[2005fa:1676]

This question <1660|1841> overall <1675|1677> MK: <1670|80>.

Term Paper 821: Comments about Essay about Chapter Twenty-One: Piece Wages

[1676] MK: Chp 21-- comments. In response to your paper-- which I enjoyed reading-- I added (or interjected) some comments that I feel are additional important points made in the chapter.

One of the great attractions of piece work and piece wages (to capitalists) is that with piece rates set low enough, very little supervision is required. In order to earn a living wage workers must work hard, fast and well enough to produce an adequate quantity of pieces -irrespective of supervision. The cost of supervision is passed from the capitalist to worker as they internalize the discipline of piece work and impose/enforce labor upon themselves-- the piece workers pay the psychological costs not only of alienation but of the hour-to-hour experience of imposing that alienation upon themselves.

That piece wages reduce the need for direct supervision doesn't mean that workers are left entirely on their own. With standards set for the number of pieces produced (thus the time and intensity of work), the capitalist must make sure that the workers don't create the illusion of having met that standard by working fast but producing sub-par products. Hence the need for quality control. In any piece work situation, there must be quality control inspectors who examine the quality of the pieces produced to make sure that the quality as well as the amount and intensity of work time are up to par. If the number of pieces being produced is large, then it is commonplace for only a random sample to be checked for quality. If the number is small, all can be checked. Under such circumstances capitalists try to organize the work so it is obvious which worker produced which piece - a step necessary to be able to identify those responsible for not meeting quality standards.

Hans: Which paper were you replying to?