It would seem to be so self-evident that maximum prosperity for the
employer, coupled with maximum prosperity for the employee, ought to be
the two leading objects of management, that even to state this fact
should be unnecessary. And yet there is no question that, throughout the
industrial world, a large part of the organization of employers, as well
as employees, is for war rather than for peace, and that perhaps the
majority on either side do not believe that it is possible so to arrange
their mutual relations that their interests become identical.

The majority of these men believe that the fundamental interests of
employees and employers are necessarily antagonistic. Scientific
management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm
conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that
prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years
unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employee, and vice versa;
and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants--high
wages--and the employer what he wants--a low labor cost--for his
manufactures.

It is hoped that some at least of those who do not sympathize with each
of these objects may be led to modify their views; that some employers,
whose attitude toward their workmen has been that of trying to get the
largest amount of work out of them for the smallest possible wages, may
be led to see that a more liberal policy toward their men will pay them
better; and that some of those workmen who begrudge a fair and even a
large profit to their employers, and who feel that all of the fruits of
their labor should belong to them, and that those for whom they work and
the capital invested in the business are entitled to little or nothing,
may be led to modify these views.