Material and Non-Material Work Incentives as Ideologies and Practices of Order

Abstract

Material and non-material work incentives policies in the capitalist and Communist systems constitute ideologies and practices of order. A study of the schools of Scientific Management and Human Relations in the U.S.A. and of material and moral incentives in the Communist world demonstrates how they all assume a basic harmony of interests between workers and their employers and managers, ignore the fact that work incentives are used in combination with coercion, and obscure the relationship between the workplace and society as a whole. The conditions under which these different approaches are predominant in the capitalist and Communist systems are also analyzed.