curators and editors-in-chief include The Gallery of Western Philosophy (7 volumes, Guizhou People's Publishing House), Chinese and Foreign Civilizations At the Same Time (6 volumes, shortlisted for the 11th Shanghai Book Award, won the first Wenhui Peng Xinchao Excellent Book Publishing Fund Shanghai Jinxiu Article Publishing House), Reproduction of World History (100 volumes, Taiwan Changtan Publishing House), "Reproduction of World Geography" (100 volumes, Taiwan Changtan Publishing House), "Reproduction of Chinese Geography" (100 volumes, Taiwan Changtan Publishing House). His publications include The Law of Change (Shakespeare Publishing House, Taiwan), May Fourth Movement (Shakespeare Publishing House, Taiwan), Maritime Personnel (Lujiang Publishing House), Qingtian People in the Netherlands (Overseas Chinese Publishing House of China), Human Geography of Anhui, and Urban Geography of Anhui (Shakespeare Publishing House, Taiwan). Translated: Oxford History of Britain (co-translation, The Commercial Press), Reagan's Autobiography (co-translation, Oriental Publishing House).
【About the Author】
Yu Shaohua holds a master's degree in world history from Shanghai Normal University. His academic papers include "On "Culture" and "Civilization"" and "Analysis of Poliziano's Secular Education Thought"