War mechanization broke skilled work into stages manageable by unskilled labor

Evidence

Wartime states seized control of the supply of labor to tackle the problem of manpower shortages. A basic step in this direction was to expand the pool of available workers through the process of dilution: i.e., the introduction of unskilled labor, including women, in jobs formerly reserved for skilled men. As mentioned, dilution is integral to capitalist production where the competition among capitalists and the pressure from workers induces the capitalist constantly to cut costs by technological innovation and more effi cient reorganization of the labor process. During the war, countries greatly boosted this tendency through increased mechanization of production, which broke the work process into simple stages that less skilled workers could manage. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 168

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘dilution’ — the wartime process of substituting unskilled labor (including women) for skilled male workers by mechanizing and subdividing the work process.
• XREF: connects to: Industrialized labor destroys manual skill and familiarity with things — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2307; Wartime expansion created an unskilled workforce ripe for radicalization — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 171; Wartime labor dilution broke skilled jobs into stages unskilled workers could handle — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 168