The creation of wealth; modern efficiency methods analyzed and applied

Foreword

If the reader, in taking up this book, should become alarmed at the term "economics," which it professes to touch upon, he should not unceremoniously cast it aside, for it may not be so dangerously economic after all. In this reflection the economists will no doubt heartily concur. This treatise does not deal with the ordinary subject-matter to be found in the current works on economics, but begins where they leave off and attempts to build a super-science, so to speak, upon the old one.

There has been a tendency in recent literature treating of industrial life to emphasize a mysterious element ulterior to the recognized factors of production — land, labor and capital. The subject has been approached from the practical side by Harrington Emerson in his treatises on "Efficiency" ; by Frederick W. Taylor, in his "Scientific Management," and others. Hugo Munsterberg and other psychologists have discoursed upon it from their point of view, and W. H. Mallock and various social writers have dealt with it from a humanitarian angle — and even the poetically inclined have not altogether ignored it, for Gerald Stanley Lee, in "Inspired Millionaires" and "Crowds," gets a glimpse of a great truth from Mt. (Parnassus) Tom.

While by inference the mysterious element is brains — or brain products — (ideas), yet, as far as the author has noted, no attempt has been made to analyze the economic functions of the mind or to determine just in what manner it "creates" wealth. Munsterberg, in his recent work on "Psychology and Industrial Efficiency," says that a new science is developing "intermediate between the modern laboratory psychology and the problems of economics," This may be true, but it would appear that the object of all methods of producing greater efficiency is to increase economic production, and that this function of industrial workers naturally falls under the head of Political Economy.

It does not concern the author, however, whether the economists, of which there is a great variety, recognize his efforts as an addition to the science, or as one of the new sciences which Professor Munsterberg refers to, being content if he has proven the productivity of the factor of mind. The author endeavors to delineate the creativeness of man in its widest aspect, and, if in so doing the conclusions sometimes reached are somewhat startling, they are honest ones, and he will be the first to acknowledge his error if it can be shown.

Is it not suggestive that economics should be the last of the sciences to recognize impalpable forces in the consideration of material and industrial phenomena? Even physics, which is supposed to deal with matter solely, has advanced to a point where the greater part of the treatises on the subject is devoted to the discussion of "energy." As far back as 1892 George F. Barker, in his text-

FOREWORD 7

book on "Physics," said in the preface to the work : "Within the past decade the progress which has been made in the physical science has completely changed its aspect. The most striking feature of this advance, unquestionably, is the much greater importance which the phenomena of energy have assumed in all physical discussions as compared with the phenomena of matter. The physics of to-day is distinctly the science of energy. Henceforth every physical change must be regarded as conditioned upon the transference or transformation of energy. It is from this point of view, therefore, that any text-book of physics must present the subject. Hence the classification which has been adopted in the present work is based on the most recent views of energy, considered as being ultimately a phenomenon of ether. At present, all physical phenomena seem capable of satisfactory discussion under the heads of mass-physics, molecule-physics and ether-physics. And the fact is significant that to the last subdivision of the subject it has been found necessary to devote more than one-half of the entire work."

Since the statement quoted was written, still greater advancement has been made in the science. The electron has supplanted the atom in the consideration of physical units, and upon this theory has been founded a new branch of the science. Physics has laid bare to the industrial world that marvel of all physical or ether wonder-workers, electricity, and has tamed and harnessed it for the use of man. This is the force that carries our messages over land or sea, with or without wires ; it is the force that bears the human voice across a continent, and allows us, as it were, to be in two or more places at the same time; it transports us and all the materials that go to make up modern life at a mile a minute; it lights our cities, turns the wheels of industry, and works marvels in a thousand ways in the applied arts and sciences.

In this work it will be shown how the mind of man has uncovered all of these wonders — and more in other sciences — and how it works hand in hand with these energies in the production of wealth. Manual labor may be compared with the five mechanical powers — the lever, pulley, wheel, inclined plane and screw; i. e., it can only remove material from place to place, while the mind of man may be compared with the impalpable forces, electricity, cohesion, adhesion, gravity and chemical reactions. These forces not only move material, but substitute better material for the old, and, in some instances, eliminate matter altogether.

The author will attempt to show in succeeding chapters how all modes of mental expression can be classed under fifteen "efficiency methods"^ or "expression forms" ; and an attempt will be made to analyze the economic functions of the various mental workers of the world with reference to these methods.

In these feverish days of social and industrial unrest, even though much of it be irresponsible and unreasoning, where a host of nondescript malcontents are endeavoring to pull down on our heads the magnificent economic superstructure we have reared, it may not be amiss to stop and consider if

FOREWORD 9

it is worth the trouble. What with socialism, syndicalism, single taxism, and many other "isms" too chameleonic to classify, armed to the teeth, in a tremendous fight against the ruling economic order, it may be well to try to get down to a working theory of Industrialism; to take an inventory of what has been done, to try to discover what is about to be done and to determine whether "hasbeens" and "about-to-bes" are in harmony or disharmony with the "ought-to-bes."