Match the following thinkers (List-I) with their major ideas (List-II).
| List-I (Thinker) | List-II (Idea) |
| (A) Harry Braverman | (I) Work is broken down into its smallest repetitive elements and divided between workers |
| (B) Mahatma Gandhi | (II) Machinery de-skills workers |
| (C) Karl Marx | (III) Machinery helps to increase production, but will eventually replace workers |
| (D) Frederick Winslow Taylor | (IV) Workers produce only one small part of a product which makes the work repetitive and exhausting |
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → (A)-(II), (B)-(III), (C)-(IV), (D)-(I)
(A) Harry Braverman — this matches (II) Machinery de-skills workers. Braverman argues that the use of machinery actually deskills workers; architects and engineers once had to be skilled draughtsmen, but now the computer does much of that work for them.
(B) Mahatma Gandhi — this matches (III) Machinery helps to increase production, but will eventually replace workers. Machinery raises production but creates the danger that machines will replace workers; Gandhi saw mechanisation as a danger to employment and offered the spinning wheel as the answer.
(C) Karl Marx — this matches (IV) Workers produce only one small part of a product which makes the work repetitive and exhausting. In industry people often produce only one small part of a product, and the work is repetitive and exhausting; Marx called this situation alienation.
(D) Frederick Winslow Taylor — this matches (I) Work is broken down into its smallest repetitive elements and divided between workers. Taylor’s system of ‘Scientific Management’ (the 1890s) broke all work down into its smallest repetitive elements and divided them between workers, who were timed with stopwatches.
Note 1: The match for Taylor comes from the section on Taylor’s ‘Scientific Management’ in the chapter ‘Change and Development in Industrial Society’. This portion was there in the pre-rationalised NCERT; it has been deleted from the NCERT book (2025-26) (and was not in the 2023-24 NCERT either), though the chapter is still there and still speaks of ‘Taylorist’ labour processes.
Note 2: One item fits more than one entry:• (C) Karl Marx → both (III) and (IV). Both Marx and Mahatma Gandhi saw mechanisation as a danger to employment, which is the idea of (III); Marx’s idea of alienation, where workers produce only one small part of a product, is (IV).
NCERT (2025-26): “5.1 Images of Industrial Society … Industrialisation involves a detailed division of labour. People often do not see the end result of their work because they are producing only one small part of a product. The work is often repetitive and exhausting. Yet, even this is better than having no work at all, i.e., being unemployed. Marx called this situation alienation, when people do not enjoy work, and see it as something they have to do only in order to survive, and even that survival depends on whether the technology has room for any human labour.” “5.4 How is work carried out? … There are two main ways of making workers produce more. One is to extend the working hours. The other is to increase the amount that is produced within a given time period. Machinery helps to increase production, but it also creates the danger that eventually machines will replace workers. Both Marx and Mahatma Gandhi saw mechanisation as a danger to employment.…” “…Both are skilled but in different ways. The famous sociologist, Harry Braverman, argues that the use of machinery actually deskills workers. For example, whereas earlier architects and engineers had to be skilled draughtsmen, now the computer does a lot of the work for them.…” NCERT (Pre-rationalised): “Another way of increasing output is by organising work. An American called Frederick Winslow Taylor invented a new system in the 1890s, which he called ‘Scientific Management’. It is also known as Taylorism or industrial engineering. Under his system, all work was broken down into its smallest repetitive elements, and divided between workers. Workers were timed with the help of stopwatches and had to fulfil a certain target every day.…” |