Abstract
ABSTRACT Industrial psychology in socialist Yugoslavia and Romania is a relevant source for both labor history and the history of science/intellectual history. In this paper, we lay down the intellectual and institutional foundations of the discipline in the two contexts, including the envisaged roles for industrial psychologists working in factories and plans for expanding the profession. We argue that industrial psychologists defined the pursuit of labor productivity on the shopfloor as not just a matter of economic calculation, but also as a matter of workers’ self-realization. Their perspective on workers went beyond the measurement of their abilities and skills, taking into consideration personality features as well as inter-personal relations. In research conducted to support creativity and battle monotony at work, industrial psychologists also broadened the understanding of labor efficiency to encompass the pursuit of workers’ satisfaction. We show that research in industrial psychology was part of a broader drive to theorize work and the future of labor under socialism. Discussions of issues such as the scientific-technological revolution, the second industrial revolution, AI, cybernetization, automation, and narcomania, which we analyze in the final part of the paper, represent a rich source of Marxist intellectual reflection on the topic of labor in late socialist Eastern Europe.
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