ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at work design's recognition of the body and the mind and at the use of technologies for control over possible labour uprisings. It outlines a history of work design experimentation and resonant managerial ideologies, from industrial betterment through to the contemporary period of the agility management system characteristic of Industry 4.0. In each historical bloc, capital attempts to separate the manual from the mental to ensure class subordination or otherwise to attempt to obscure class and to identify inventive ways to measure and then profit from the surpluses in other forms of corporeal and affective, reproductive labour. In each historical era, the chapter looks at methods to exploit the surplus value of workers and at the requisite labour processes pursued. It discusses whether technologies can be appropriated for democratic workplaces and avenues for social change, or whether they may lead to a dark side of decreasing labour power.
