 The Power of Knowledge: Comments on Marglin’s ‘Knowledge and Power’Maxine Berg Chapter 10 in Firms, Organization and Labour, 1984, pp 165-175 from Palgrave Macmillan Abstract: Abstract In the preceding chapter Stephen Marglin makes two main points: (1) The source of the capitalist hold over the production process while in open competition with other forms of enterprise was knowledge — that is organizing ability. In order to claim a reward for this knowledge the capitalist had to impose a hierarchical form of organization on the production process so that he could claim an essential part in it on a continuing basis. (2) The means by which the capitalist maintained control over knowledge, that is, the division of labour and hierarchy, becomes itself a limit on the size of the enterprise. When the enterprise exceeds the span of the manageable personal intervention of the capitalist, then new organizing problems arise which must be solved by the creation of a new group of mediators — a techno-structure. In the space available here, I shall confine my comments to the first point, discussing this in relation as well to Marglin’s original paper ‘What Bosses Do’ (Marglin, 1974). Keywords: Eighteenth Century; Factory System; Moral Community; Corporate Control; Capitalist Control (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-06663-6_10 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-06663-6_10 Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan |
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