SECTION 31. CONCLUSION CONCERNING CONCLUSIONS. 409 



standardisation of the processes of discovery, and the radical 

 reconstruction of industrial processes will suggest the radical 

 reconstruction of the general methodological process. Who 

 knows whether the waste of mind in scientific research is not 

 as great and detrimental at present as the waste of life under 

 the existing economic regime ? The two movements are, there- 

 fore, complementary, and destined to promote to a high degree 

 each other's ends. 



Perhaps a word should be said regarding the scope of the 

 efficiency movement. It has been suggested that it constitutes 

 a revolutionary advance analogous to that of the introduction 

 of machinery in the closing years of the eighteenth century. 

 It differs, however, from the latter in several respects. Ma- 

 chinery, as in the textile and printing industries, increases 

 production sometimes more than a hundredfold, whilst, leaving 

 aside the higher reaches, the former can scarcely be said to 

 compare favourably in this respect: it may, speaking broadly, 

 increase the general productivity of our day three times under 

 favourable circumstances. On the other hand, whereas ma- 

 chinery is greatly restricted in scope, the efficiency movement 

 applies to every activity whatsoever. What it therefore misses 

 in intensity, it gains in extensity. The universality of its appli- 

 cability therefore differentiates it from machinery. At the same 

 time, in its higher reaches, it prodigally contributes to inventions 

 and new machinery, and therefore indirectly rivals machinery 

 in productivity. Moreover, and this represents another crucial 

 differentiation, the efficiency movement demands perfect physi- 

 cal fitness and decided mental preparation and satisfaction in 

 the worker, and thus abolishes for ever industrial exploitation 

 and intellectual inertia and obtuseness. Machinery, plus effi- 

 ciency, form hence the terminus of economic progress on the 

 higher as well as on the lower planes. 



As a remarkable instance, illustrating the application of 

 science to industrial matters, we may regard the part played 

 by index numbers in (a) authoritatively fixing for a whole 

 country the relative increase or decrease in the cost of living, 

 and (b) forming the universally accepted basis for raising or 

 lowering wages in sympathy with the fluctuating cost of living. 

 Already, however, statisticians are beginning to move a step 

 further in order to decide on a minimum health-and-decency 

 standard of living which shall form an objective guide for fixing 

 "real" wages. Thus one of the most vital industrial problems, 

 the solution of which in any particular case was normally se- 

 cured at one time by the operation of casual prejudices and 

 crude speculation, is coming to be solved by the application 

 of a universal and purely scientific criterion. Nor is this all. 

 The attainment of a certain standard of living is conditioned 

 by a certain standard of individual productivity. Hence efforts 

 are beginning to be made to arrive at an average unit or in- 



