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

admin2010-09-10  55
问题     In Forces of Production, David Noble examines the transformation of the machine-tool industry as the industry moved from reliance on skilled artisans 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 machinists 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 labor--to the automation of the ma chine-tool industry. In automating, the industry moved to computer-based, digitalized "numerical-control" (N/C) technology, 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 acknowledgement 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 concludes 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.
The author of the passage commends Noble’s book for which of the following?
选项 A、Concentrating on skilled as opposed to unskilled workers in its discussion of the machine-tool industry
B、Offering a generalization about the motives behind the machine-tool industry’s decision to auto mate
C、Making an essential distinction between two kinds of technology employed in the machine-tool industry
D、Applying the concept of de-skilling to the machine-tool industry
答案D
解析 细节题。作者在哪点上赞扬了N的书? A．做了熟练与非熟练工人对比。文中无。B．给出自动化后的隐含动机。巴给出两种技术的主要差别。B、C都是Noble所做的，但这两项作者在原文都不以为然。D．正确，使用机器工业中的“非技能化”这一概念。见原文第一段第三句，impressive是褒义词。
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