Quantity over quality part 3
I’m a bit of a history nerd. Okay, a big history nerd. I was reading Slavery’s Capitalism this week and it had me thinking about the roots of some of our business practices today and the relationship with quantity over quality. The first three chapters of the book are about plantation technologies. I read the first two chapters, Chapter 1. Toward a Political Economy of Slave Labor: Hands, Whipping-Machines, and Modern Power by Edward E. Baptist and Chapter 2. Slavery’s Scientific Management: Masters and Managers by Caitlin Rosenthal.
From chapter one, I took away the tactics that slave owners and overseers used to push for more production and effort were tied to physical and mental abuse. For example, in an effort to increase production from the slaves, overseers would set production quotas by the pounds. If you did not meet your quota you could face a lash with a whip per every pound below the quota. In setting the quota, the overseers and slave owners would some times run a competition between the slaves to see how fast and how much they picked cotton or plowed fields and other common tasks. This was done to see how much more they could get out of the slaves and set the quotas higher. With these competitions the winning slave my get a straw hat or something of the sort. Incentive that was just enough to want to competed and work hard to win. Unfortunately, like today, they had quota type competitions and “good” managers are ones that can get the most out of their workers. Reading the historical accounts of this made my stomach churn and makes me question conversations and actions I’ve had as a manager or people.
In chapter two, they go more in-depth on the accounting system used in slavery by Thomas Affleck. As noted by Caitlin Rosenthal, “The power of planters over their slaves also gave them power as managers. The ‘control’ of slavery contributed to the development of the metrics that would later be called ‘management controls.’ The soft power of quantification complemented the driving force of the whip.” The chapter highlighted the use of quantifying process in ways that viewed human beings as commodity.
Reading these two chapters alone, has me questioning tactics and strategies I’ve been taught these tactics are not only normal but the most effective. When they turn humans to commodity, they can’t be that effective unless your only goal is money and power.
