Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Description labor syntactic
can be transferred to
information technology
(labor becomes process).
Search labor syntactic
can be transferred to
information technology
(labor becomes process).
Thus, description and search labor are more fully revealed as both seman-
tic and syntactic in character.
Summary
Our synthesis revealed a pattern of progressive development. Originally
undifferentiated categories such as labor and selection labor separate into
different aspects. The pattern revealed is essentially additive, congruent
with a broader conception that human history involves the cumulative
development of human capacities (Hobsbawm 1998, 41).
Figure 4.1 illustrates the central propositions underlying this discursive
exposition as a sequence of summary statements
3
. The order of the main
section in the discursive developments of the labor theoretic approach,
both in the full expositions in the earlier chapters and recapitulated here,
corresponds to the sequence of statements and can be mapped to it. The
logical connective of material implication is used to relate concepts and
activities distinguished, where it adds value to understandings obtainable
from ordinary discourse. Material implication was classically the most
difficult and productive of the logical connectives, and it emerges here as
a highly significant crux, particularly illuminating the production of selec-
tion power by selection labor.
To aid intelligibility, we present these central propositions in a diagram
restricted to the primitive terms, central proposition, and transformations
of selection labor (see figure 4.2). The diagram also incorporates support-
ing propositions but does not show them explicitly. Selection power is
given priority by its placement at the head of the diagram, where it rests
on selection labor. The submerged position of selection labor is congru-
ent with its congealing and disguise in its products and with its theoreti-
cal neglect. When exposed, selection labor significantly supports selection
power. If the line indicating the distribution of selection labor (between
description and searching) is understood as the beam of a balance or
scales, selection labor must be considered as a hinged or potentially bro-
ken beam. For instance, if description labor is not helpful to the searcher,
