The
rather unusual title of this book is derived from Max
Weber's notion that the spirit of capitalism
envelopes our activities like an iron cage, that the
ubiquitous structure of technical rationality appears
as an iron cage to those who live in it. The subtitle
conveys more specifically Andrew's intention to
analyze the link of scientific management and
leisure: Are work and leisure mutually exclusive
spheres? Can individuals condemned to alienating
"scientifically managed" work environments
ever really function as free players in their
"free" time? Both the political left and
the right accept the thesis of
"leisure-as-compensation" but, in this
provocative new book, Ed Andrew explodes this myth
and raises the frightening prospect of scientifically
managed leisure the closing of an iron cage of
technological rationality.
After critically reviewing nineteenth- and
twentieth-century literature on the nature of work
and leisure, Andrew then addresses himself to two
subjects the growth of scientific management in the
industrial work force, and the consequences of that
growth for how workers spend their leisure time. He
asserts that not only does this insistence on
technological efficiency through more and more minute
divisions of labour deny workers' intelligence and
creativity at work, but also that it destroys their
ability to enjoy their time away from work. Nor does
he believe that more, and more enjoyable, leisure can
compensate for boring and denigrating work and
conservative claims by efficiency experts that
productivity is greatest when individual initiative
is minimized. He calls instead for worker
self-management that would give all workers the same
ability to create their jobs and to mingle leisure
and work a radical alternative to both scientific
management and technocratic socialism. Andrew
presents a well worked out economic and
organizational framework that could usher in a
society based on democratic self-management and the
unity of meaningful work and leisure.
"Andrew's dry and charming
wit, his ease in mingling linguistic analysis with
individual biography and sociological data, his
thoughtful and cogent distinctions, and his deep
concern for his subject make this book well worth the
reading. Enjoyable and impressive."
Ethics, Princeton University
"A
stimulating and thought-provoking analysis of how the
principles of scientific management in the work place
have been applied to the organization of leisure
time, resulting in a society increasingly bound
within an iron cage of technological rationality.
Represents a refreshing and theoretically important
contribution to leisure sociology by successfully
challenging many of its basic assumptions."
Contemporary Sociology
Table of Contents
Ed
Andrew teaches in the Department of Political Economy
at the University of Toronto, Ontario.
205 pages, index
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-128-3 $19.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-129-1 $48.99
December 1998
