Page "learned" Paragraph 1076

Another example is his very infrequent use of the large amount of data from surveys designed to discover what and how people actually do feel and think on a broad range of topics: he cites such survey-type findings just three times.

Moreover, the conclusions he draws from the findings are not always the only ones possible.

For example, he cites the following data from two studies on job satisfaction: in the first study, 85 per cent of professionals and executives, 64 per cent of white collar people, and 41 per cent of factory workers expressed satisfaction with their jobs ; ;

in the second study, the percentages were 86 for professionals, 74 for managerial persons, 42 for commercial employees, 56 for skilled workers, and 48 for semi-skilled workers.

He concludes that these data show a `` remarkably high '' percentage of consciously dissatisfied and unhappy persons among factory and clerical workers.

Starting from other value premises than Fromm's, some analysts might conclude that the percentages really tell us very little at all, while others might even conclude that the figures are remarkably low.

Eric Hoffer, for example, once said that America was a paradise -- the only one in the history of the world -- for workingmen and small children.

What matters is that while Fromm's reading of the data is not the only one possible, it is precisely the one we would expect from a writer who earnestly believes that every man can and ought to be happy and satisfied.

Fromm also cites a poll on attitudes toward work restriction conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation in 1945, in which 49 per cent of manual workers said a man ought to turn out as much as he could in a day's work, while 41 per cent said he should not do his best but should turn out only the average amount.

Fromm says these data show that job dissatisfaction and resentment are widespread.

That is one way to read the findings, but again there are other ways.

One might use such findings to indicate the strength of informal primary associations in the factory, an interpretation which would run counter to Fromm's theory of alienation.

Or, he might remind Fromm that the 41 per cent figure is really astonishingly low: after all, the medieval guild system was dedicated to the proposition that 100 per cent of the workers ought to turn out only the average amount ; ;

and today's trade unions announce pretty much the same view.