THE BUILDER JULY 1926

The Cult of Efficiency
By ROLAND HUGINS

THIS article is reprinted by permission from the Open Court
Magazine of Chicago for a special purpose. At this season the whole
country celebrates the Declaration of Independence, and the
birthday of its liberties. The Masonic ideal is that of freedom
tempered by a noble discipline and self-restraint, here we have an
able exposition of a world-wide tendency of the present day that is
operating far more rapidly and far more drastically than most of us
dream towards standardizing the individual, restricting his freedom
of action and making of liberty more and more an empty word. The
same tendency is equally at work within the Craft as without, and
it may be as well for Masons to give some thought to the question
whether it is leading them whither they desire to go.


THE decline of liberty is one of the outstanding facts of our time,
and is no less significant because undiscerned by many and
discussed by few. The institutions of society are being molded
gradually but steadily in the direction of more rigid restraints.
At the same time respect for liberty in the abstract, for liberty
as an ideal, is declining even more rapidly than its practice. It
is true that the new social forces hostile to individual rights, as
they used to be called, do not have the field entirely to
themselves, and that they are opposed and impeded by the more
liberal traditions of a former day. But the resistance grows more
and more feeble. Despite temporary repulses, the new forces push
steadily forward, with liberty and individualism on the defensive
and in retreat.

The old enthusiasm for freedom is yielding to the cult of
efficiency. Social ideals seldom die of old age, or fade like dying
fires. They are displaced by other ideals and new social values.
The ascendant ideal in our day is the concept of social efficiency.
Efficiency of the group and of the nation is admired not only as a
shining marvel in itself, but as the miracle which produces our
prosperity and our greatness. Before this latest god, with its two
mighty arms of organization and machinery, the world really
worships, whatever its ostensible creeds. Practically everyone is
proud to be a unit in an efficient group, community, or nation; or
if these aspirations seem too narrow, then a unit is an efficient
civilization.

So penetrating are the currents of thought With which all persons
are washed that even professed liberals yield to the new
influences, and sacrifice liberty to efficiency with something like
enthusiasm. To a degree that few people seem to realize this new
idea has come to permeate the whole intellectual and emotional
atmosphere of our time. It dominates our opinions on industry,
morals, war, politics and progress. It has become a technique to be
followed for its own sake, irrespective of the object in view, and
without scrutiny of the consequences. The human mind is so
constituted, apparently, that it must push a good idea too far, and
turn a serviceable concept into a fetish, a superstition. Of
course, this obsession does not grip all temperaments with equal
force, but it influences practically everyone to some extent, since
no one can quite escape the mental climate of the age in which he
lives. Where in this day do we find any affirmative and burning
faith in individual rights? What section of opinion has not been
stirred by a zeal for some kind of social efficiency? Sparks from
this blaze have fallen on all the camps, conservative and radical.
You can trace its scorch on Communists, Laborites, Progressives,
Liberals, Tories, Royalists, Fascisti. Many political groups which
stand at swords points one to another really cherish aims which are
fundamentally alike. Nations which would like to tear each other's
eyes out are, in basic purposes, as identical as cats.

Of course real efficiency, as distinguished from pseudo-efficiency,
has its place and utility. In factory or office, its apparatus of
bookkeeping machines, time-motion studies, performance records; and
its program for routing work, standardization of equipment, and
organization of personnel, combine to form a labor-saving device.
Where thousands of employes, using great quantities of power and
material, tending expensive machines, and fabricating complicated
products, work together under one roof or under one management,
co-ordination becomes a vital matter. Some particular arrangement
of all these factors, human and mechanical, will in any give plant
or organization prove to be the most economical and productive; and
to discover this best arrangement is the business of the efficiency
expert. But even here the application of efficiency requires
special safe guards. Operations are often made so rapid and
continuous that they strain human endurance. Labor unions have
rightly protested against the excesses of scientific management,
and have fought those drivers and pace-setters who strive to
"squeeze the last drops of output from human effort." Moreover, all
the over lords of efficiency, from Pullman to Ford, have show an
inclination to regulate the personal habits and the private affairs
of the men on their payrolls. The excuse is obvious. What a
workingman does in his leisure time may affect his productivity in
working hours; and a little rashness in the pursuit of happiness
may make him late the next morning. The employe is therefore forced
to accept, under pain of losing his job, a thinly disguised
supervision of his pleasures, his morals and his expenditures. The
attitude of these paternalistic employers is well illustrated by
the order which was posted in all the plants, shop and offices of
Henry Ford some time in July, 1929. This order read: "From this
date on, dismissal, without opportunity for appeal, will be the
penalty imposed on any man found to have the odor of beer, wine or
other liquor on his breath or to have intoxicant on his person or
in his house." Ford succeeds even in outdoing Volstead.

