ABSTRACT
Technical development seems to lead in the direction of greater demands on human quality. For the world in general it may be difficult to estimate whether the trend toward technical complexity, with higher demands on quality of labor, or the trend toward mass production, with relatively lower demands on quality, is the greater. For Sweden, where farming is so largely on the basis of individual landownership and where industry is so definitely organized for skilled production, there is less doubt that the dominating trend is toward increased demands on quality of labor. Compared with the situation 100 years ago before the rise of industrialization, or even 50 or 25 years ago, production now requires less and less sheer strength. Electrotechnics have provided cheaper and more efficient sources of energy than human muscles. Demands on the human participant in the productive process are concentrated increasingly on intellectual and moral capacities — vigilance, quick comprehension, technical insight, control, and imagination — or, generally speaking, intelligence and character.
