4/26/19
Question: using Hicks and two other
books from the course, write about three examples of: What is the
importance of the treatment of workers of all sorts in in the
success or failure of completing a large practical project or
bringing the technology into widespread use. (Your examples don't
need to be brand new inventions.) Draw conclusions about why the
bringing into use of new technologies often leads to unfair
treatment of the people involved (for example workers).
steps:
- choose three specific examples from Hicks and 2 of the other
assigned books
- these should be examples of why a particular project or new
technology failed or succeeded
- for each example, discuss reasons for success or failure that
have to do with the treatment of workers (or other people
involved)
- draw a conclusion about why workers are often treated unfairly
when technologies are new
your thesis statement would be "Workers are often treated
unfairly when technologies are new because..."
your conclusion can speculate more, for example about whether this
is inevitable or whether we can recognize the pattern and do
better in the future
sample examples:
- from Freeman, the example of Chinese factories making iPhones:
this new technology succeeded because it could be made in very
large numbers at low labor cost. Workers were treated badly
because this was a new kind of work and no one thought about how
to regulate it or what the impact on the workers would be
- from Freeman, Ford's assembly line before 1929: assembly line
was a big success in making cars more cheaply because it
organized work efficiently and forced workers to work uniformly
and at a steady fast pace. Therefore, workers were unfairly
until they wouldn't work without better conditions (sometimes
strikes, sometimes just that turnover was too high)