1.7 Labor of Man, Nature, and Machinery
To clarify, "labor" is intended to mean any continuous action exerted in support of industry. Labor is deemed to be productive when it results in the creation of a product.
Labor is not necessarily manual activity, though it is most often so. A philosopher or merchant performs labor, as does a craftsman or a ship's navigator. Likewise, it can be seen that labor may not contribute directly to the product itself, but performs some necessary task in its creation or conveyance to the consumer.
Unproductive labor contributes no value (idle pastimes) or destroys value (fraud and other crimes). (EN: This seems a stray remark, but other economists reckoned labor to be unproductive unless it had a direct impact on the actual product, so the distinction is necessary here.)
As considered in a previous chapter, man employs the forces of nature to substitute for human effort. Whether a field is plowed by men, by oxen, or by a steam engine, it factors into production as labor (it is not materials, capital, or land).
Tools may be considered a form of labor: whether it is a common rasp or an elaborate and complex apparatus, its purpose is to substitute for human labor. A new machine is only adopted if it can replace human labor without diminishing output - to adopt a machine that did less than a man would be absurd.
The notion of substitution merits consideration, as tools and machinery are often portrayed as robbing human beings of productive employment. This is a fair criticism if the total output of production remains unchanged. However, the application of technology increases production, increases the quality of goods, and decreases the cost of goods.
A few other qualities of machinery are listed:
- The initial construction of a machine requires considerable labor, providing employment for those who fabricate the pars, assemble the works, and maintain it.
- The jobs replaced by machines are generally of the most menial and low-paying variety
- The installation of a new machine takes considerable time, and those who will be displaced have ample time to prepare for transitioning to new occupations.
Most importantly, while technology has unfortunate consequences for the workmen whose professions are made obsolete, it is a boon to a greater number of consumers who enjoy more, better, and cheaper goods. Any attempt to forbid or prevent technological progress harms the many for the benefit of a few, which cannot be considered rational.
Moreover, technology will progress in other locations if it is banned. In locations where the workers or government opposed the introduction of machinery to produce cloth, the workers retained their employment but a short time, until cheaper cloth was imported from other areas where machinery was not forbidden and hand-weaving became unprofitable.
Another striking example is the manner in which the printing press displaced "a multitude of copyists" whose profession was to write books by hand. In this instance, the net result over a short period of time was an increase in employment: as books became cheaper, more people engaged in reading, and more pressmen were hired. JBS reckons that the industries presently engaged in the production of books (paper-makers, type foundries, ink producers, binders, booksellers, etc.) is over 100 times as many as were employed before the press had been invented.
The greatest benefit of technology is to the consumers, who far outnumber the laborers and investors within industry. The inventor and manufacturer may take for themselves considerable profit, but it is far outweighed by the benefit to the public in general. It's also noted that the inventor and manufacturer enjoy a temporary profit, as in a competitive environment, their processes will be copied and profit diminished to an reasonable level. The benefit to the customer, in cheaper and more plentiful goods, is permanent.
Even in the period of transition before the price is significantly reduced, technology does not compel customers to pay more for a good than they are willing, and generally it is less than it would cost were it still produced by older methods. If it were not so, the newer methods would soon be abandoned as unprofitable.
It's also noted that machinery creates a more perfected product, and often produces items of greater quality, regularity, and uniformity than the most skillful craftsman could produce. In this regard, machinery doesn't merely substitute for human effort, but is a competitor whose goods are superior in several regards. In some industries, it can be rightly said that machinery can produce products that the human hand could never accomplish.
On a broader scale, technology is a boon to society when its productive capacity makes available more of the necessities and conveniences of life than could be had by manual processes, and unshackles man from the menial and repetitive tasks, enabling him to seek for himself a higher purpose. Industrialized societies can be seen to excel not merely in an abundance of artifacts, but in the cultivation of the arts and intellectual faculties.