But even if the superfluous,
unfit, and interfering movement impulses were eliminated and the
conditions of work completely adjusted to the demands of psychology,
there would still remain a large number of possibilities through which
productiveness might be greatly decreased, or at least kept far below
the possible maximum of efficiency. For instance, even the best
adapted labor might be repeated to the point of exhaustion, at which
the workman and the work would be ruined. Fatigue and restoration
accordingly demand especial consideration. In a similar way emotions
may be conditions of stimulation or interference, and no one ought to
underestimate the importance of higher motives, intellectual,
aesthetic, and moral motives, in their bearing on the psychophysical
impulses of the laborer. If these higher demands are satisfied, the
whole system gains a new tonus, and if they are disappointed, the
irritation of the mental machinery may do more harm than any break in
the physical machine at which the man is working. In short, we must
still look in various directions to become aware of all the relations
between the psychological factors and the economic output. We may
begin with one question which plays a large, perhaps too large, role
in the economic and especially in the popular economic literature. I
refer to the problem of monotony of labor.
In the discourses of our time on the lights and shades of our modern
industrial life, all seem to agree that the monotony of industrial
labor ought to be entered on the debit side of the ledger of
civilization.
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