Having never watched Chaplin’s Modern Times, it met my expectations of being funny. But there was also a lot that I didn’t expect. The casual inclusion of drugs (yes, the use of which was accidental, but it was also completely free of ill consequences) was a bit surprising to me. The inclusion of the sheep being herded along was as unsubtle as it is timeless.
Modern Times is set during the Great Depression and this shapes the imagery to a certain extent. But I don’t think it is strictly a depression-era film. Its story really is a modern one, hence the obvious title. The confusing, repetitive, and maddening nature of the factory is a common theme in the modern industrialized era. Similarly, Chaplin’s desire to remain in prison expresses the yearning for security over freedom. Throughout the modern era, up to and including today, people all over the world have been willing to make the same trade. Freedom can be a scary thing. This is where Taylor comes in.
Taylorism is often associated with capitalism because it originated in America. But it’s not about capitalism, at least not entirely. It’s about science and the security of knowledge. It’s about being able to systematize all aspects of life, providing clear guidelines and best practices at all times.
One argument that Taylorism is about modernism more so than capitalism is that people like Lenin and Trotsky were big fans. If we make a brief checklist of Taylor’s ideas, it’s easy to see why. Briefly put,
- Taylorism claims to be a provable scientific theory
- Taylorism insists that most workers will not be able to understand all the science involved and would need to follow the instructions from the vanguard of management until they are properly educated
- Taylorism claims to be a guide not just to a particular industry, but a principle upon which every aspect of your life can be reorganized
- While not completely dismissing inborn differences in ability, Taylorism puts a premium on training and cultivation to improve all persons as much as possible
- Taylorism advocates standardization of all tools, methods, and results
Exchanging “Marxism-Leninism” for “Taylorism” doesn’t change the truthfulness of any of those statements.
My point is not to argue that Taylorism = Communism. It doesn’t. But Taylorism is not about any one political or economic system. It is about the ability of science to answer any and all questions, to provide the ‘proper’ way forward for solving any problem, to provide the optimum solution to any question.
Modern Times though, is a distinctively American and distinctively anti-Taylorist view of the modern world. I say it is distinctively American primarily because of the ending; no matter how bad things get, you can always pack up, hit the open road and try for a fresh start somewhere else. It is distinctively anti-Taylorist because there is little rational thought behind most of the decisions made by the protagonists; particularly the girl who runs away from the authorities after her father dies. Her choice of freedom over security is exactly the opposite of the choice that Chaplin considered making earlier. Likewise, she quickly convinces Chaplin to make the same choice for himself.
The prison system for Chaplin’s character was quite pleasant. He got food and a bed. This was much more than people who were struggling during the Depression got.
He didn’t really choose to go to prison but he did actively pursue going back.
So is freedom more important than security?
You make a good point about Taylorism being a guiding principle for a way of life rather than for a specific industry. I can see how the quest for efficiency and maximum production has become a part of virtually every endeavor in one’s day: “I have only so much time, how can I get everything done” type of thinking or “if I use my time better I can make more money” or “if I am more efficient, I will have more time to enjoy the money I make” Like any problem we face, Taylor got us to think that by taking out the emotional aspect and looking at the problem with a purely scientific approach, the solution seems so “easy”. Would that it were so.
I think you’ve nailed the concepts in Taylorism. The tendency of science for optimization at the expense of freedom and choice is repeated in Chaplin’s film. It is an interesting contradiction that a characteristic of modernity was the bewildering choices confronting society for the first time. Taylorism may have been an attempt to maintain control. Much of applied science seems to be innovations that reduce complexity and the number of choices we have to make.
I loved your observation about the freedom vs. security motif – I confess I hadn’t picked up on it, but it is definitely there. Last week I blogged about F.A. Hayek (and commented on him this week in Shawn’s blog). His magnus opus, The Road to Serfdom, is something of a commentary on freedom and organization. He was motivated to write that book because all of his colleagues – guys like Bertrand Russell, kept extolling the virtues of socialism. He had lived through the same rhetoric decades before in Austria before relocating to Britain. He felt compelled to set his colleagues straight. And he pointed out that the two virtues they valued most were freedom and organization, but points out the two values are in a struggle with one another.
I meant Chris’s blog