ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a problem which lies on the borderline of economics where the economist reaches the limits of his competence and the sociologist or social anthropologist may be interested to take over. In the post-war years the impact of full employment on managerial policy was particularly marked. Implicit in the belief in the supremacy of the financial motive is the assumption that the worker is always interested in earning more money than he is getting on time-rates. The concept of the 'average worker' also plays an important part with a different type of notion which operates at this lower level of generalisation. As long as the managerial system of beliefs endures we may assume that workers share it and that financial incentives work reasonably well in practice. The piece-rate price is set so that the worker has to put in more effort than under time-rates if he wants to reach the wage-value.
