The Topicality of Smithian Manufacturing: Reflections based on the Foxconn case
Foxconn’s manufacturing units in China today are privileged historical illustrations of the conceptual nature of the Taylorist-Fordist labor process, as well as of its limits. The most important of these units, located in Shenzhen, was established in 1988 to assemble iPhones, iPads and other electronic products for the major Western companies operating in this sector, such as Apple, Dell and HP. The cyclopean size of this manufacturing unit is considered fundamental for Foxconn to gain its current leading position in the global market.
The sheer size of the factory, and the typically Chinese way of bringing the entire lives of workers to their workplace, ended up transforming the Shenzhen unit into a real “factory city” with more than 300,000 workers (some authors believe this number is closer to 400,000).
In general, for Foxconn in China, and particularly in the case of the factory city in Shenzhen, the production process in practice involves mass assembly and is therefore a notorious illustration of the Taylorist-Fordist form of production. With this in mind, we must demarcate the fundamental step of our reasoning: Taylorism-Fordism should not be characterized as a development of machinery, as it has always been portrayed in the literature, but as a development of Smithian manufacturing. Hence, it is a “reinvention of manufacturing”, as we have sought to establish in earlier works. (MORAES-NETO, 1989,2003, 2004b) After all, two of the most conceptual statements about manufacturing fit Taylorism-Fordism to a tee: it is “a machine whose parts are men”(Ferguson), in which detail laborers must “work with the regularity of the parts of a machine”(Marx). This vision implies considering the existence of an important conceptual differentiation within industry, established since the early 20th century, with the textile industry and the entire continuous process industry intensifying the characteristics pointed out by Marx for machinery-based production, while the metal-mechanical and electronical segments, in their mass assembly operations, are characterized as a “mediocritizing deviation” of industrial production. (MORAES-NETO, 2003, p.293)
That is the outdated nature of Taylorist-Fordist manufacturing production: to be founded entirely on the use of man as a fundamental instrument of production, a form that was completely superseded by machinery in the 19th century, which transformed industrial production into a “technological application of science,” according to the famous expression coined by Marx. The quotation below clarifies this point in the case of Foxconn in China, in other words, a production process founded entirely upon the use of humans as instruments of production:
Foxconn, an electronics manufacturer from Taiwan with huge factories in China, generates about 40 percent of the global consumer electronics revenue by creating things like iPhones and computer components on giant assembly lines staffed by humans. (grifo meu)(ACKERMAN, 2011, p.1)
Based on significant quotations, let us examine a fundamental consequence: the unrestricted application, in the case of Foxconn, of the characteristic par excellence of Taylorism-Fordism: instead of replacing men with machines, it always seeks to transform men into machines:
In order to maximize productivity, workers at Foxconn are made to work like machines. They have to work continuously for more than 10 hours a day. They cannot stop for a second. “I think we are even faster than machines”, a worker at the Longhua campus pointed out. To ensure productivity, a military-style management is applied on the shop floor. (SACOM, 2010, p. 10)
“If you do not work hard, you will be replaced by robots”, Li Fong, a female worker who works on deburring, reports she was told by her supervisor. Indeed, the workers at Foxconn already feel they resemble machines. They cannot talk during work and have to concentrate intently on their work every moment. There is a common saying among the Foxconn workers: “Women work as hard as men. Men work as hard as machines”. (SACOM, 2011b, p.8)
We thus face the case of Foxconn, with another illustration of what we have called Smith’s Anguish, consistent in the inexorable link established by Adam Smith between productive efficiency and the dehumanization of labor activities (MORAES NETO, 2004, p.8), also known as Smith’s Dilemma (WEISS, 1976, p.106; PALMA, 1971, p.15). According to Smith, although the heightening of productive efficiency, achieved exclusively by increasing the division of labor in the manufacturing system, unfolds extremely positively due to increasing material wealth, its effects on the nature of labor activities would be extremely detrimental. (SMITH, 1952, p.340)
It is worth mentioning a fundamental element to explain Adam Smith’s position, this is, the idea that manufacturing would be the most advanced possible form of producing, having failed to foresee the revolution that would be brought about by machines. Hence, and because he would not be confronted with a historical regression (WEISS, 1976), there would be no way to escape from the necessary evil.
We should keep in mind that what we are attributing to Smith, through the influence of Ferguson, is entirely accepted by Marx, who clearly sees the greater reason for “Smith’s Anguish”: the fact that the manufacturing system is based entirely on the human being as an instrument of production.
From the nature of labor in the manufacturing system, it is possible, therefore, to deduce an inevitable trade-off between labor productivity and the humanization of labor activities (which is implicit in the formulation of “Smith’s Anguish”): were one to head toward the augmentation of productive efficiency, one would have to bear the necessary evil, that is, the increasing dehumanization of labor. Conversely, were one to raise human labor to a higher level of humanization, that is, of subjective appropriation of labor by the worker, of higher worker qualification, of greater labor content, then one would have to sacrifice productive efficiency and resort to labor of an increasingly artisanal nature.
