How Contemporary Are Charlie Chaplins Modern Times?

The Fordist and Post-Fordist Production Models

Kostas Galanopoulos ... Football Industries

University of Liverpool Management School

Abstract: The present study describes the relation between the Fordist production system, as presented in the movie Modern Times, and the post-Fordist system, as presented and configured during the last quarter of 20th century. In this way, Charlie Chaplins work is ascribed the time-enduring quality it deserves. [K. Galanopoulos,

How Contemporary Are Charlie Chaplins Modern Times? The Fordist and Post-

Fordist Production Model, (2007-2008) 3 Intellectum, pp. 117-130]

1. Prologue Throughout the industrial age, the production process passed through many and

different organizing stages. One of the most important (if not the most important)

production systems of the 20th century was Fordism, which has been decisive for the

industrialism and its current form. The Fordist production system and work

organization along with its alienating, degrading nature and the workers perspective

are presented by Charlie Chaplins film Modern Times. Chaplin uses lot of

metaphors some of which refer to todays workplace, as we will see below.

2 . Fordism

At the beginning of the 20th century, Henry Ford attempted to step on Taylors

management theory, broadly known as scientific management or Taylorism, in

order to improve his car factorys productivity. Taylor had already revised his theory

on the rationalization and mechanization of production and work. Ford took over

some of the essential aspects of Taylorism (Litter, 1982, p. 57). That is why Fordism

and Taylorism are considered as inextricably connected systems. But it was Ford who

applied the theory with an aim to reach and service mass production, a phrase that

was no heard before. A very comprehensive definition of Fordism is given by

Worthington (Knights and Willmott, 2007, p.385) who defines it as a system of mass

production for mass consumption. A production line is its main characteristic. The

labour, divided in many little tasks, is processed on the production line under rigid

hierarchy and intensive control. The low-trust inflexible management methods of

control derive from the principles of scientific management. He adds that

An underlying premise of this system is the view that workers should be paid to work and not to think, and that it should be management alone who determines how work is organized and how jobs and work tasks are performed.

Fords main innovations were three: Firstly, he applied the rationalization of work

principles by analyzing the jobs using time-and-motion techniques. Through these

techniques the unique best way for every task was chosen (Buchanan and

Huczynski, 2004, p.439). The work was divided in many simple repetitive tasks that

should be done in specific time in order to be efficient. These tasks could be carried

out not only by the former skilled craftsmen, but also by semi-skilled or unskilled

workers/assemblers performing just low grade tasks standing next to a single-purpose

machine. These single-purpose machines were the second innovation of Ford.

According to Buchanan and Huczynski (2004) they were called farmer machines

because it was very easy even for a farm boy without any skill to use them after a very

simple training. But the most important innovation of Henry Ford was the

introduction of the assembly line: A conveyor belt moving continuously in front of

the workers transferred the unfinished product from one worker to the other. This

enabled Ford to control the production by increasing the speed of the assembly line,

which is usually accompanied by a high degree of standardization of commodities

(Salaman, 1985, p.45). The introduction of the assembly line was so significant and

has affected so much the human life until today that many theories have been argued

about it. Blyton and Noon (1997, p. 105) claim that the assembly line has been

transposed into the service sector today. They give an example of the supermarket:

The customers items pass along the conveyor and are swept across the bar code by

an operator who performs a monotonous series of repetitive actions. In the Fordist

production system, the management (administration) is entirely responsible for every

simple task. As Dafermos claims (1999), the management possesses full power upon

the production procedure as well as upon the workers. The management is structured

strictly hierarchically, collectively and authoritatively. Bureaucracy emerges inside the

factory and all the decisions are made through bureaucracy. The work process is based

on discipline, obedience and constraint. In addition, Ford went further, introducing a

new method of labour control. This method was called the Five Dollar Day, and

marked a new era of labour management. It was a daily wage package but it was not

available to anyone. According to Litter (1982, p.57) the workers entitled to have a

right to Five Dollar Day should meet specific requirements: Six months

continuous employment, aged over 21, satisfactorily personal habits at home and

work (cleanliness and prudence) and no consumption of alcohol and tobacco. All

these criteria were checked by Fords newly established Sociological Department.

