This conversation discusses Frederick Winslow Taylor's principles of scientific management, emphasizing the need to increase "national efficiency" by optimizing human effort, which is often wasted due to inefficient methods and a lack of proper training. Taylor argues that this inefficiency stems from both workers' natural tendency to "soldier" (work slowly) and management's ignorance regarding optimal work times, leading to antagonistic relationships. He proposes that systematic management, rooted in a true science with clearly defined laws and principles, can remedy these issues. This approach involves developing a science for each work element, scientifically selecting and training workers, fostering hearty cooperation between management and workers, and an almost equal division of work and responsibility, with management taking on more planning and teaching duties. Through detailed examples like handling pig iron, bricklaying, and inspecting bicycle balls, the text illustrates how these principles lead to significantly increased output, higher wages for workers, improved quality, and harmonious labor relations, ultimately demonstrating the superior efficiency of scientific management over traditional "initiative and incentive" methods.

The Principles of Scientific Management

This conversation covers Antony C. Sutton's "Wall Street Trilogy," (https://amzn.to/46lMS0O) argues that American financial interests played a significant, often overlooked, role in supporting and shaping various totalitarian regimes. It contends that Wall Street financiers, like those from J.P. Morgan and General Electric, provided financial and technical assistance to the nascent Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the Italian Fascist state, viewing these regimes as opportunities for economic exploitation and control rather than ideological adversaries. The text further suggests that figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt were deeply connected to these financial elites, and that his New Deal policies mirrored "corporate socialism," which centralized economic power. It also touches upon attempts by certain American business figures to establish a fascist-style government in the United States, and highlights how information regarding these connections was sometimes suppressed.

The Principles of Scientific Management

The Duke Report

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