Abstract
Frederick Taylor’s work-study at Bethlehem Steel had demonstrated the value of careful selection in the recruitment of workers. One of the fundamental responsibilities of scientific management, he said, was to find the speediest and most competent workers fitted for the job. Selection of the fittest was doing a kindness to the others, he thought, since they would be miserable in a job they could not do so well. That they would have been even more miserable without work was hardly an issue for Taylor’s industrial Darwinism. Before Taylor, job selection was arbitrary and crude. After Taylor it began to develop disciplines.
’Tis labor indeed that puts the difference of value on everything.
(John Locke, 1632–1704)
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Notes
Quoted in Walter Dill Scott, Increasing Human Efficiency in Business, New York: Macmillan, 1911, p. 5.
Heinze Paechter, Karl O. Paetel, and Berta Hellman, Nazi-Deutsch: German-English Dictionary, New York: Office of European Economic Research, 1943.
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© 2010 Richard Donkin
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Donkin, R. (2010). Unnatural Selection. In: The History of Work. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230282179_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230282179_13
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