Litter (1982) adds that this aspect of Fordism enables us to see how relevant

Taylorism-Fordism is to paternalism. It is obvious, if we consider that the

management redoubled the daily wage of the workers but in this indirect way it aimed

to have the ultimate control on their demands. Generally, Fordism has been a very

successful and effective product system, which was up to the expectations of its era, as

it was advantageous to the mass production. But it passed the boards of the labour; it

was not restricted to factory work. It is self-evident that its effectiveness regarding

control, administration, surveillance, programming of the production by the factory

management and increase of the productivity has affected other sectors of the human

activity. As Toffler (1982) claims, education (schools), health system (hospitals), law

(prisons) and consequently state organisations and other services implemented work

division, structure, hierarchy and ruthless dehumanisation/depersonalisation. That is

why Litter (1982, p.204) states that the Five Dollar Day marked the beginning of

Fordism as an ideology.

3. The Fordism of Modern Times

Modern times was a movie that transferred the nature of Fordism in a very

characteristic and vivid way to the film. It was recorded in 1936, at the time that

Fordism enjoyed great prosperity. As we can see in Chaplin Today: Modern Times

documentary film (2003), in his 1931 world tour, Chaplin, after seeing the effects of

unemployment and of automation, devised his solution, based on a more equitable

distribution of work. His point of view was clear: Unemployment is the vital

question. Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it

out of work (Chaplin Today: Modern Times, 2003). In Modern Times the basic

hero is trying to face the problems of the 1930s, which are not much different from

nowadays problems and anxieties: poverty, unemployment, economic inequalities and

of course the tyranny of the machine.

The first frame of the film is an image of a clock. Its seconds-hand runs conspicuously

stressing without stopping, like the conveyor belt that Ford introduced to the

industry. Time and its proper use, was one of the most important factors of the fordist

system, as one of the principal purposes was to reduce the duration of each task in a

way that the production would be increased at the same time. As Durand, Stewart

and Castillo claim (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004, p.442), the timings were based on

time-and-motion method with little modification. This had not had always the

expected result. Sometimes it is very difficult for the workers to follow the conveyor

belt, as we can see during the in-factory scenes. An ironic juxtaposition follows: A

herd of sheep and a herd of people. Everyone is moving to one direction (to work),

without differentiation between each other, exactly as sheep do. Nobody can be

marked out, as they move like one body towards their boring, monotonous rest of the

day. But one sheep is black. This symbolizes that there is an exemption in every rule.

We can see later that in this particular case the exemption will be the protagonist.

Right afterwards we are transferred to the factory and to the managers office.

Surveillance and the presence of control as Buchanan and Huczynski describe it

(2004), is clear. The management determines how work is organized and how jobs

and work tasks are performed (Worthington cited in Knights and Willmott, 2007, p.

385). He can see every point of the factory and every movement using a monitor.

Through this monitor, he also gives orders to a worker responsible for the speed of the

machines. The manager calls this worker Man. This is something that shows how

impersonal the things are. On the shop floor, there is Chaplin as a worker. He is

behind the conveyor belt and tightens screws on the boards that pass in front of him.

There is no need for special skills to do his job. And of course he does not have to

think in order to do it. His movements are repetitive and have become robotic. But

the speed of the belt is very high. Not only for him, but for the other workers as well, it

is very difficult to follow it. There is no time for any interruption, not even to scratch

themselves. When Chaplin is bothered by a fly for no more than two seconds, he

misses some boards and this has an impact on the production and on the job of the

other workers. This is causing big tension in the shop floor and the process has to stop

many times, under the supervisors command. When it starts again, the speed is

increased for one more time and the workers are mere extensions of the machine, as

Branmann (2006) says. They do not think, nor do they pace control the motions of

their bodies. On the job they are not a human. Chaplin is substituted by another

worker and has one or two minutes to rest his body from the robotic, monotonous

movements. He will try to go for a cigarette in the bathroom; particularly he will

relight a cigarette that he didnt manage to finish in a previous break, probably. He

sits, trying to enjoy these few seconds but the Big Brother is there again. The

manager, who watches him even in the bathroom through the monitor, orders him to

go back to the shop floor. When the lunch time comes, as Chaplin holds the soup

plate of his colleague, he splashes it because his movements have become spastic. This

means one more reason for tension. Chaplin will be then chosen to be the guinea-pig

for the new feeding machine. Lunch breaks were of course waste and loss of time and

productivity (= loss of money) for the factories. So a very good invention for them

would be a machine that would feed the worker while he was still working near the

assembly line. One can say that even this feeding machine we can see in the film is a

miniature of an assembly line. Mechanic moves in specific times push the food into

Chaplins mouth. His hands can not be used. He has predetermined time to chew and

swallow before the wiper comes to his mouth. A mess follows, as the machine cant

work properly. It is not practical as the manager says to the inventor. That is ironic.

