The roman public building industry: challenging the terminology and application of post-Fordism

The primary evidence from the Roman building industry under the period of the Empire (AD14-565) demonstrates that the high level of skill held by tradesmen (all building and construction workers were male) promoted worker control over their tasks and that this control was increased because of the various layers of supervision on the building site which effectively distanced managerial control from the workers at the site. This is contrary to the deskilling hypothesis put forward by sociologists and ancient historians writing about Roman workers. It also suggests that aspects of the French Regulation School and post-Fordist theses are more applicable to the Roman world of two millennia previously than to the globalized market conditions of the 1990s and later for which they were developed. This is also contrary to the ideas of what constitutes a pre-industrial society and pre-industrial modes of production.