Creative Impulse in Industry | Page 7

standards, they
lose their sense of art values along with their joy in creative effort, their
self regard as working men and their personal equation in industrial
life.
Where the motive of individuals who engage in industry is the desire to
possess, the rational method of gaining possession is not by the arduous
way of work but of capture. The scheme of capture is a scheme
whereby you may get something for (doing) nothing; nothing as nearly
as possible in the way of fabrication of goods; something for the
manipulation of men; something for the development of technology
and mechanical science; and high regard for the manipulation of money.
"Doing nothing" does not mean that manual workers, managers of
productive enterprises, speculators in the natural resources of wealth
production and manufactured goods, as well as financiers, are not busy
people, or that their activity does not result in accomplishment. They
are indeed the busy people and their accomplishment is the world's

wealth. Nevertheless the intention of all and the spirit of the scheme is
to do as near nothing as possible in exchange for the highest return.
_The whole industrial arrangement is carried on without the force of
productive intention; it is carried forward against a disinclination to
produce_.
I have said that industry was shorn of adventure for the common man.
Adventure in industrial enterprise is the business man's great monopoly.
His impetus is not due to his desire to create wealth but to exploit it,
and he secures its creation by "paying men off." Commonly he is
peevishly expectant that those he pays off will have a creative intention
toward the work he pays them to do, although in the scheme of industry
which he supports the opportunity provided for such intention is
negligible. An efficiency engineer estimated that there is a loss in
wealth of some fifty per cent, due to the inability of the business man to
appraise the creative possibilities in industry.
When exploitation of wealth is referred to, those who own it are
generally meant. But exploitation of wealth is the intention of the
worker as well as of the business man. To get, as I have said,
something for (doing) nothing is the dominating motif in the industrial
world. It is supposed to reflect the self-interest of individuals, to reflect,
that is, their economic needs.
This motive of circumscribed self-interest during an era of political and
industrial expansion has been adopted by philosophers as the guide as
well as a clue to conduct; it was hailed by them as a sufficient and
complete motivation for wealth creation; they used it as a basis of a
theory for race progress resting solely on the efforts of men to satisfy
their material needs through their ability to capture goods. This motive
together with the possibilities which machine production opened up for
wealth exploitation, gave birth to the dismal science of Political
Economy; it suggested the materialistic interpretation of history, and
brought to earth utopian schemes of brotherhood. Political science is
dismal because it is an interpretation of dismal institutions. It may be
ungenerous to speak slightingly of institutions which have yielded such
great wealth, which have transformed inert matter into productive

power and brought in consequence the whole world into
acquaintanceship and rivalry. It would be ungenerous if it were not for
a fact which has become poignant, that the exploitation of wealth and
undigested relationships are to-day the outstanding menace to
civilization.
The present world conflict has made it clear that relationships cannot
remain undigested; that they are not in their nature passive. They are
either integrating in their force or disintegrating. Socialism has
undertaken for two generations to prove that exploitation, carries with
it its own seeds of destruction. The position of the socialists is passing
out of theory and propaganda through the hands of diplomatists, into
statutes. Both the socialists and their successors would eradicate
exploitation by repressing it. The socialists would repress it by shifting
ownership of wealth from individuals to the state, while the
diplomatists, through the same agency, would regulate those who own
it.
It is an historical fact as well as a psychological one that you do not get
rid of traits or institutions except as you replace them with something
of positive service, or greater competitive value. The institution of
capitalism exists not because of its predatory character, but because in
spite of its exploitation it promotes industry, and labor and other
industrial technicians do not. As our industrial institutions have grown
out of a predatory concept instead of a creative one, as capture has been
rewarded rather than work, as the possessive desire has been stimulated
and the creative desire has been sacrificed, as employers of men and
owners of machines have engaged in production because of their