Automating amateurs in the 3D printing community: connecting the dots between ‘deskilling’ and ‘user-friendliness’

Johan Söderberg, null

doi:10.13169/workorgalaboglob.7.1.0124

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Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Volume 7, Issue 1

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Automating amateurs in the 3D printing community: connecting the dots between ‘deskilling’ and ‘user-friendliness’

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Author(s): Johan Söderberg

Publication date (Print): Summer 2013

Journal: Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

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Abstract

In this paper a case study of an open source, home-built 3D printer called ‘Rep-rap’ serves as an entry point to the deskilling debate. This debate has centred on Harry Braverman's proposition that deskilling is a general trend, given the prevalence of capitalist relations of production, or, differently put, contractual employment relations. The origins of 3D printing can be traced back to numerically controlled (NC) and computerised numerically-controlled (CNC) machinery and can even be seen to incorporate ‘material traces’ of these. Both technologies are based on the same principle: guiding a machine tool with the help of software. NC and CNC machines were introduced in the midst of industrial conflicts and served as a touchstone in academic debates for and against the deskilling thesis during the 1970s. The open source, home-built 3D printer, in contrast, is being developed by a community of hobbyists. By definition, these hobbyists are located outside of contractual employment relations. Still, they are striving to make the 3D printer user-friendly, or, in other words, to deskill the user. Reflecting on this difference, this paper sets out to incorporate some of the critiques of the deskilling thesis in order to advance an updated, Bravermanian position on user-friendly technology.

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Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.13169

