The Dictionary of Human Geography

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systematic time-and-motion studies of the

labour processin American factories. The

core principle involved breaking down pro-

duction activities into their simplest, standard-

ized components and linking them in precisely

coordinated, closely supervised sequences.

This imposed a strictly disciplined choreog-

raphy on the workplace, a sort of mechanized

ballet, and workers often resisted its introduc-

tion. Taylorism was designed to enhance over-

all efficiency by reducing the scope of activity

of individual workers and optimizing the per-

formance of individual tasks, but the logic of

distinguishing between close supervision and

standardized activities also accentuated the

separation of conception and execution of

tasks in the workplace.

For this reason, analysts such as Braverman

(1974) have associated the widespread intro-

duction of Taylorist principles with the des-

killing or degradation of work. The result is a

distinctive occupationaldivision of labour,

in which unskilled workers execute simple,

repetitive shop-floor fabrication functions,

while skilled technical and managerial staff

perform functions related to research, product

design, process and quality control, coordin-

ation, finance and marketing. The economic

outcomes for workers depend on the wider

social and political context in which the pro-

duction systems are embedded. Under the

terms of classicalfordismin the USA and

western Europe, for example, the array of in-

stitutions governing collective bargaining and

wage determination increased the likelihood

that even unskilled workers might enjoy a de-

cent living and enjoy tolerable working condi-

tions. The application of Taylorist principles

elsewhere, in parts ofasia,africaandlatin

america, was not normally accompanied by

such institutional frameworks, however, lead-

ing to a more ‘primitive Taylorization’, based

on the ‘bloody exploitation’ of labour (Peck

and Tickell, 1994, pp. 286–7).

As Clark (1981) and others have observed,

during the postwar period, in which Taylorist

principles gained their widest acceptance,

large firms organized along Taylorist lines

would often segregate skilled and unskilled

functions in separate plants, producing a

spatial division of labour defined by the pre-

existing geography of labour supply, wage

rates and social relations (see also labour

geography). Subsequent methods of work or-

ganization associated withpost-fordismare

generally regarded as having reversed the task

fragmentation and separation of conception

and execution characteristic of Taylorism.

But Schoenberger (1997) and others suggest

that organizational innovations such as

just-in-time production were developed

by eliminating wasted time in production

through the use of precisely the same tools of

time-and-motion study pioneered by Taylor

himself. msg

teleology Teleological enquiry is motiv-

ated by the belief that there is an ultimate

purpose or design at work within the world,

and that all elements and events, whether we

are conscious of it or not, are pre-configured

to realize that purpose or design. The teleo-

logical end reaches back to explain everything

that precedes it. The origins of teleology lie in

Greekphilosophy, especially the writings of

Aristotle and the concept of a final cause,

which proposes that phenomena take on their

peculiar properties because they enable some

final end or purpose (telos) to be met. To use

Aristotle’s own example, humans do not see

because of a series of prior biological processes

that produce eyes; rather, eyes are produced in

order to meet the purpose of seeing. The

teleological end of seeing arranges biological

conditions such that eyes eventuate. As

Aristotle had it, ‘Nature adapts the organ to

the function, and not the function to the

organ.’

Teleology as a form of argumentation is

found in a diverse range of enquiry. It is per-

haps best known within Christian theology –

from St Thomas Aquinas’ (1225–74) five

proofs of God’s existence, to recent (unsuc-

cessful) arguments in the US court system to

justify classroom teaching of ‘intelligent de-

sign’. Within thehumanitiesand social sci-

ences, the teleological writings of the German

philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) have

been pivotal, in large part because of their

influence on others, especially Karl Marx

(1818–83). Hegel argued that human history

was teleologically directed to the unification of

spirit (Geist) and proceeded through a dy-

namic process of negation and contradiction

(thedialectic). At some historical juncture

(which Hegel said happened to be his own

time), the negations and contractions were

finally comprehended by individual human

minds as a unity, at which point the mandate

of history was fulfilled; history’s teleological

purpose was reached. Marx invoked a similar

teleology in his own historical scheme, also

propelled also by negation and contradiction.

But in Marx’s view, history was moved not

by contradictions of spirit becoming unified,

but by a set of contradictory physical–social

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_T Final Proof page 742 31.3.2009 9:40pm Compositor Name: ARaju

TELEOLOGY