Such dissatisfaction arose when the factory system was introduced, and
it is only natural that some irritation should accompany the
introduction of psychological improvements in the methods of work,
inasmuch as not a few wage-earners may at first have to lose their
places because a small number of men will under the improved
conditions be sufficient for the performance of tasks which needed
many before. But the history of economics has clearly shown that from
the point of view of the whole community such an apparent disturbance
has always been only temporary. If the psychologists succeed in
fundamentally improving the conditions of labor, the increased
efficiency of the individual will promote such an enriched and
vivified economic life that ultimately an increase in the number of
laborers needed will result. The inquiry into the possible
psychological contributions to the question of reinforced achievement
must not be deterred by the superficial objection that in one or
another industrial concern a dismissal of wage-earners might at first
result. Psychotechnics does not stand in the service of a party, but
exclusively in the service of civilization.
To begin at the beginning, we may start from the commonplace that
every form of economic labor in the workshop and in the factory, in
the field and in the mine, in the store and in the office, must first
be learned. How far do the experiments of the psychologist offer
suggestions for securing the most economic method of learning
practical activities? Bodily actions in the service of economic work
are taught and learned in hundreds of thousands of places.
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