Psychological Assumptions and Utopian Aspirations: A Critique of Work in America.

This article reviews "Work in America: Report of a Special Task Force to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare" (1973). A primary recommendation of the report is that job enlargement efforts may aid employee alienation concerns. The article focuses on the scientific position of the job-design piece of the report, including issues of self-esteem, identity, and sense of order. A discussion of job enrichment as a solution to self-esteem problems is presented in terms of science and then politics. The author suggests that the writer of the report wants to solve problems of individuality and powerlessness through social action.