Taylorism is Progressivism?

Kevin Carson is what some might call a Mutualist, or for the rest of us an apolitical type, not even on the spectrum of politics. In my view, this is what makes his writing so interesting. He has frequently contributed to libertarian and anarchist (not the Molotov cocktail variety, mind you, but rather peaceful anarchy, or as he might describe it, "Mutualism") writings over the years. At first he comes across as a strong advocate of lean principles, but eventually I have found that he tends to veer far away from calling his views "lean" at least in the sense that leansters would from a management point of view. In other words, I think he is extremely skeptical of lean principles being highly dependent on coercion and fear in the hands of managers raised in the current system.

Which leads me to his recent article Taylorism, Progressivism and Rule by Experts.  His latest article is published in The Freeman, an online magazine published by the Foundation for Economic Freedom. Essentially, Carson equates Taylorism to Progressivism, where industrial engineers who grew up to be managers, were eventually tied into the national scene of politics and corporatism - and inevitably tried to socially engineer conflict out of our organizations for the sake of government and market cooperation. Of course, from the anarchist, or at a minimum the libertarian, point of view, this is unacceptable market interference which is the root cause of business cycles and distortions - unintended events in the otherwise free market of exchange between individuals.

This expert-centric approach has long been a problem that I have suggested is the cause of Lean implementation failures and Carson suggests in my interpretation that the Taylorist approach is somewhere near the heart of progressivism and central planning. The Hopper brothers also blast away at the bedrock Cult of the Expert in their incredible The Puritan Gift. Of course, I mention this because the highly touted TWI program was influenced by the works of Taylor, Gilbreath, Mogenson, Flanders and countless others who Carson I suspect would consider agents of the state. Too much government influence makes one wonder if the demise of TWI after WWII is somehow related to this phenomenon. However, I'm also puzzled why such powerful skills were more or less extinguished from the national scene. Perhaps society was fatigued from decades of centralized planning imposed on them from government? If so, Carson and the Hopper brothers would certainly be thrilled to know that highly motivated leaders acted  on there own to teach the TWI J-skills to individuals around the world, keeping these extremely valuable skills alive and known for us today!