Chapter 41, Handling Prisoners of War

Who brought this up? Everyone tacitly refrained from asking. Franz was unwilling to admit that he had proposed the "piece-rate system," and the others thought of him as principled, unwilling to take credit for someone else's idea.

In this era, the "piece-rate system" was undoubtedly progressive, capable of unleashing greater productivity and breaking the tradition of "Sloppy Joes."

Keep in mind, in this era, the capitalists' approach to combatting "Sloppy Joes" was extremely brutal; docking pay was the least of it.

Quite often, in addition to having wages docked, one would also receive a vicious beating, and every year, numerous workers died as a result.

This was particularly true in the mines where, to stimulate everyone's motivation, capitalists would often "kill the chicken to scare the monkey," using this to deter others and make them work harder.