Now, let us also examine how the Smithian trade-off is manifested in the Foxconn case, based on several clarifying quotations:
During his 28 days of investigation, Liu Ahi Yi was shocked to discover how the factory workers live in a sort of indentured servitude. They work all day long, stopping only to quickly eat or to sleep. They repeat the same routine again and again except on public holidays. (GIZMODO, 2010, p.1)
Another worker spoke about one of the favorite activities in the factory lines: He likes to drop stuff on the floor. Why? Workers spend achingly up to eight hours standing up, so they feel that squatting down to grab a fallen object is the most restful moment of their working day. (GIZMODO, 2010, p.3)
“Foxconn production line system is designed so well that no worker will rest even one second during work; they make sure you’re always busy for every second”, says Li Qiang, executive director of the China Labor Watch.” (BARBOSA, 2010, p.2)
Foxconn is not the only one to be blamed, but it is the most typical factory run by a management methodology that boosts productivity through the degradation of workers into dehumanized machines. (SACOM, 2010, p. 2)
Workers have to repeat the same monotonous and tedious tasks every day. (…) Production targets keeps soaring. Management always tests the capacity of the workers. If workers can finish the quota, the target will be increased day by day until the capacity of the workers maximize. (SACOM, 2010, p. 12)
All workers have to be highly focused on their work. They are not allowed to talk, doze off, giggle, stretch their bodies or move around. These will lead to reproachment from the frontline management. (SACOM, 2010, p. 12)
Workers are not allowed to talk on production line and can only repeat the same motion for hundred or even thousands times a day. The production targets keeps rising. And they have to work faster and faster. Mistake and inefficiency will lead to reproach from line managers. Workers can only adjust their mentality to fit into Foxconn system. (SACOM, 2011a, p. 15)
The next step in our analysis has to do with the evolution of Taylorism-Fordism within the process of economic and social development. The anachronistic nature of Taylorism-Fordism became historically patent with the so-called “crisis of the labor process” (in truth, a “crisis of the Taylorist-Fordist labor process”), when, in the transition from the 1960s to the 70s, in the industrialized countries of Europe and in the United States, workers distanced themselves so intensely from detailed, routine, and empty tasks that it led to a significant reduction in productive efficiency. This distancing occurred as a result of the process of economic and social development, through the augmentation of income and schooling, which generated a demand for higher quality of work and of life in general, especially on the part of younger workers. This fact demonstrated the correctness of Gramsci’s following statement: “The new methods of labor (Fordist) are binding to a given way of life, of thinking and of feeling life”(GRAMSCI, 1978, p.328). For Ohnoism, a neo-Fordism, with its extreme dependence of worker involvement in labor activities devoid of content, this viewpoint of Gramsci also fits perfectly. Technological progress attempted to solve this issue in societies of developed capitalism, with microelectronic-based automation “detonating” the form of production of the great Taylorist-Fordist industry in the late 20th century, bringing it abruptly into the realm of automation, in which the textile and continuous process industries had already long been operating. (MORAES-NETO, 2003)
The manifestation of this head-on collision between the nature of the Taylorist-Fordist labor process and young workers, whose minds reflect a process of social development, assumed a tragic dimension, in the case of Foxconn, with the suicides of workers in the first half of 2010, a fact that is highlighted in the following quotations:
Until recently, you’d probably never heard of Foxconn, but a series of workers suicides made us all take a hard look at where our electronics were coming from. Foxconn has made some improvements (including nets around tall buildings), but, by all accounts, the core of the problem (the work) remains “repetitive, exhausting and alienating” (ACKERMAN, 2011, p. 1)
It’s my belief that workers internalized their oppressive conditions because they could not find ways to resolve the oppressive “relations of production” – treated as part of the machinery of the production assembly line they became demoralized, and finally, desperate. So their only option was a very human one: to throw away or destroy their own bodies as a gesture of frustration – and of defiance. By doing so they broke trough the smooth chain of the global assembly line, creating a small but significant human “space” to reclaim their humanity, if only at the moment of self-destruction. (LEONG, 2010, p. 1)
In the wake of the international impact caused by these suicides, numerous investigations were made into Foxconn. As we shall see from the quotations below, the literature strongly emphasizes the profound mismatch that once again occurred historically between the labor activities proposed by the Taylorist-Fordist mode of production and the yearnings of younger and better educated workers.
