Flat organizational hierarchies increase rather than reduce surveillance of workers

Evidence

As I have already indicated, there is no contradiction between ‘being smart’ and the increase of administration and regulation: they are two sides of labor in Control societies. Richard Sennett has argued that the flattening of pyramidal hierarchies has actually led to more surveillance of workers. ‘One of the claims made for the new organization of work is that it decentralizes power, that is, gives people in the lower ranks of organization more control over their own activities’, Sennett writes. ‘Certainly this claim is false in terms of the techniques employed for taking apart the old bureaucratic behemoths. The new information systems provide a comprehensive picture of the organization to top managers in ways which give individuals anywhere in the network little room to hide’. But it isn’t only that information technology has granted managers more access to data; it is that the data itself has proliferated. Much of this ‘information’ is provided by workers themselves. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 88

As I have already indicated, there is no contradiction between ‘being smart’ and the increase of administration and regulation: they are two sides of labor in Control societies. Richard Sennett has argued that the flattening of pyramidal hierarchies has actually led to more surveillance of workers. ‘One of the claims made for the new organization of work is that it decentralizes power, that is, gives people in the lower ranks of organization more control over their own activities’, Sennett writes. ‘Certainly this claim is false in terms of the techniques employed for taking apart the old bureaucratic behemoths. The new information systems provide a comprehensive picture of the organization to top managers in ways which give individuals anywhere in the network little room to hide’. But it isn’t only that information technology has granted managers more access to data; it is that the data itself has proliferated. Much of this ‘information’ is provided by workers themselves. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 88

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to earlier passages in this book on ‘being smart’ and Control-society labor; also resonates with the ‘computing as infrastructure’ knowledge base theme of surveillance. — connects to: The boundary between workplace and workforce surveillance is dissolving — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 229; Workplace access restrictions function as organizational control over worker attention. — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 32; Rising organizational complexity shifts power toward subordinates. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 799 (+3 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 88

Broader Connections

• Monitoring algorithms replace managers in enforcing work intensity #expands (0.80) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 117
• The boundary between workplace and workforce surveillance is dissolving #expands (0.75) — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 229
• Workplace access restrictions function as organizational control over worker attention. #qualifies (0.72) — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 32
• Rising organizational complexity shifts power toward subordinates. #complicates (0.72) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 799
• Surveillance is outsourced to unwitting casual laborers in exposed jobs #expands (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 173
• Surveillance is founded on asymmetries of knowledge and power #expands (0.70) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 254