The meaning of this scene does not concern if the machine is practical or not, but

according to Branmman (2006) it is that human beings activities are ever more

subordinated to the requirements and rhythms of automatons. Even their most

personal acts, such as eating, are increasingly regulated and administered instead of

being spontaneous expressions of their nature. When Chaplin gets back to work, he

goes under a nervous breakdown. He gets on the conveyor belt and the most

characteristic scene of the film follows, as he is led inside some big cogwheels. He is

now truly trapped in the systems cogwheels. But even then, he tightens screws! After

this, he sees screws or buttons everywhere and he tightens or pushes them. He holds

an oil can and he splashes everyone, like the machines who need oiling. All the

workers, the supervisors and the manager run behind him to catch him, as he is

considered a mad man. But even in this mad situation with all the others running

behind him, Chaplin stops at the entrance to clock in and validate his card. Apart

from bureaucracy that comes automatically to our mind, we can see at this scene in

action how the system was completely inside the workers brain. Buchanan and

Huczynski describe (2004, p. 441) that control was both invisible and non-

confrontational. In other words, control was everywhere. It was the system, not the

supervisor that told the worker what to do and workers were no longer aware that

they were being directed.

A big part of the factory scenes concerns the alienating nature of work under the

Fordist system: As it was aforementioned, in the Fordist organization of labour there

is a clear separation of the conception from the execution. This means that others

think (management) and others execute (workers). By doing automatic, unconscious

movements, the executers miss not only the total view of the whole procedure and of

the product, but the control of their own work as well. In addition, there is another

aspect of work alienation, which has an impact on the workers psychology. According

to Kakabadse and Mottaz (Sarros et al., 2002) work alienation is a direct result of

structural conditions that limit the individuals autonomy and decision making.

Sarros et al. (2002) add that unable to exercise control over work activities,

employees experience feelings of powerlessness, meaningless and self estrangement.

Through these feelings the work process is led to degradation. This kind of feelings

and the psychological situation of Chaplin and his workmates are obvious in most of

the scenes analyzed above.

4. From modern Fordism to post-Fordism

Many of the metaphors that Chaplin uses in the film can easily capture todays

organization and nature of work. Apart from the psychological issues and the

employees perspective we can see on the film, which are very common in most of the

organizations today, there is no doubt that the surveillance is another similarity

between the film and current workplace. The rapid and contiguous development of

technology allows the management to act at will. There is not only the fact that most

of the organizations can use monitors to survey. The Information Technology staff

can have access anytime in the employees personal data. It can be seen what he/she

sends and receives, what he/she does, what programmes he/she uses and for what

purpose. According to Childs (2005, p.127) control through electronic surveillance

gives to an organization the chance to assess the employees performance against the

performance of the other employees. This monitoring is many times the basis for the

research departments in order to reward or to discipline the employees. Childs

(2005, p. 127) adds that by 1990, about ten million workers in the United States were

subject to electronic surveillance and managers were not excluded from this situation.

If we consider that it is 2006 and taking into account the rapid technological progress,

we can easily suppose what is happening today. As for the production/work/labour

process, there have been some changes in management and organizational practices,

but their differentiation extent from the traditional Fordism practices is controversial

and this is going to be examined below.

The last quarter of the 20th century has been characterized by many changes in the

world markets globally, caused by the political and social changes of this period. The

technological changes were very significant as well and that created a necessity for a

new production model, because as Lane claims (1995, p. 64) the existing production

model was pronounced to be unable to respond to the new problems and

challenges. Since then, the organizations were forced to find ways to change their

structures and the work itself. The era of post-Fordism had arrived. The differences

between post-Fordism and Fordism are enough, or were supposed to be enough. As

we will see later, some management theorists claim the new organizational forms of

post-Fordism are not what they cracked up to be (Worthington cited in Knights and

Willmott, 2007, p. 396). According to Swyngedouw (Harvey, 1990, p. 177-179), in the

production process we go from mass production and standardization to small

production and flexible, small batch production of a variety of product types. As for

the labour, from single task performance by the workers, we go to multiple tasks. No

or little on-the-job training transforms to long on-the-job training, as the no learning

experience of the fordist production gives its position to on-the-job learning method.

