Social labour productivity is highly dependent on the labour and living conditions of workers. Therefore, all measures that improve the labour ergonomics increase its productivity, as well. But one of the biggest impacts on SLP is that of the extent of people’s satisfaction: the higher it is, the more significant their contribution in the production process.
Let us consider a specific example. To keep a worker idle – like a machine – about 2 Mcal of energy is needed. If the worker consumes 3 Mcal, he can use one 1 Mcal for useful work only, that is 33% of the energy received from the food he eats. Then, if the same worker consumes 4 Mcal of food, he can use 2 Mcal for work. This shows how the increase in the amount of food eaten every day by 25% lets the worker do twice the amount of work he did before. This is why academician S. G. Strumilin concludes that “the more we want to save on economy, on income and food norms, the bigger damage we will suffer’44 [37].
Eminent entrepreneur Henry Ford believes the same: “Wages is more of a question for business than it is for labour. It is more important to business than it is to labour. Low wages will break business far more quickly than it will labour’45 [38]. Saving on people is, thus, a costly approach, however promising it may seem. That is why all unpopular measures are, in the end, regressive (sic).
SLP considerably depends on the technical equipment of labour, and this subject has often been brought up by authors. However, there is no definite answer here. In fact, machine production and maintenance require so much effort, that their use does not always help to save social labour. That is why the science that works out progressive principles, machines and technologies is believed to be one of the major production forces of the society. Plato wrote that “there is nothing more powerful than knowledge, it always and everywhere overpowers pleasure and all other things’. “Our economy is not based on natural resources, but on intelligence and application of scientific knowledge’ (Philip Handler, President of the US Academy of Sciences). And advanced economies do understand this.
As the result, American companies are the only to spend more than $15 billion on training and education of their personnel annually. For the implementation of the Equal Opportunity in Education Act adopted in the US in 2002 alone $26.5 billion was allocated. The total costs of education in advanced economies amounts to 5—6% of their GNP.
In Russia, however, they have never reached 1%, and in the years of crisis dropped further to 0.23% of the GDP. As the result, the salaries of professors employed at the Russia’s Higher education system were 1.5 times lower than the average for the country. The salaries of other academic workers are too shamefully low to quote here. Teachers in Russia do not earn enough to afford a minimal living standard. Doctors and nurses, however essential their work might be, are struggling to make both ends meet. It is evident that such stimulation neither stimulates the country’s development, nor creates proper conditions for the SLP increase or production acceleration.
Thus, the state as such, in order to assure its proper functioning, relies on quite specific expenses, just like a house or a complex piece of equipment require regular maintenance. Otherwise, they turn into a ruin. That is why a redistribution of the national income to private individuals beyond reasonable level turns out to be mortal for the country.
1.3.5. Labour differentiation and cooperation
The science of equilibrium is the key of occult science. Unbalanced forces perish in the void
Still, one of the most efficient factors that increase SLP is improvement of labour organisation. It does not require as much time and money, however, it efficiency is superior to that of all other factors combined. Besides, notwithstanding all other conditions, only harmonious organisation is capable of shaping harmonious economics, and of creating conditions for the implementation of all highly-productive advances. This factor remains the backbone of any enterprise or economy restructuring. All the rest is nothing more than its result.
We are not considering here the factors related to the scientific labour organisation, such as specialization, and introduction of rational labour methods and techniques, because all of them have already been studied in great detail. This approach reduces organisation to building an optimal structure for production based on the combination of two dialectically different factors, i.e. labour differentiation and labour cooperation. Without providing an ample description of these phenomena, we will just point out some of their properties that would be interesting for the current analysis.
In the process of evolution, it has been remarked that professional labour differentiation in space and time increases significantly labour productivity. This tactic helps split human activity into specific functions and operations, none of which are meaningful on their own, by all of which when combined creating a completed product. Such organisation makes better use of the individual workers’ capacities, improves their qualification and instruments of production, and assures rational consumption of work time. As the result, among workers there are more and more experts in a narrow field of specialization.
This factor influences the formation of all social organisation structures (see Figure 1). Besides, the more complex and specialized production, the deeper labour differentiation. “How far the productive forces of a nation are developed is shown most manifestly by the degree to which the division of labour has been carried’ (K. Marx and F. Engels [39]). Thus, the division of labour types according to their functions is one of the most powerful factors of progress.
On the other hand, labour differentiation leads to the need for agreement and unification of separate workers and worker groups within the common working process, for interaction of all levels of production from individual employees and teams to entire enterprises, subindustries and sectors of economy. This association and interaction between the separate specialized workers in the labour process bear the name of labour cooperation (from Latin cooperation). This phenomenon is one of the key factors of labour organisation.
Labour cooperation converts labour quantity into higher quality thanks to “the creation of a new power, namely, the collective power of masses’ (K. Marx [40]). Cooperation is followed by joining of the results of differentiated labour; as the result, labour productivity increases faster than aggregate labour consumption. It is this correlation that allows resolving global issues: developing science, education, culture, building defence from enemies, constructing canals, dams, roads, and other structures that serve a public purpose, and bring collective benefit.
Rational combination of labour differentiation and cooperation shapes all economic structures. For instance, workers unite to make a team, teams form workshops, which are parts of companies, enterprises, plants, and economic sectors.
On the other hand, the state is a cooperation of its regions, a region is a cooperation of districts, areas, etc. Thus, labour differentiation and cooperation can apply both within production framework, and depending on the territory; they function both in space and time.
In literature on economics this structure is called “organisation hierarchical tree’. Figure 2 shows such tree for a random plant. However, this structure is applicable to other types of organisations as well, including the state. In each case it is determined by a series if objective and subjective factors, by the production and organisation type, its level of development, management, production and human relations, type of property, etc.
At the same time, as it is easy to see, each link, each cell of production has both labour differentiation