The assembly line at Ford and transportation platforms: A historical comparison of labour process reorganisation

Abstract

This paper provides a historical comparison of the introduction of the moving assembly line at Ford Motor factories in the early 20th century, with the development of transportation platforms in the 21st century. The paper pushes back against the argument that either of these cases was based upon technological innovation, arguing that in neither case was new technology developed, but rather existing machinery was made use of. The paper argues that each case was built upon the reorganisation of the labour process, to increase the control that capital held over the labour process, increase the intensity of work and increase the levels of exploitation and surplus value extraction that workers are subjected to. By demonstrating this, it removes the technological façade that contemporary platforms hide behind, showing that they do not represent a qualitative break from the past, but rather the repackaging of old forms of work intensification.