Further Reading — Chapter 4: The Industrial Eye

Primary Sources

Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. Harper and Brothers, 1911.

Available freely online through Project Gutenberg and other public domain archives. Reading at least the first chapter and the concluding chapter is strongly recommended for understanding Taylor's own framing of his system. Taylor is a better writer than his reputation suggests, and his genuine passion for what he saw as a scientific solution to management problems comes through clearly. Note how he frames the interests of workers and management as aligned — and consider what that framing conceals.

Essential Secondary Works

Thompson, E.P. "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism." Past and Present 38 (1967): 56–97. *

The landmark essay establishing the distinction between "task-oriented" and "time-oriented" work and tracing the political significance of the industrial revolution's transformation of time into a commodity. Thompson's essay is essential reading for understanding the factory clock as a political instrument. Available through most academic library databases.

Braverman, Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. Monthly Review Press, 1974.

Braverman's analysis of deskilling — the systematic appropriation of workers' craft knowledge by management through the development of industrial techniques — remains the most comprehensive Marxist critique of scientific management. The book is somewhat dated in its empirical content (written before the digital transformation of labor) but its conceptual framework remains essential for understanding the power dynamics of workplace surveillance. The chapters on Taylor and the labor process are the most relevant to this chapter.

Rosenblat, Alex. Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. University of California Press, 2018. *

The definitive scholarly study of gig economy algorithmic management, based on extensive fieldwork with Uber drivers. Rosenblat demonstrates in granular detail how Uber's platform combines the functions of employer with the legal fiction of contractor independence, and how drivers navigate and resist algorithmic management. Essential reading alongside Case Study 4.1. Accessible and well-written for a scholarly work.

Kantor, Jodi, and Arya Sundaram. "The Rise of the Worker Productivity Score." New York Times, August 14, 2022. Available online.

An investigative journalism piece examining the expansion of algorithmic performance monitoring from warehouses and call centers into office and professional work. Profiles multiple workers whose experience of monitoring raises questions about dignity, stress, and trust. Provides a current empirical snapshot of the landscape described in this chapter.

Identification Surveillance

Cole, Simon A. Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification. Harvard University Press, 2001.

A comprehensive history of fingerprinting from Galton to the digital era, tracing the evolution of biometric identification as a law enforcement tool and examining the politics of how fingerprinting became the gold standard of identification. Cole includes a critical examination of cases where fingerprinting was misused or misinterpreted, relevant to the facial recognition accuracy discussion in Case Study 4.2.

Garvie, Clare, et al. The Perpetual Line-Up: Unregulated Police Face Recognition in America. Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology, 2016. Available online at perpetuallineup.org.

The landmark investigation of law enforcement facial recognition use in the United States, documenting the extent of facial recognition deployment and the near-total absence of regulatory oversight. The report's finding that one in two American adults are in a facial recognition database — primarily through driver's license photos — remains shocking. Free, well-documented, and directly relevant to Case Study 4.2.

Buolamwini, Joy, and Timnit Gebru. "Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification." Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81 (2018): 1–15.

The "Gender Shades" study documenting massive accuracy disparities in commercial facial recognition systems across race and gender. This research is the empirical foundation for the accuracy disparity discussion in Case Study 4.2 and is essential reading for anyone engaging with facial recognition in law enforcement contexts. Available freely online.

Labor and Surveillance

Zuboff, Shoshana. In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power. Basic Books, 1988.

Zuboff's earlier work — predating her more famous Age of Surveillance Capitalism — examines the introduction of computer technology into the workplace and its effects on worker knowledge, skill, and power. The book is prescient in analyzing how digital information technologies transform the worker's relationship to their own work. Particularly valuable for students interested in the transition from industrial to digital surveillance in the workplace.

Weil, David. The Fissured Workplace: Why Work Became So Bad for So Many and What Can Be Done to Fix It. Harvard University Press, 2014.

An examination of how large corporations have restructured employment relationships through franchising, subcontracting, and platform-mediated work — shifting risks and costs to workers while maintaining effective managerial control. Weil's concept of the "fissured workplace" is the economic structure within which gig economy algorithmic surveillance operates.

Documentaries

American Factory (2019). Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert. Higher Ground Productions / Netflix.

A documentary following the opening of a Chinese-owned auto glass factory in a former General Motors plant in Dayton, Ohio. The film provides a contemporary portrait of industrial workplace surveillance and management — including tensions over pace, monitoring, and labor relations — in a cultural collision between Chinese management practices and American worker expectations. Academy Award winner for Best Documentary.

Chapter 4 | Part 1: Foundations | The Architecture of Surveillance