Assembly Line
The modern moving assembly line stemming from Ford Motor Industries in theearly twentieth century, transformed the nature of the national and worldeconomies, of their forms of labor, lifestyles, and politics. In fact, thecurrent capitalist market system owes its foundations largely to theimplications of the assembly line. As John Allen notes, the Ford modelimplied four fundamental aspects of large-scale mass production: the movingassembly line, specialized machinery, high wages, and low-cost products.Each of these things in turn affected the way industrialized nationsevolved and influenced world economic, political, and social policies. The assembly line model of labor replaced the traditional artisan orcraft-based system of labor in which highly skilled persons completedparticular tasks based on their training and education. Within the assembly
Moreover, this led to increasedgovernmental control of economic systems and policies, especially asmonopolistic control of the market became a social, political, and economicconcern. In fact, modern factories createdthe concept of "employment," and the assembly line in turn led to largecorporations replacing workers with machinery. The ethical role of the government inalleviating the problems of unemployment transformed the role ofpoliticians. The assembly line led to decreased job satisfaction and increasingrates of employee turnover. ework, workers no longer needed to be trained or educated; theysimply performed routine tasks and essentially began to operate as cogs ina giant machine. Asmachinery became increasingly more specified to serve the needs of themanufacturer, the human labor force became pre-empted. New machinery was also designed tomaximize profit, as the faster a product could be produced, the more thecompany could sell. Therefore, the assembly linecreated a new working system in which unskilled laborers receivedrelatively high wages for their work. The assembly line also created a new workforce: the machine. Market economies like that of the United States becameincreasingly dependent on industry. Furthermore, John Allen notes that machinery alsochanged the conception of time and motion within the factory (283). This was initially offset by offering workershigher wages in exchange for company loyalty. While the newly vastrange of consumer goods that flooded the market after World War Two seemedto improve quality of life for millions of people worldwide, by offeringsuch conveniences as vacuum cleaners and televisions, the assembly linedismantled a community-based social and economic system and gave birth toan increasingly global one. This social change also entailed far-reaching and sweeping economicchanges.
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