In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

ASSEMBLY LINES 23
of labor-among individual workers, and between the workers' bodies
and a mechanical device. During the production process, however, this
complex machine excludes the worker's mind. The worker is not supposed
to speak to his colleagues (very often the noise in the factory and
the distance between the workers make such communication even physically
impossible). The less individualized (i.e., the more standardized) the
workers' movements are, the better they fit into the overall production
process and the more they contribute to its efficiency. No single workerand
not even the total group of workers on the line-can claim to be the
creator of the product they manufacture.
Stereotypical depictions of industrial production make two recurrent
associations between the assembly line and its environment. The bodies
that are shown coupled to the assembly line are exclusively male,
whereas women appear either sitting in front of individual production
tables or performing assembly work at home (von Soden and Schmidt,
32ff.). Interestingly, however, women can be associated with the products
that are serially manufactured on assembly lines. A German cartoon
presents a kick-line of revue girls (the most famous group in Germany
being the Tiller Girls) emerging from a factory building on an assembly
line. The caption makes it clear that the role of the producer, which has
been usurped from the workers, is now occupied by another male subject:
"Ford takes over the production of Tiller Girls" (Jelavich, 182). [see
Revues] More than in any other branch of production, assembly lines
pervade the car industry-even in France where industrial technology is
just beginning to catch up with American, English, and German standards
(Annees-memoire, 174). This association of cars with the assembly
line supports its discursive function as a metonym not only for the most
advanced industrial technology but for a much-debated double paradox
at the center of capitalism. As a rationalization of production [see Sobriety
vs. Exuberance], the assembly line makes it possible to raise wages
and, simultaneously, to lower the market prices of products. Seen from
this first paradoxical angle-which is the frequently quoted angle of
Henry Ford (Lethen, 20ff.)-the workers' alienation from the product,
as it is imposed upon them by the new mode of production, seems to
increase their chances of purchasing a car. [see Automobiles] An article
in the Berliner Tageblatt of August 8 on "worktime in America" draws
what appears to be the logical conclusion of such reasoning: the more