Journal ID (publisher-id): workorgalaboglob

Title: Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN (Print): 1745641X

ISSN (Electronic): 17456428

Publication date (Print): Summer 2013

Volume: 7

Issue: 1

Pages: 124-139

Article

Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.7.1.0124

DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.7.1.0124

SO-VID: cc2e0e97-8e18-4c3e-8a6d-371b927e95bc

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics

References

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Bain, P., A. Watson, G. Mulvey, P. Taylor, P. & G. Gall (2002) ‘Taylorism, targets and the pursuit of quantity and quality by call centre management’, New Technology, Work and Employment , 17 (3):170–185.
Banks, J & M. Deuze (2009) ‘Co-creative labour’, International Journal of Cultural Studies , 12 (5):419–431.
Barett, R. (2005) ‘Managing the software development labour process: Direct control, time and technical autonomy’, R. Barett, (ed), Management, labour process and software development , London: Routledge:76–99.
Berg, M. (1998) ‘The politics of technology: On bringing social theory into technological design’, Science, Technology & Human Values , 23(4):456–490.
Biggs, L. (1996) The rational factory: architecture, technology, and work in America's age of mass production , Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Blok, A. & G. Downey, G. (eds) (2004) Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 1750–2000 , London: Cambridge University Press.
Braverman, H. (1999) Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century , New York: Monthly Review Press.
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Callaghan, G. & P. Thompson (2001) ‘Edwards revisited: Technological control and call centres’, Economic and Industrial Democracy , 22(1):13–37.
Choi, S., J. Leiter. & D. Tomaskovic-Devey (2008) ‘Contingent Autonomy: Technology, Bureaucracy, and Relative Power in the Labor Process’, Work and Occupations , 35:422–455.
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de Bruijn, E. (2010) On the viability of the open source development model for the design of physical objects: Lessons learned from the RepRap project , Master's thesis. Netherlands: University of Tilburg.
Désveaux, E. & M. de Fornel (2012) Faire des sciences sociales – Généraliser , Paris: EHESS.
de Paoli, S. (2011) ‘Produsage in hybrid networks: Sociotechnical skills in the case of Arduino’, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia ,17(1):31–52.
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Friedman, A. (1977) Industry and labour: Class struggle at work and monopoly capitalism , London: Macmillan.
Friedman, A. (2004) ‘Strawmanning and labour process analysis’, Sociology , 38(3):573–591.
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Fuchs, C. (2012) ‘Dallas Smythe today: the audience commodity, the digital labour debate, Marxist political economy and critical theory. Prolegomena to a digital labour theory of value’, TripleC , 10 (2):692–740.
Gershenfeld, N. (2005) Fab: Personal fabrication, fab labs, and the factory in your computer , New York: Basic Books.
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Jones, S. (1982) ‘The organization of work. A historical dimension’ Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization , 3 (2–3):117–137.
Kraft, P. (1977) Programmers and managers: The routinization of computer programming in the United States , Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.
Montgomery, D. (1976) ‘Workers' control of machine production in the nineteenth century’, Labor History , 17 (4):485–509.
Noble, D. (1986) Forces of production: A social history of industrial automation , New York: Oxford University Press.
Noble, D. (1977) America by design: Science, Technology, and the rise of corporate capitalism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O'Doherty D. & H. Willmott (2001) ‘Debating Labour Process Theory: The Issue of Subjectivity and the Relevance of Poststructuralism’, Sociology , 35(2):457–476.
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Perolle, J. (1991) ‘Expert enhancement and replacement in computerised mental labor’, Science, Technology and Human Values , 16 (2):195–207.
Postigo, H. (2004) ‘Emerging sources of labor on the Internet: The case of America Online volunteers’, A. Blok & G. Blok (eds), Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 1750–2000 , London: Cambridge University Press:205–223.
Price, R. (1984) ‘Structures of subordination in the labour movement in nineteenth-century British industry’, P. Thane, G. Crossick & R. Floud (eds), The Power of the past. Essays for Eric Hobsbawm , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press:119–142.
Rabeharisoa, V. & M. Callon (2003) ‘Research “in the wild” and the shaping of new social identities’, Technology in Society , 25(2):193–204.
Ribeiro, R. & H. Collins (2007) ‘The bread-making machine: Tacit knowledge and two types of action’, Organization Studies , 28(9):1417–1433.
Scranton, P. (2009) ‘The shows and the flows: materials, markets, and innovation in the US machine tool industry, 1945–1965’, History and Technology , 25(3):257–304.
Senker, P. & M. Beesley (1986) ‘The need for skills in the factory of the future’, New Technology, Work and Employment , 1(1)9–17.
Shackleford, W. & F. Proctor (2001) Use of open source distribution for a machine tool controller , Conference paper, vol. 4191:19–30, Accessed on April 30, 2013 from: http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/documents/shackleford/4191_05.pdf.
Scholz, T. (ed) (2012) Digital labour: The Internet as playground and factory , New York: Routledge.
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Söderberg, J. (2010a) ‘Misuser Inventions and the Invention of the Misuser: Hackers, Crackers and Filesharers’, Science as Culture , 19(2):151–179.
Söderberg, J. (2010b) ‘Reconstructivism versus critical theory: Alternative perspectives on activism and institutional entrepreneurship in the Czech wireless community’, Social Epistemology 24(4):239–262.
Terranova, T. (2000) ‘Free labour: Producing culture for the digital economy’, Social Text 18(2):33–58.
Thompson, P. & C. Smith (2001) ‘Follow the redbrick road: Reflections on pathways in and out of the labour process debate’, International Studies of Management and Organization , 30(4):40–67.
Thompson, P. (2010) ‘The capitalist labour process: Concepts and connections’, Capital and Class , 34(1):7–14.
Tinker, T. (2002) ‘Spectres of Marx and Braverman in the twilight of postmodernist labour process research’, Work Employment Society , 16(2):251–281.
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Zicklin, G. (1987) ‘Numerical Control Machining and the Issue of Deskilling: An Empirical View’, Work and Occupations , 14:452–466.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Attewell, P. (1987) ‘The Deskilling Controversy’, Work and Occupations 14:323–346.

[2] Bain, P., A. Watson, G. Mulvey, P. Taylor, P. & G. Gall (2002) ‘Taylorism, targets and the pursuit of quantity and quality by call centre management’, New Technology, Work and Employment , 17 (3):170–185.

[3] Banks, J & M. Deuze (2009) ‘Co-creative labour’, International Journal of Cultural Studies , 12 (5):419–431.

[4] Barett, R. (2005) ‘Managing the software development labour process: Direct control, time and technical autonomy’, R. Barett, (ed), Management, labour process and software development , London: Routledge:76–99.

[5] Berg, M. (1998) ‘The politics of technology: On bringing social theory into technological design’, Science, Technology & Human Values , 23(4):456–490.

[6] Biggs, L. (1996) The rational factory: architecture, technology, and work in America's age of mass production , Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

[7] Blok, A. & G. Downey, G. (eds) (2004) Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 1750–2000 , London: Cambridge University Press.

