The Principles of Scientific Management

by Frederick Winslow Taylor

The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee.

maximum prosperity can exist only as the result of maximum productivity.

"This common tendency to 'take it easy' is greatly increased by bringing a number of men together on similar work and at a uniform standard rate of pay by the day."

First. They develop a science for each element of a man's work,

Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman,

Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of t...

Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the ...

while workmen are always ready to share the profits, they are neither able nor willing to share the losses.

At the first glance we see only two parties to the transaction, the workmen and their employers. We overlook the third great party, the whole people,—the consumers, who buy the product of the first two and who ultimately pay both the wages of the workmen and the profits of the employers.

What constitutes a fair day's work will be a question for scientific investigation, instead of a subject to be bargained and haggled over.