dy 2 London correspondent
# recent article in the weekly "New Society" reveals some interosting facts about the effect of technological development in modern industry. The author of the article, David Foster, has written one of the standard texts on this subject ("Wodern Automation"): he suggests nothing loss than that the development to capitaliam itself is making the boss redundant!
"Zutomated Management: perhaps the most intriguing impact of automation related to employment is in the manazement sector. Having myself beon in the past a director of a number of British companies it may be considered unfair of me to givo away what is the stock-in—irade of management. But truth will out and the fact is that what passes for top manage-— mont ability is roally a question of a certain special type of Pandora's Box possessed by top managors and hiddon away from the sight of hoi-—polloi usually locked up inside one of the more secure typo of filing cabinet, consists of three things, namoly, vital statistica, trend graphs, and sinplified businsss formilae. Thus the chairman of a largo company who may havo acquired a reputation of quite extraordinary sagecity and business senso is roally ablo to do all these marvels by cunningly reforring in soorot to his Pandora's Hox which has enhbled him over perhaps 30 yoars to distil the essence of his business into a number of numoriceal tablos, graphs and Tendy-reckoning formulas. If only tho workmen in his factory realised how casy it has now become for the chairman to sontrol a businoss of 10,000 people they would not only bo vory surprised but they would ontiroly agree that ho was entitled to go off and play golf every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. (!)
Computer sutomation threatons the very oxistance of top _manage— mont in all speciaslitias bocause their Pandora's Boxas aro about to become @ millisecond routine on a magnetic tape." (Our omphasis >
This is particularly interesting at 2 timo when tho question of workors' control is being debated in the Labour movemont. The opponents of workers' control have always claimed that workers were incapablo of running complex modern industry. These claims wore, of course, always frandulont. They ludicrously overostimate the ability of directors and managers under capitalism, and thoy charnactcristically underostimate the potontialitics of the workers - as even tho exporimonts in relatively undordevelopod Yugoslavia and Algeria havo showm. liorcover thoy ignore that in « socialist economy, where the anarchy of impersonal markot laws had been replaced by domocratic planning, the artificial “comploxity" of capitalist scconomios would no longer oxist. Nevortholess tha trend roveniod by Foster will show that modern technology makes workers control even moro foasible and it will oxpose oven more clasrly tho absonco of any ultimate human control within the capitalist systom and the complotoly parasitic natura of cno capitalist class and its chiof lioutonaonts. '