called attention to by Professor John E. Commons, which tend to strengthen and emphasize the labor problem generally.[1]
A moment's reflection will reveal the significance of this modern movement toward greater efficiency. When we realize that according to experts only from 20 to 60 per cent, efficiency has up to the present time been secured in the average industrial plant we are almost staggered when we think, not only of the effect that has been wasted in the past, but of what will be possible in the future when this energy is rightly directed in the actual work or production. In fact, it would seem that, were one half the effort and thought we make to secure efficiency in things outside of ourselves directed toward the securing of greater efficiency of human units, there would evolve within a few generations a race almost of supermen. So with the rise of those whose business it is to secure efficiency from labor—whose specialty is the gaining of cooperation, frankness and well-directed efforts through a study of what has been called "shop psychology" it is wholly possible, if not indeed probable, that a combination with mechanical efficiency may be affected that may well alter the entire aspect of industry, and, mayhap, usher in a new stage in industrial evolution.[2]
Treatments of industrial efficiency up to the present time have, in the majority of instances, been lacking for one of two reasons, either they have overlooked the very human instincts of the employer or they have assumed an inherent antagonism between the interests of the laboring class, as typified in unionism, and efficiency systems that could not be overcome. Let us examine efficiency systems from the point of view of these facts.
The apathy (or active opposition in some instances) on the part of many employers to modern systems of industrial efficiency may be traced to one of two causes. On the one hand, there frequently exists a confusion between low individual wage cost with low total wage cost. Or, on the other hand, the difficulty that has hitherto existed of measuring with any degree of accuracy the efficiency of individual workmen has undoubtedly worked against a more universal adoption of the plan. Each of these facts will bear some notice beyond mere mention.
The costs of a manufacturing concern may be roughly separated
- ↑ See also the writer's "Economic Basis of the Fight for the Closed Shop," Journal of Political Economy, November, 1912, especially p. 952.
- ↑ The truth of this statement will appear when the full intent of the measures to develop labor efficiency are considered. The efficiency engineer has more in mind than the mere invention of a new wage system—his work consists equally in securing good housing, relief from monotony, a fair living wage—in a word, in what may be termed social, labor legislation. The fact that he is interested from the point of view of the employer does not alter the significance of his work. More will be said of this later.
