In order for one to broadly understand the concept of disciplinary revolution, we have to
regard modern labour management development techniques outside Europe and its
significance. This helps to allocate the origins of modern labour management.
This essay will explore Marcel Van der Linden suggestion and arguments regarding modern
labour history, the fact that the most important innovations came out from a different place
(particularly in colonies in an effort to contain and direct labour held in servitude) as
mainstream history generally assumes, these conceptions existed long before Industrial
revolution and such cognition of these innovations circulated globally.
Generally modern labour management origins have been historically associated with Europe
and North American factories during the Industrial revolutions which are the 1st and the 2nd
revolutions, it is said to have been in existence for almost a thousand years and with the
reason being that without the rational synchronisation of labour processes, large-scale
projects like the Egyptian pyramids or China's Great Wall would never have been
achievable.1 However, modern labour management started in the middle of the 18th century
with the birth of the factories and their capitalist logic unlike the pyramid builders, the new
managers were able not only to demonstrate their own efforts to produce absolutely such
goods but also to compare them to costs and to market them competitively with the result
being modern time management, technical training, and other innovations. Further significant
changes occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century, primarily in the United States,
leading to the introduction of Scientific Management.2 In the nineteenth century,
criminologists started to study the similarities between prisons and factories. 'The technical
mutations of the apparatus of production maintained an ensemble of very similar ties,' as
Michel Foucault claimed. A growing number of studies looked into the parallels that exist
between military and industrial discipline.3
Two hidden assumptions continued to form the basis of an approach to labour management
history. Firstly, the paradigm was strongly internalist because North Atlantic developments
were clarified by North Atlantic developments, all major advances started in USA, Germany,
France and Britain. Secondly, unfree labour has received little consideration from historians
there was a great deal of emphasis on "free" labour. 4
1
Marcel,Van der Linden, Re-constructing the origins of modern labor management (Labor History,2010) 510
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
regard modern labour management development techniques outside Europe and its
significance. This helps to allocate the origins of modern labour management.
This essay will explore Marcel Van der Linden suggestion and arguments regarding modern
labour history, the fact that the most important innovations came out from a different place
(particularly in colonies in an effort to contain and direct labour held in servitude) as
mainstream history generally assumes, these conceptions existed long before Industrial
revolution and such cognition of these innovations circulated globally.
Generally modern labour management origins have been historically associated with Europe
and North American factories during the Industrial revolutions which are the 1st and the 2nd
revolutions, it is said to have been in existence for almost a thousand years and with the
reason being that without the rational synchronisation of labour processes, large-scale
projects like the Egyptian pyramids or China's Great Wall would never have been
achievable.1 However, modern labour management started in the middle of the 18th century
with the birth of the factories and their capitalist logic unlike the pyramid builders, the new
managers were able not only to demonstrate their own efforts to produce absolutely such
goods but also to compare them to costs and to market them competitively with the result
being modern time management, technical training, and other innovations. Further significant
changes occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century, primarily in the United States,
leading to the introduction of Scientific Management.2 In the nineteenth century,
criminologists started to study the similarities between prisons and factories. 'The technical
mutations of the apparatus of production maintained an ensemble of very similar ties,' as
Michel Foucault claimed. A growing number of studies looked into the parallels that exist
between military and industrial discipline.3
Two hidden assumptions continued to form the basis of an approach to labour management
history. Firstly, the paradigm was strongly internalist because North Atlantic developments
were clarified by North Atlantic developments, all major advances started in USA, Germany,
France and Britain. Secondly, unfree labour has received little consideration from historians
there was a great deal of emphasis on "free" labour. 4
1
Marcel,Van der Linden, Re-constructing the origins of modern labor management (Labor History,2010) 510
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
