Science in Public Affairs 



This general criticism may sound vague. Let 

 me give it clearer meaning by allusions to admitted 

 wastes, which arise from weakness or misdirection 

 of motive. Why do most workers fail to gain the 

 full efficiency of which they are capable ? Why 

 do they habitually withhold a large amount of 

 the productive energy they are capable of exerting 

 upon the level of their actual efficiency ? Why 

 is there so much loss of energy from defective 

 co-operation between the different workers and the 

 different departments in most businesses ? Why 

 do employers expend so much brain-power and 

 time in the organisation, not of production, but 

 of competition ? Why do they find it necessary 

 to stop or slacken the producing-power of the 

 capital and labour they have at their command ? 

 Every one of these wasteful actions implies a 

 motive, and we can only understand or remedy 

 these actions by analysis of these motives. In- 

 dividual analysis will serve little : the workman 

 who withholds his labour-power, the employer 

 who slows down his mill, acts from a quite intel- 

 ligible motive of self-interest, the knowledge of 

 which does not carry us far towards the analysis 

 we seek. The forces of human motive which are 

 responsible for waste are social forces, not ex- 

 plained as a mere addition of individual motives, 

 though they operate through individual wills ; and 

 they must be studied in their collective character 

 as the psychical counterparts of the co-operation 

 of physical forces, human and mechanical, which 

 forms objective industry. The theory of objective 



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