Rise of the robots

The de-skilling thesis associated with Harry Braverman’s classic work of labour process analysis, Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974) is a staple of organizational sociology (see p.36 of my book). I suppose, though, that it has come to be seen as rather dated in part, perhaps, because its Marxist framework was deemed obsolete when the Berlin Wall fell and the ‘end of history’ was proclaimed. Well, history has turned out not to be over and the triumph of globalised free-market capitalism that seeme