The Principles of Scientific Management

Frederick Winslow Taylor was an early advocate for applying scientific principles to the management of men machines and factories. Few realize though the the Efficiency Movement that he helped foment extended well beyond the factory floor. Efficiency clubs sprung up throughout the United States and the movement found fertile soil elsewhere in the world as well. These clubs sought to apply Taylors ideas referred to as Taylorism to a variety of human enterprises that one might not expect such as schools libraries and governments. Indeed efficiency ascended to the level of a new moral virtue. Many modern institutions today are still imbued with the mindset that Taylor advocated. Another fact that is not well known: Taylors philosophy was incorporated into the worldviews of people who would carry out some of historys worst atrocities. In the United States the same men who advanced Taylorism advanced eugenics and compulsory sterilization. Germans lauded themselves for their efficiency. In Russia the Bolsheviks envied the power and principles of organization that Taylorism brought them. Lenin himself was a fan. So it was that Taylorism was promoted both by wealthy industrialists and capitalists and leftist communists and any and every person who elevated the interests of the system over the individual per Taylors succinct moral dictum: In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.