[8] Braverman, H. (1999) Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century , New York: Monthly Review Press.

[9] Burston, J., N. Dyer-Witheford & A. Hearn (2010) ‘Digital labour', Special issue, Ephemera 10 (3–4):214–539.

[10] Böhm, S. & C. Land (2012) ‘The new “hidden abode”: Reflections on value and labour in the new economy’, Sociological Review , 60 (2):217–240.

[11] Callaghan, G. & P. Thompson (2001) ‘Edwards revisited: Technological control and call centres’, Economic and Industrial Democracy , 22(1):13–37.

[12] Choi, S., J. Leiter. & D. Tomaskovic-Devey (2008) ‘Contingent Autonomy: Technology, Bureaucracy, and Relative Power in the Labor Process’, Work and Occupations , 35:422–455.

[13] Collins, H. (1990) Artificial experts: Social knowledge and intelligent machines , Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

[14] Collins, H. (2007) ‘Bicycling on the moon: Collective tacit knowledge and somic-limit tacit knowledge’, Organization Studies , 28(2):257–262.

[15] Daryl, H. (2003) ‘The Cost of Inventiveness: Labor's Struggle with Management's Machine’, Technology and Culture , 44 (1):102–113.

[16] de Bruijn, E. (2010) On the viability of the open source development model for the design of physical objects: Lessons learned from the RepRap project , Master's thesis. Netherlands: University of Tilburg.

[17] Désveaux, E. & M. de Fornel (2012) Faire des sciences sociales – Généraliser , Paris: EHESS.

[18] de Paoli, S. (2011) ‘Produsage in hybrid networks: Sociotechnical skills in the case of Arduino’, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia ,17(1):31–52.

[19] Ensmenger, N. (2004) ‘Letting the “computer” take over: Technology and the politics of organizational transformation’, A. Blok & G. Downey (eds), Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 1750–2000 , London: Cambridge University Press:153–180.

[20] Friedman, A. (1977) Industry and labour: Class struggle at work and monopoly capitalism , London: Macmillan.

[21] Friedman, A. (2004) ‘Strawmanning and labour process analysis’, Sociology , 38(3):573–591.

[22] Fuchs, C. & D. Trottier, D. (2013) ‘The Internet as surveilled workplayplace and factory’, S. Gutwirth, R. Leenes, P. de Hert & Y. Poullet (eds), European data protection. Coming of age , Dordrecht: Springer:33–57

[23] Fuchs, C. (2012) ‘Dallas Smythe today: the audience commodity, the digital labour debate, Marxist political economy and critical theory. Prolegomena to a digital labour theory of value’, TripleC , 10 (2):692–740.

[24] Gershenfeld, N. (2005) Fab: Personal fabrication, fab labs, and the factory in your computer , New York: Basic Books.

[25] Gill, R. & A. Pratt (2008) ‘In the social factory?: Immaterial labour, precariousness and cultural work’, Theory, Culture and Society , 25 (7–8)1–30.

[26] Grint, K. & S. Woolgar (1997) The Machine at Work – Technology, Work and Organisation , Cambridge: Polity Press.

[27] Harvey, D. (2006) The limits to capital , London: Verso.

[28] Jamison, F. (1991) Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism , Durham: Duke Press.

[29] Jones, B. (1997) Forcing the factory of the future: Cybernation and societal institutions , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[30] Jones, S. (1982) ‘The organization of work. A historical dimension’ Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization , 3 (2–3):117–137.

[31] Kraft, P. (1977) Programmers and managers: The routinization of computer programming in the United States , Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag.

[32] Montgomery, D. (1976) ‘Workers' control of machine production in the nineteenth century’, Labor History , 17 (4):485–509.

[33] Noble, D. (1986) Forces of production: A social history of industrial automation , New York: Oxford University Press.

[34] Noble, D. (1977) America by design: Science, Technology, and the rise of corporate capitalism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[35] O'Doherty D. & H. Willmott (2001) ‘Debating Labour Process Theory: The Issue of Subjectivity and the Relevance of Poststructuralism’, Sociology , 35(2):457–476.