These changes are important because they determine the profile of the new worker

that is preferred by the management: a flexible, multifunctional worker who can be a

member of a flexible, multi-functional work team. Washington (1998, p. 17) indicates

that in post-Fordism the division into fractions of work happens with the attribution

of responsibility to the groups that fulfill a set of specific tasks (activities). Group

work is encouraged by the management. Womack et al. claim (Worthington cited in

Knights and Willmott, 2007, p.379) that there is a big difference between traditional

Fordism and new, post-Fordism organizational forms and inside the new, high-tech

environment, workers feel empowered to be responsible for planning, decision

making and problem solving in a way that the work becomes more interesting for

them and the organization becomes more competitive. On the other hand, many

sociologists like Oliver, Wilkinson and Sharpe (Worthington cited in Knights and

Willmott, 2007, p. 381) are opposed to this view, at the same time that other critical

theorists like Delbridge, Garrahan, Stewart and Wilkinson argue after research that

flexibility, team working and total quality management [] are designed first and

foremost to increase output, through cost-cutting (Worthington cited in Knights and

Willmott, 2007, p. 381). It is very interesting to take a look on the table of rhetoric

and reality of new production methods provided by Worthington (Knights and

Willmott, 2007, p. 382): Among many juxtapositions we can mark out that total

quality management is in reality doing more with less workers, or the supposed

flexibility means that the management can do whatever it wants. In addition, the

empowerment has turned out to making workers take risks and responsibilities with

rewarding them with status and the team working means in reality reduction and

control of individual discretion. Control is a fundamental, core process for new

organizational forms. Childs (2005, p. 112-136) analyzes its significance by dividing it

into strategic and operational and by classifying it into six strategies: personal

centralized, bureatric, output, HRM, cultural and control through electronic

surveillance. And he defines it as the use of power to secure the achievement of

specified goals through organized effort and through power, authority, expertise and

rewards.

As we have seen so far, it sounds more sensible to say that there is a mixed situation

where the traditional management practices have been joined by new techniques. That

is what Washington (1998) means when he says that old management procedures are

just adapted to the new social, political and educational needs. Undoubtedly the

fordist model of production has many differences from the post-fordist model, but

they concern the product more than the worker. Of course the production process is

different between the two models. For example outsourcing is a big difference, but it is

not so relevant to the workers treatment. Moreover, nobody can deny that in many

cases there have been many improvements regarding the conditions of work, the

wages, the workers exploitation and generally the circumstances (safety at work,

educational level of the workers etc.). But this is not absolute. This does not happen

everywhere and it would be very general if someone said a yes or a no, as there are

many different kinds of work (office work, factory work etc.). At the same time that

many workers are indeed better, many others are not. In both cases the consequences

on the employees remain the same and maybe worse than they traditionally used to

be. Because if we analyze the todays production process and its ideology, we will find

that there is no real evolution occurred. As Washington (1998, p. 16) states,

management, yesterday and today, aims to maximum rationalization of the

production system, greater increase in productivity, profitability and competition,

maintaining intact the older way of production. So, there is a chance for someone not

to search about any big differences between yesterdays and todays practices and their

impact on the employees. Changes in the production process dont occur

automatically by a machine. They are inextricably connected to the social changes.

Changes in education, in society, in consumers needs, in a societys targets. That is

proved by the fact that the post-fordist model is not catholic, but there are many

places in the earth where it does not even exist. For example, the fordist model in

textile manufacturing tends to vanish from Europe at the same time that it flourishes

in the developing countries where it continues to product not only for the needs of

these developing markets, but for the needs of the developed markets, as well.

5. pilogue

It is clear that the structures affect the forms and not the forms (affect) the structures.

And there are no optimistic signs that the societies want or will be allowed to change

their structures. Bravermans words in his Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974, p.

233), seem today more well-timed than ever, although they were written 32 years ago:

Workers, so long as they remain servants of capital instead of freely associated

producers who control their own labor and their own destinies, work every day to

build for themselves more modern, more scientific, more dehumanized prisons of

labor.

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