The human resources development field is based upon such old and well-established disciplines as economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, and even political science. The field of psychology has provided the personnel manager with information that has been applied to employee training, testing, selection, and placement. It is difficult to think of effective labor relations and wage and salary administration without a background in economics. Anthropology has served to show how individuals react to the organizational environment and the social system which they join; it has provided insight into the attitudes that people bring to the job. The understanding of group activities and the effects upon employees of group membership and communications filters down to the personnel administrator from the field of sociology. The understanding of organization and authority relationships emanates from the political science sector.
The earliest work relationships, however, were not based upon these disciplines but on the principle of slavery. Masters owned and commanded as many workers as they could support. There was very little attention to waste since slaves were available if one could feed them. The slave owners assumed many of the functions that one associates with modern human resource management, such as recruitment (the cruel but efficient method of enslaving and transporting able-bodied men), training, housing, catering, and industrial medicine. The one discipline conspicuously absent was collective bargaining.
During the Middle Ages, the serf system was highly developed. Serfs enjoyed certain privileges that slaves did not, since they were not chattels but workers attached to the land. The handicraft system was also begun at this time. This was the true forerunner of the modern industrial society and it encompassed craftsmen who worked in their own homes and hired others. Such craftsmen took younger men as app...