I’m never sure what to think about the 1619 project. I don’t doubt that the facts it gives are correct. But i always worry it is leaving things out.
To say that plantation owners did some things that are related to modern management is not the same as modern management having roots in slavery.
As an analogy, ancient rome had something like mutual life insurance through societies. But this is not the root of modern life insurance, which evidently actually started in the netherlands (as i recall) and spread to england. The same pattern of behavior was stumbled upon twice, once in antiquity and again in early modern times.
My understanding of scientific management is that it was started in the railroad industry, with the idea that it was supposed to enable workers to make a higher wage. There is almost a kind of naïveté to it, because it’s creator thought workers would welcome it as a way to increase productivity and wages. The unions didn’t see it that way.
To show it has roots in slave practices would require showing some kind of causation. It’s not enough to show they both involve control for more productivity. And it would also involve acknowledging the different moral intent of the two activities. This article does none of that.