The decline of the middle class
Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval was a French artillery officer and engineer who revolutionized French cannon, creating a new production system that allowed lighter, more uniform guns without sacrificing range. His work superseded the de Vallière system which standardized the French sizes in artillery pieces. These guns proved essential to French military victories during the Napoleonic wars. Gribeauval is credited as the earliest known advocate for interchangeability of gun parts. He is thus one of the principal influences on the later development (over many decades by many people) of interchangeable manufacture.
The principle of interchangeable parts flourished and developed throughout the 19th century, and led to mass production in many industries. It was based on the use of templates and other jigs and fixtures, applied by semi-skilled labor using machine tools instead of the traditional hand tools. Throughout this century there was a lot of development work to be done in creating gauges, measuring tools (such as calipers and micrometers), standards (such as those for screw threads), and processes (such as scientific management), but the principle of interchangeability remained constant. With the introduction of the assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, interchangeable parts became ubiquitous elements of manufacturing.
Prior to this process, everything was hand made. But with this process, items could be mass produced, and costs could be reduced. This process brought products like the car the masses and employed thousands of new workers. This, combined with the additional technological developments over the past century turned USAmerica into one of the most prosperous countries in the world.
However, this also had at least two unintentional consequences.
1. Mass production requires the masses purchase the product. For a mass production company to survive, it has to sell what it produces. Production comes to a halt otherwise. For survival, it has to either have a huge market for the product, entice the people into buying it, or make it a disposable product, one that will continually wear out and need to be replaced. Preferably, all three are happening at once.
2. It created the interchangeable worker. If the process is broken down in to small, manageable and interchangeable pieces, everyone must do their small job in order for the widget to get assembled. If someone isn’t at their station, however, production stops. So for production to continue en masse, there must be interchangeable employees. Mass production requires people who can be interchangeable. As a result, the goal is to hire the lowest-skilled workers and pay them the lowest wage. This reduces costs thereby increasing profits.
To achieve this, people have to be trained to accept this kind of monotonous employment as good. The skilled artisan in us has to be replaced so that we can be a mind-numbing robotic employee who follows the manual and does their job.
The long-term implications of this are great. It conditions us to standardization and suppresses our creativity. It de-humanizes humanity. But most of all, it conditions us to a nanny state. We expect to be taken care of by someone because all we know how to do is follow the rules, put together our piece of the widget, and to do it as fast and efficiently as possible. In the age of manufacturing, we have become people who lost their soul, their self-determination, and self-motivation. We go to work, and follow the rules. This keeps us from being replaced.
When employee costs get so high that it eats into profits, production will cease or move to an environment more appropriate for profit. Workers lose jobs or are forced to take a pay cut. The middle class, then is reduced, and a disparity develops between rich and poor.
Seth Godin states in his newest book, Linchpin, that our “world no longer fairly compensates people who are cogs in a giant machine.”
Reversing this requires reversing the conditioning we have been taught. It also requires rediscovering and reengaging the artisan in all of us. Again, Godin states that it turns out that “what we need are gifts and connections and humanity – and the artists who create them. Leaders don’t get a map or a set of rules. Living life without a map requires a different attitude. It requires you to be a linchpin.”
