In Forces of Production , David Noble examines the transformation of the machine-tool industry as the industry moved from relian

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问题     In Forces of Production , David Noble examines the transformation of the machine-tool industry as the industry moved from reliance on skilled arti- sans to automation. Noble writes from a Marxist perspective, and his central argument is that management, in its decisions to automate, conspired against labor: the power that the skilled machin- ists wielded in the industry was intolerable to management. Noble fails to substantiate this claim, although his argument is impressive when he applies the Marxist concept of " de-skilling "—the use of technology to replace skilled laboi— to the automation of the machine-tool industry. In automating, the industry moved to computer-based, digitalized " numerical-control" (N/C) technolo- gy, rather than to artisan-generated "record-playback"(R/P)technology.
    Although both systems reduced reliance on skilled labor, Noble clearly prefers R/P, with its inherent acknowl- edgment of workers’ skills: unlike N/ C, its programs were produced not by engineers at their computers, but by skilled machinists, who recorded their own movements to "teach" machines to duplicate those movements. However, Noble’ s only evidence of conspiracy is
that, although the two approaches were roughly equal in technical merit, management chose N/C. From this he con- cludes that automation is undertaken not because efficiency demands it or scientific advances allow it, but because it is a tool in the ceaseless war of capitalists against labor.
According to information in the passage, the term "de-skilling" refers to the

选项 A、loss of skills to industry when skilled workers are replaced by unskilled laborers.
B、substitution of mechanized processes for labor formerly performed by skilled workers.
C、labor theory that automation is technologically comparable to skilled labor.
D、process by which skilled machinists "teach" machines to perform certain tasks.
E、exclusion of skilled workers from participation in the development of automated technology.

答案B

解析 从文中推出,“非技能化”指的是:此词在文中被明确解释过:L14—15破折号之间。∴B正确。机器化工作代替原由熟练技术进行的工作。A、C、D、E均不合原文解释。
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