Sociology

Skills and Deskilling

The idea of scientific management in the business world is an attempt to apply the methods of science to the increasingly complex problems of the control of labor in rapidly growing capitalist enterprises (Braverman, 2005, p. 59). According to Grint (1998, p. 176), the notion of mixing human labor with raw materials is a concern that Marx had about the labor process itself being an adaptation in relation to the needs of capital. Two theorists that have contributed greatly to this field are Frederick Winslow Taylor and Harry Braverman.

Braverman believed that the dynamic and immanent process of deskilling and degradation underlay the progression towards monopoly capitalism (Grint, 1998, p. 177).

Changes in the demand for skills are the consequence of changes either in the necessities associated with individual jobs or in the division of employment across jobs that have dissimilar skill requirements (Cappelli, 1993, p....
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