Sacking the Craftsmen

In the early years of the 20th century, Frederick Taylor studied the efforts of craftsmen and developed the concept of scientific management. The premise behind scientific management is that craftsmen and the professions in which they are embedded are a hindrance to productivity. Not unlike our romantic fascination with the bards, we have a similar fascination with the noble craftsman. But, realistically. it is likely that you would find that the quality of the craftsmen was very uneven as well. There were a few really good ones; a lot of average ones; and far to many really poor ones.

Further, our progress in manufacturing, at the time of Frederick Taylor, was not at all unlike our progress in literacy. The approaches are un-leveraged, unreliable, uneven in quality, and not affordable by all. If Henry Ford had his cars made by craftsmen, most of us would still be driving horse and buggy rigs. Until we employed technologies that improved reliability, increased quality, and made products affordable to all, we did not solve the manufacturing problem. In fact, very little of what we have today would be available if we had not sacked the craftsmen. No computers. No Internet. No High Definition TV. No cell phones, not to mention iPads, iPhones and video games. In fact, no cars or kitchen appliances. The list goes on and on.