Young migrants are increasingly aware of equality and rights, and have higher expectations of getting fair work opportunities, labor and social welfare, and other basic public services. This is partly explained by their higher educational qualifications. (…) They have higher aspirations for career advancement than their older counterparts. (ACKERMAN, 2011, p. 3)
A topic of mainstream discussion, if not outright criticism, concerning the young generation of workers is their inability to “eat bitterness”. It is commonly said that those who were born after 1980, in the market economy and the new society, are not tough enough to endure hardship. They are emotionally or psychologically vulnerable to pressures. (CHAN & PUN, 2010, p. 4)
The new generation of workers is very different to the one that helped Mr Gou (the president of the corporation) build his manufacturing machine. Twenty years ago workers would consider a factory job the chance of a lifetime and for many the food and accommodation offered at the plant would have been no worse than they would expect at home. Now, 90 per cent of Foxconn’s workforce are between 18 and 24 years old. Born after China started its economic reforms, most have much higher expectations. (HILLE, 2010, p.2)
It appears impossible for many young workers to struggle through the daily lives they live and eventually fulfill the dreams they have for the future. (…) These better-educated-youths long for a life attuned to the times, and the city is where everything is happening. The higher their aspirations for a better future, the more obvious the contrast to their harsh reality becomes. (CHAN & PUN, 2010, p. 2)
The post-80s and post-90s new generation of migrant workers have higher expectations of life than their elders, and feel greater disappointment and resentments at their failures.(CHAN & PUN, 2010, p. 9)
The younger generation of better-educated migrant workers wants a new life but they see no prospect in toiling day and night on the standardized assembly lines. They face a huge discrepancy between soaring expectations and the harsh reality of factory lives. (CHAN & PUN, 2010, p. 10)
Every day, hundreds of young workers quit their jobs and leave the “walled city” of Foxconn. (CHAN & PUN, 2010, p. 10)
Millions of migrant workers like Foxconn employees are thrown into a state of deep contradiction. They reject the regimented hardships their predecessors endured as cheap labor and second-class citizens. They rebel against their marginalized status and meaningless life. (CHAN & PUN, 2010, p. 10)
The troubles at Foxconn came to light amid broader labour unrest in China and highlighted Chinese worker’ growing dissatisfaction with the low wages and pressure-cooker working conditions that helped turn the country into an international manufacturing powerhouse. (WONG, 2010, p. 1)
We thus find that a conceptually anachronistic form such as Taylorist-Fordist manufacturing, whose efficient realization requires economic and social backwardness –
albeit in a particular form that feasibilizes industrial production, was initially perfectly adapted to the region in China where the city of Shenzhen is located. It is interesting to observe that the success of the enterprise seems to conspire against itself by contributing for society to demand a higher quality of life in general, and of labor in particular. This can be illustrated through the Foxconn’s reaction to its difficulties with its workers: transforming the Shenzhen unit into a high-tech plant that generates knowledge, with a new occupational structure, and transferring its mass assembly operations to a region of northern China where labor is abundant and cheap. Thus, the search for anachronism, which is typical of contemporary Taylorism-Fordism, appears once more. Its limit, therefore, lies in the historical continuance of backwardness.
REFERENCES
ACKERMAN, Evan. Foxconn to Replace Human Workers With One Million Robots. IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) blog (ieee spectrum / automaton), 01 August 2011
BARBOSA, David. Electronics Maker Promises Review After Suicides, The New York Times, 26 May 2010
CHAN, Jenny & PUN, Ngai. Suicide as Protest for the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: Foxconn, Global Capital and the State. The Asia-Pacific Journal, 13 September 2010
GIZMODO. Undercover Report From Foxconn’s Hell Factory, In: 19 May 2010
GRAMSCI, Antonio. Obras Escolhidas, São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1978
HILLE, Kathrin. Suicides Put Foxconn Under Srutiny, Financial Times (FT.com), 23 May 2010
LEONG, Russell C. Blood in Exchange for Gold? , 27 May 2010
MORAES-NETO, Benedito R. Marx, Taylor, Ford: As Forças Produtivas em Discussão (Discussing the Productive Forces), São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense, 1989
______Marx and the (End of the) Labor Process at the End of the Twentieth Century, Rethinking Marxism, Vol.15, N.2, April 2003
______O percurso teórico da “abolição do trabalho” (ou da superação da “angústia smithiana”) em Marx: avanços e recuo, Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Economia Política, n.14, junho 2004 (2004ª)
______Automation and Labor: Is Marx Equal to Adam Smith? Rethinking Marxism, Vol.16, N. 4, October 2004 (2004b)
PALMA, Armando. Le Macchine e l’industria da Smith a Marx, Torino: Einaudi, 1971
SACOM (Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour). Workers as Machines: Military Management in Foxconn, 12 October 2010
______Foxconn and Apple Fail to Fulfill Promises: Predicaments of Worker after the Suicides, 6 May 2011 (2011a)
______iSlave Behind the iPhone Foxconn Workers in Central China, 24 September 2011 (2011b)
SMITH, Adam. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Great Books of the Western World, Vol. 39, Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952
WEISS, Donald. Marx versus Smith on the Division of Labor, Monthly Review, Vol.28, N. 3, 1976
WONG, Gillian. Foxconn Gets the Pompoms Out to Raise Morale at “Suicide Factory”, The Independent, 19 August 2010
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