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Humanising the Workplace as Squaring the Circle

D. Macarov (The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

International Journal of Manpower

ISSN: 0143-7720

Article publication date: 1 March 1981

224

Abstract

People spend, and have always spent, such a large part of their time at work that it is no wonder they constantly seek ways to make that portion of their lives more comfortable. Improvements in work methods and work conditions in pre‐industrial society were almost always motivated more by concern for personal situations than by desire for greater production. Indeed, in the pre‐industrial world surplus products had little value. Without roads, storage facilities, and a market economy, enough to feed one's family and a small amount for barter sufficed. The fact that there were more than a hundred holidays a year, first provided by the Church and later by the secular authorities, to take up the slack in the farmers' time is evidence of the lack of need for greater production. The move from people power to horsepower (in the original sense), for example, was probably motivated more by the desire to reduce the crushing burden of hard physical labour on the farmer and his family than to increase production. When the Israelites in ancient Egypt complained about the lack of straw for brickmaking, they were not concerned about production as such, but rather the punishment imposed for not meeting production quotas. Mendelssohn holds that the building of the later pyramids had no goal other than that of providing employment, and that contrary to the popular belief that slaves built the pyramids under duress, the Egyptians did the work willingly as a tribute to the Pharoahs and the gods. Later, the sporadic revolts of Greek and Roman galley slaves were as much protests about the work they were compelled to do, and the conditions, than against their servitude, which was more or less accepted in those days. The reforms of Diocletian, in the third century, which required sons to continue in their fathers' occupations, were made necessary by the growing practice among young people of seeking easier work. The desire to avoid work, or not to work hard, is further evidenced by the numerous exhortations on the part of rulers, moralists, prophets and priests that people should work hard; the fables, such as that of the grasshopper and the ant; proverbs, like “Look to the ant, thou sluggard”; and even modern epigrams, like “Nobody ever died of hard work”. All of these indicate a societal need to spur people on — a need which would not exist if people enjoyed their work.

Citation

Macarov, D. (1981), "Humanising the Workplace as Squaring the Circle", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 6-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb044864

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 1981, MCB UP Limited

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