Speaker 1: Section six of Technocracy by William Henry Smith. This LibriVox
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain, recorded by the Progressing
Speaker 1: America project Technocracy Section six working explosively versus Working efficiently,
Speaker 1: reprinted from Industrial Management, May nineteen seventeen. Between working efficiently
Speaker 1: and working ineffectively, there can be no question as to
Speaker 1: which is more desirable, nor would I raise any such issue.
Speaker 1: Working explosively is not an argument for inefficiency. Quite the contrary.
Speaker 1: The article, as I intended it, and as I think
Speaker 1: it indicates to the thoughtful reader, is merely a stop, look,
Speaker 1: listen signal, a hand raised, a suggestion to pause, pause,
Speaker 1: a moment to consider whether we are intelligently directing our
Speaker 1: efforts towards the end for which we seek, the goal
Speaker 1: for which we strive, the reward for which we all struggle.
Speaker 1: My own experience with life ranges through the whole gamut,
Speaker 1: from the coarsest forms of manual labor up to original
Speaker 1: constructive mental work, both as employed and employer, at the
Speaker 1: grind of working efficiently and the joy of working explosively.
Speaker 1: I have associated on terms of equality with hoboes, with laborers,
Speaker 1: with mechanics, and with captains of industry and finance, and
Speaker 1: far from being a socialist, I am individualistic to the
Speaker 1: nth degree. Thus my stop, look, listen, warning is based
Speaker 1: on facts and upon experience, not upon the fancies of
Speaker 1: an overwrought imagination. Importance of worker based upon this varied experience,
Speaker 1: The question I wish to raise involves the relative importance
Speaker 1: of the worker or his work, human worth or the
Speaker 1: products of human toil. Efficiency is no new invention. It
Speaker 1: is as old as intelligence itself. None realize efficiency so
Speaker 1: completely as the creative genius our darwins faradays Edisons and Fords,
Speaker 1: and none so completely practice and exemplify working explosively. Genius itself,
Speaker 1: we are told, is the capability for taking infinite pains.
Speaker 1: The art of efficiency proposes to substitute the shortcut of
Speaker 1: imitating efficient mechanical tricks for the toilsome process of becoming
Speaker 1: a mechanic. The explosive worker is a strenuous worker whose
Speaker 1: intense preoccupation is with accomplishing perfectly that predetermined end in
Speaker 1: which his interest is centered. He works with intelligent personal intention,
Speaker 1: driven by the explosive energy of his purpose. If he
Speaker 1: is driving rivets, he is driving them so that they
Speaker 1: will accomplish the objective intended. Working explosively is human purpose
Speaker 1: expressing itself through inanimate material. It is not the function
Speaker 1: of an unhurried, efficient human machine. Striking so many well
Speaker 1: directed blows in a definite time means personal energy. Working
Speaker 1: explosively means personal energy strenuously applied to the accomplishment of
Speaker 1: a personally desired result. Working explosively is not a matter
Speaker 1: of habit, instinct, or routine. It involves the concentration of
Speaker 1: all the faculties upon the work at hand to the
Speaker 1: end of producing the result desired. It is subconscious impulse
Speaker 1: raised to conscious effort of accomplishment. The efficiency expert joyously
Speaker 1: fills his godlike function as he shuffles numbered human hands
Speaker 1: and re arranges his human pegs into round or square holes,
Speaker 1: so that hands and pegs shall contribute most efficiently to production.
Speaker 1: But soulless pegs in automaton hands which will passively stay put,
Speaker 1: are somewhat different factors from men and women with personal
Speaker 1: likes and dislikes and smoldering passions which must explode either
Speaker 1: in work or war. Hence industrial unrest and warfare. The
Speaker 1: art of efficiency is merely a new name for an
Speaker 1: old and very dangerous form or misdirection of effort. The
Speaker 1: essential question is not how many more billion dollars worth
Speaker 1: of product can be made or saved, but how many
Speaker 1: more million human beings can express themselves in the direction
Speaker 1: of personal accomplishment. And in my view, this latter course
Speaker 1: is the more logical and the more likely one to
Speaker 1: produce the former results indirectly through the interest of the
Speaker 1: worker than directly through the efficient control of his action
Speaker 1: outside worker. Working efficiently assumes control outside of the worker,
Speaker 1: directing his actions and efforts toward a purpose in the
Speaker 1: mind of the controller. Working explosively assumes control inside of
Speaker 1: the worker, directing his action and energy towards an interesting outcome.
Speaker 1: In a broad sense, one is autocracy and the other democracy.
Speaker 1: Imperfectly but significantly. Germany and the United States represent these
Speaker 1: two opposite ideals of human activity. The one represents efficient working,
Speaker 1: the other accrude and embryonic form of working. Explosively one
Speaker 1: makes for mechan banistic efficiency, the other for human liberty.
Speaker 1: Hopefulness is a personal quality. It cannot exist in connection
Speaker 1: with work in the outcome of which the worker is
Speaker 1: not interested, and hopefulness is a fundamental factor in working explosively.
Speaker 1: Working explosively and working efficiently express only imperfectly the underlying idea.
Speaker 1: In each, in essence, they imply two opposite ideals. In
Speaker 1: the former, emphasis is placed upon the worker, In the latter,
Speaker 1: emphasis is placed upon the work. To my way of thinking,
Speaker 1: the two points of view are essentially antithetical. Of course,
Speaker 1: the only way of bringing about the welfare of humankind
Speaker 1: is on the basis of right and justice. But who
Speaker 1: shall determine these momentous spasies, you or I the efficiency expert,
Speaker 1: or the pegs which he rearranges into round or square holes,
Speaker 1: the employer or the employed. Conflict exists. To close and
Speaker 1: pretend that there is no conflict between employer and employed
Speaker 1: is futility itself. To say that the interest of these
Speaker 1: is mutual, when the employer has all of the joy
Speaker 1: of working explosively and the employed all the grind of
Speaker 1: working efficiently, is equally futile. I gurd neither against employer
Speaker 1: nor employed. My proposition is from the joy of the work,
Speaker 1: working explosively, come better men, more worthy citizens, and greater commonweal.
Speaker 1: I hold that a human being, human personality is of
Speaker 1: infinitely more consequence than the product of the hands and brain.
Speaker 1: That a true ultimate efficiency implies the liberation of man,
Speaker 1: rather than the efficient control of his actions. That the
Speaker 1: ultimate well being of all implies not the intelligent control
Speaker 1: of passively efficient human elements, but the liberation of men
Speaker 1: and women to purposeful joy of working explosively. Fernwald Berkeley,
Speaker 1: March nineteen seventeen. Is the efficient control of men more
Speaker 1: desirable than freedom? End of Technocracy? Section six. End of
Speaker 1: Technocracy by William Henry Smith