PART III
THE BEST POSSIBLE EFFECT
XIX
THE SATISFACTION OF ECONOMIC DEMANDS
Every economic function comes in contact with the mental life of man,
first from the fact that the work is produced by the psyche of
personalities. This gave us the material for the first two parts of
our discussion. We asked what mind is best fitted for the particular
kind of work, and how the mind can be led to the best output of work.
But it is evident that the real meaning of the economic process
expresses itself in an entirely different contact between work and
mind. The economic activity is separated from all other processes in
the world, not by the fact that it involves labor and achievement by
personalities, but by the fact that this labor satisfies a certain
group of human desires which we acknowledge as economic. The mere
performance of labor, with all the psychical traits of attention and
fatigue and will-impulses and personal qualities, does not in itself
constitute anything of economic value. For instance, the sportsman
who climbs a glacier also performs such a fatiguing activity which
demands the greatest effort of attention and will; and yet the
psychotechnics of sport do not belong in economic psychology, because
this mountain climbing does not satisfy economic desires. The ultimate
characteristic which designates an activity as economic is accordingly
a certain effect on human souls.
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