In spite of its enticing title, social scientists will find less in this volume than will the manager. Charles Savage examines the impact of “modernization” on “workers and their bosses at that critical juncture at which they attempt the difficult passage from a patronal culture to early Taylorism” (p. 12). The author selected three factories in and around Medellín, Colombia, in the 1960s to study social change in the workplace: a small rural pottery factory under traditional management techniques; a somewhat larger pottery factory where scientific management was being introduced; and a large textile industry in Medellín that had long employed Tayloristic production. Especially in the smaller settings, Savage offers excellent observations on workers’ interactions and cultural values. His findings focus on the importance of group and individual dynamics in the response to rapidly changing work conditions that quickly extended into the life of the community, twice through the shop’s football club. (This suggestive revelation, unfortunately, is not analyzed.) Not surprisingly, the varied character of managerial and worker leadership influenced tensions during periods of change in the productive procedure.
Students of David Montgomery will greet these observations without surprise. Resistance to Taylorism in the workplace was quite frequent in the United States; Savage has helped us follow a similar occurrence in contemporary Latin America. The most disappointing feature of Sons of the Machine is its repeated failure to relate change in the workshops to the communities in which they are located. Unlike June Nash, whose We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us fully recognizes workers within the community setting, Savage’s analysis of workers (all male) is all too often confined to the factory. In all fairness, workers are described with an admirable intimacy, but I was left with an unsatisfied appetite for more.
George Lombard has done a commendable job in assembling the book from notes, lectures, and teaching cases after Savage’s death.
