ABSTRACT
Management is obsessed by a concept of human nature that prevents it from seeing or understanding the plant community–the concept of the "slotmachine man". The worker is in the grip of a panicky fear that makes him intensely suspicious: the "depression shock". As potent a disintegrating force as the "slot-machine man" is the "depression shock" from which the workers all over the Western world suffer as a result of their experience in the nineteen-thirties. The "depression shock" is by no means confined to those workers who actually were unemployed for any length of time during the Depression–by and large a minority. The "depression shock" makes the worker intensely suspicious of any innovation. To overcome the "depression shock" is thus a major task. Only if we restore the worker's belief in the rationality and predictability of the forces that control his job, can we expect any policies in the industrial enterprise to be effective.
