laboratories are still in existence where the general problem in hand is presented as a whole to the whole engineering staff, and is left to them as a group for independent and associated experimentation.  But even in such cases the technological content does not necessarily supply the impulse to solve the problem or secure a free and voluntary participation in its solution.  Those who are interested in its solution are inspired by its economic value for them.  In all technological laboratories, either where the problem is broken up and its parts distributed among the employees of the laboratory, or where it is given to them as a whole for solution, it is given not as a sequence in the creative purpose of the individuals who are at work on it, nor is its final solution necessarily determined by its use and wont in a community.  Problems brought to the laboratory are tainted with the motive of industry which is not creative, but exploitive.

The tenure of each man employed in production is finally determined not by any creative interest of his own or of his employer but by whether in the last analysis, he conforms better than another man to the exigencies of profits.  If profits and creative purpose happen to be one and the same thing, his place in an industrial establishment has some bearing on his intrinsic worth.  Under such circumstances his interest in the creative purpose of the establishment would have a foundation, and he himself could value better than he otherwise would his own part in the enterprise.

The economic organization of modern society though built on the common people’s productive energy has discounted their creative potentiality.  We hold to the theory that men are equal in their opportunity to capture and own wealth; that their ability in that respect is proof of their ability to create it; a proof of their inherent capacity.  It is a proof, as a matter of fact, of their ability to compete in the general scheme of capture; their ability to exploit wealth successfully.  While the prevailing economic theory of production takes for granted men’s creative potentiality there is no provision in our industrial institution for the common run of men to function creatively.  There is no attempt in the general scheme for trueing-up or estimating the creative ability of workers.  In the market, where the value of goods is determined, a machine tender has a better chance than a craftsman.  The popular belief is that the ability of workers has native limitations, that these limitations are absolute and that they are fixed at or before birth.  This belief is a tenet among those who hold positions of industrial mastery.  Managers of industry for instance who control a situation and create an environment, demand that those who serve them meet the requirements which they have fixed.  They do not recognize that industrial ability depends largely on the opportunity which an individual has had to make adjustments to his surroundings and on his opportunity to master them through experiment.  A factory employee is required to do a piece of work; and he does it, not because he is interested in the process or the object, but because his employer wants it done.