Comments on Karl Marx’s Deskilling Theory

In 1951, Massachusetts Institute of Technology succeeded in designing an epoch-making lathe for the United States Air Force. The newly invented lathe was called a computer-aided or CNC machine tool. Use of this new technology spread quickly throughout industrialized nations and has altered the engineering industries, especially the skill requirements of skilled machinist workers. Most researchers have asserted that machinists’ skills became redundant with the introduction of CNC machine tools. Yet one can find arguments to the contrary. Karl Marx established deskilling theory and analyzed the impact of machines on the labor process. This paper seeks to scrutinize Book IV of Volume I of Das Kapital and to verify the validity of Marx’s deskilling theory