[36] Olliver, V. (2005) Construction of Rapid Prototyping Testbeds Using Meccano . Accessed on April, 30, 2013: from http://reprap.org.

[37] Parker, M. (1999) ‘Capitalism, Subjectivity and Ethics: Debating Labour Process Analysis’, Organization Studies , 20 (1):25–45.

[38] Pickering, A. (1995) ‘The mangle of practice: Time, agency and science’, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[39] Perens, B. (2008) ‘RepRap vs. Reality’, Technocrat . Accessed on April, 30, 2013 from: http://technocrat.net/d/2008/6/5/42592/,

[40] Perolle, J. (1991) ‘Expert enhancement and replacement in computerised mental labor’, Science, Technology and Human Values , 16 (2):195–207.

[41] Postigo, H. (2004) ‘Emerging sources of labor on the Internet: The case of America Online volunteers’, A. Blok & G. Blok (eds), Uncovering labour in information revolutions, 1750–2000 , London: Cambridge University Press:205–223.

[42] Price, R. (1984) ‘Structures of subordination in the labour movement in nineteenth-century British industry’, P. Thane, G. Crossick & R. Floud (eds), The Power of the past. Essays for Eric Hobsbawm , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press:119–142.

[43] Rabeharisoa, V. & M. Callon (2003) ‘Research “in the wild” and the shaping of new social identities’, Technology in Society , 25(2):193–204.

[44] Ribeiro, R. & H. Collins (2007) ‘The bread-making machine: Tacit knowledge and two types of action’, Organization Studies , 28(9):1417–1433.

[45] Scranton, P. (2009) ‘The shows and the flows: materials, markets, and innovation in the US machine tool industry, 1945–1965’, History and Technology , 25(3):257–304.

[46] Senker, P. & M. Beesley (1986) ‘The need for skills in the factory of the future’, New Technology, Work and Employment , 1(1)9–17.

[47] Shackleford, W. & F. Proctor (2001) Use of open source distribution for a machine tool controller , Conference paper, vol. 4191:19–30, Accessed on April 30, 2013 from: http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/documents/shackleford/4191_05.pdf.

[48] Scholz, T. (ed) (2012) Digital labour: The Internet as playground and factory , New York: Routledge.

[49] Stallman, R. (2002) The GNU project and free software. In G. Joshua (Ed.) Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Boston, MA.: GNU Press.

[50] Söderberg, J. (2010a) ‘Misuser Inventions and the Invention of the Misuser: Hackers, Crackers and Filesharers’, Science as Culture , 19(2):151–179.

[51] Söderberg, J. (2010b) ‘Reconstructivism versus critical theory: Alternative perspectives on activism and institutional entrepreneurship in the Czech wireless community’, Social Epistemology 24(4):239–262.

[52] Terranova, T. (2000) ‘Free labour: Producing culture for the digital economy’, Social Text 18(2):33–58.

[53] Thompson, P. & C. Smith (2001) ‘Follow the redbrick road: Reflections on pathways in and out of the labour process debate’, International Studies of Management and Organization , 30(4):40–67.

[54] Thompson, P. (2010) ‘The capitalist labour process: Concepts and connections’, Capital and Class , 34(1):7–14.

[55] Tinker, T. (2002) ‘Spectres of Marx and Braverman in the twilight of postmodernist labour process research’, Work Employment Society , 16(2):251–281.

[56] Turner, F. (2008) ‘Romantic automatism: art, technology, and collaborative labor in cold war America’, Journal of Visual Culture , 7(1):5–26.

[57] Wardell, M. (1990) ‘Labour and labour process’, D. Knights & H. Willmott (eds) Labour Process Theory , London: Macmillan:153–176.

[58] Wilson, F. (1988) ‘Computer numerical control and constraint’. D. Knights & H. Willmott (eds) Labour Process Theory , London: Macmillan:66–90.

[59] WOHLERS (2011) Wohlers Report 2011 .

[60] Wood, S. (ed) (1982) The degradation of work?: Skill, deskilling, and the labour process , London: Hutchinson.

[61] Wood, S. (1987) ‘The deskilling debate, new technology, and work organization’ Acta Sociologica , 30(1):3–24.

[62] Zicklin, G. (1987) ‘Numerical Control Machining and the Issue of Deskilling: An Empirical View’, Work and Occupations , 14:452–466.