The role of true efficiency is strictly limited. It is a
methodology for getting some of the coarser and more material
business of the world done expeditiously. From a labor-saving
device, useful in its proper sphere, efficiency in our day has been
expanded into an all-inclusive social ideal. Thus distended and
misapplied, the gospel of social efficiency works grave mischief.
It takes account of only one side of human nature. It has no place
for light-heartedness, and abstracts from life its spontaneous and
joyous elements. Our world grows progressively drabber, more
somber, and more repressed. Parades, celebrations and public
spectacles become less frequent; fairs, carnivals and festivals
less gay. Any boisterous mirth or hilarity is viewed with
suspicion. There are now many sections of the United States where
a man or woman singing in the streets would literally be regarded
as either drunk or insane. One would think that as life within
working hours grew duller, less interesting and more monotonous,
every effort would be made to render life outside the factory and
office more diverting and colorfull. But no, the whole of existence
must be subjected to a devastating routine. In this new dour world
each person is expected, as far as possible, to follow a fixed
schedule. He is to arise at the same hour each morning; he is to
give eight or nine hours of concentrated labor; and at night he is
to indulge only in a mild relaxation, such as a movie show or a
radio concert. And this routine is to be maintained for years,
broken only by an annual two weeks' vacation with pay. He is never
to have a fling, never to let his spirit cavort. In short, human
beings are to become automatons, each with a minimum productive
output. But such a life is unnatural, and revolts most people--
revolts all people in fact, except those few who are the
quintessence of all the bourgeois virtues. The spirit of man grows
restive under such complete regimentation. The soul will inevitably
have its compensations, its relapses. If such dismal uniformity
prevails, all our social engineering will be insufficient to
prevent the roof of society from caving in periodically.

The fetish of efficiency fosters a subtle depravity. Concentrating
as it does on means rather than ends, it has no spiritual reality,
and imposes, therefore, no restraint on any evil passion or
debasing doctrine. Our age is supposedly an age of rationalism; yet
religious bigotries, racial enmities, and nationalistic hatreds
blaze as though fed with some secret fuel. And most disheartening
of all is the growth of callousness to human suffering, especially
a murderous insensibility to the horrors of war. Men now turn away
from the picture of overcrowding and reeking hospitals behind the
battle-lines with a shrug. But they are captivated by the spectacle
of a modern army on the move, advancing with its tanks and
artillery, with its streams of infantry and equipment, accompanied
by squadrons of aircraft, all highly disciplined and articulated.
The worship of efficiency leads directly to a reverence for force:
Men now admire the strong organization, and at the apex of their
admiration stands the Great state: the powerful nation
self-sufficient in economic resources and machinery; panoplied with
military and naval armaments; commanding the service of scientists,
engineers and every type of expert; alert to act in emergencies,
and irresistible in war. This vision has captured the imagination
of the modern man.

And here, doubtless, we have the key to a paradox which the events
of the last ten years have made evident. The paradox lies in the
gap between intentions and deeds, and between expectations and
results. It is indeed odd that the so-called liberal democracies so
often prove to be, in action, quite as imperialistic as avowed
autocracies. It is indeed curious that so-called radical parties,
when voted into power, are constrained to proceed, in their own
fashion, quite as ruthlessly as the conservative parties which they
displace. There appears to be some element of bewilderment in the
minds of statesmen which prevents them from following their better
judgment. There appears to be some under-drag of unreason in public
opinion which compels peoples to act contrary to their own
interests. The anomaly is an inevitable result of the attempt to
straddle two conflicting sets of principles. Both leaders and
electorates, while paying lip service to liberal doctrines, are
really hypnotized by the ideal of the efficient, selfsufficient
state. They intend to be pacific and magnanimous, most assuredly;
but first they must have "security." Security implies, among other
things, economic solidarity. Tariff barriers are erected to protect
all "essential" industries. If the nations do not possess at home
the raw materials necessary for self-sufficiency, they reach out
for exclusive resources abroad. A measure of self-government is
granted to subject peoples only to be snatched back when the
agitation for independence grows dangerous. Of course, this line of
policy leads on and on. Colonies must be protected; sea lanes must
be guarded; and navies must be provided with bases, fuel stations
and oil reserves. It is impossible for nations, any more than men,
to serve two masters.

Some nations, naturally, have traveled further along the road to
the new regimentation than others. The United states is indoubtedly
the chief exemplar of efficiency. In America we are mad really; we
think so much about processes, and pay so little attention to the
art of living. When Europeans inveigh against the "Americanization"
of the world, they refer to just this sweep toward uniformly and
standardization. But Europeans deceive themselves if they imagine
America to be the spring of that flood which actually wells from
the spirit of the age. America is not more its exponent than its
victim; and while efficiency in practice has been applied more
drastically in the United states than in Europe, efficiency as a
national ideal seems to have been envisioned more sharply in Europe
than in the United states. France, under every type of party
government, is intent on the task of knitting her European and
African domains into an impregnable economic and military unit.
Great Britain is busily cementing and consolidating her vast
industrial and imperial power. The British, however, with their
inveterate fondness for standing (at one and the same time) on both
sides of every matter of principle, like to fancy that they can
achieve modern efficiency on the one hand, and retain individualism
and muddle on the other. It is an idle hope. Germany transformed
herself within a generation from a land of philosophers, toy-makers
and music masters into a huge machine, equally well organized for
industry or war, and effective in marshalling all the physical and
psychic energies of her people. Although Germany found that
efficiency was not enough, and came to disaster, the world,
including Germany, has not learned the lesson. The trend toward
national efficiency is nowhere long retarded. The Western world
moves together; and although some nations may spurt here and other
nations lag there, they all drift along in the same direction, like
a band of boys advancing down a road. Furthermore, the thought of
the Orient turns more and more into the ways already channeled by
the West. What America and Europe are in this generation, China and
India will become in the next.

The ideal of efficiency has gained so tyrannical a hold over the
modern mind, and its ramifications and inferences are so numerous
and pervasive, that any effort to break its spell seems for the
present almost hopeless. It is extremely difficult for any epoch to
shake itself free from its superstitions, or, indeed, even to admit
that it entertains superstitions. In every age people flatter
themselves that their opinions are based on experience and on
demonstrable facts; and they attribute superstitions only to past
times and backward races. Lecky wrote: "It is often and truly said
that past ages were pre-eminently credulous, as compared with our
own, yet difference is not so much in the amount of credulity, as
in the direction which it takes." In the Middle Ages men were
obsessed by the supernatural; they believed in the daily presence
of good and evil spirits, in Satanic wiles, and in miraculous
intervention for the deliverance of the faithful. Miracles now seem
to most people rare and remote. Yet in medieval times these
doctrines were cherished not only by the masses of the people, but
by scholars, philosophers and jurists.

Broadly speaking, one might say that since the fall of the Roman
Empire there have been three great historical epochs, each one of
them characterized by distinctive modes of thought and feeling. In
the medieval period men's minds were engrossed by religion and
theology. This might be called the age of Other Worldliness. The
intolerable abuses of power by feudal state and church led to a
period of revolt and of emancipation. The rationalistic movement
and the democratic movement were the major currents in the four
centuries between the beginning of the sixteenth century and the
end of the nineteenth century. This might be called the age of
Liberalism. Then began the age of Efficiency. Surely, it is one of
the ironies of history that, having striven for four hundred years
to free themselves from the shackles of old institutions, old
customs, old ideas, men have chosen in the fulness of their
deliverance to embrace the pseudo-ideal of social efficiency. The
age of Efficiency was preceded by thirty or forty years of
transition, and really began, if one must select a date, with 1914.
How long it will last no one can foretell.

Certain social philosophers, without hitting the nail exactly on
the head, have deplored "the triumph of mechanism over mankind." A
rebellious repudiation of the machine and all its works finds voice
in the writings of celebrated critics of the modern order, who
blame the machine for both the barbarity of war and the materialism
of peace, and who urge man to revolt against this monster which he
himself has created. But if strictures of this sort are to be taken
seriously then the only sensible thing for us to do is to demolish
our factories and power plants, cut our wires and cables, tear up
our railroads, and sink our steamships. Such an orgy of
tool-smashing would be literalism gone mad. Smelters and steel
mills do not in some mystic manner now compel men to do evil, any
more than Gothic cathedrals in former times forced men to use the
rack and faggot. Destruction of our physical paraphernalia would
not remedy the world's intellectual anarchy.

Ideas, and ideas alone, alter fundamental human relationships. What
is bringing us to a new order of society and a new type of
civilization is the many-sided idea of social efficiency. We march
toward social regimentation by definite steps. The laws, the
so-called reforms, the institutional changes, which mark our
advance, are not fortuitous accidents, but products of intention
and will. Those who advocate or countenance the successive
encroachments on liberty may not in all instances clearly see the
goal toward which they are pressing. But they help to make arrival
at the goal certain, and to hasten the day when a new absolutionism
shall have made robots of workers, and helots of citizens, in the
name of efficiency and progress.

