1: The Advantages Arising from Machinery
Writing in England during the early years of the Industrial Revolution, Babbage observes that the most distinguishing characteristic between his country and the vast uncivilized world is the use of tools and machinery for creating material goods that contribute greatly to the welfare of the people. The process of manufacturing has created great material wealth, providing for the necessities, conveniences, and luxuries of even the lowest classes of society.
He then cites statistics on the wealth of nations that show that the more prosperous countries, where living standards are highest, can be correlated to the proportion of the population that is employed in non-agricultural capacities. In the poorest of countries, very few people (less than five percent of the population) do anything other than produce food; in semi-civilized locations such as Bengal, it is about a fifth; in the struggling countries of continental Europe, about a quarter to a third. In England, by contrast, fully two-thirds of the population are engaged in non-agricultural employment. And census data shows that this has increased sharply in the ten years prior to the writing of this book.
(EN: Babbage's statistics imply a connection that later economists were more explicit about: the more time a person must spend gathering food, the less time he has to make clothing, build and furnish a house, or provide himself of anything but the bare necessities of life. This is true on the societal level as well - nations that spend 95% of their time on producing food by primitive means have little labor left over to provide the other necessities of life, none for the production of luxuries or pursuit of the arts and sciences.)
The Advantages of Machinery and Manufacturing
There are three chief advantages of machinery and manufacturing:
- They increase the power of the human worker
- They reduce the time required to produce goods
- They extract value from "common and worthless" substances
The increased power of the human worker can be seen even in the most primitive of tools: the simple lever-crane allows a solitary man to lift a weight that is many times greater than he could lift by the muscles of his arms and back. The wheel enables him to transport heavy loads a great distance with very little physical effort. In the author's time, the motive power derived from wind, water, and steam provide significant power that exceeds the strength and stamina of the human body.
The economy of time is achieved through the same mechanism - to move a cart of stones across a field takes far less time than carrying them individually - but it is also bolstered by the speed of machinery in performing tasks. A wind-mill can turn a grindstone much faster than a human, producing tons of flour in a fraction of the time it could be ground with mortar and pestle. Gunpowder can blast coal from a quarry much faster than it could be loosened with a shovel. Tasks that may not have been accomplished with primitive tools at all, or would require many months, can be done in a few days.
It is not merely the tools and machinery, but also the manufacturing process that contributes to time efficiency. The breakdown of complex tasks enables a team of unskilled to produce more goods than an equal number of skilled craftsman, and with greater precision and standardization, even using the same tools and techniques. It is the coordination and communication between people and their activities that makes this possible.
The increased efficiency in the use of materials is also significant. Chemistry has discovered many uses for the butcher's waste. The hooves and horns that were once discarded are used in a myriad of products, worn-out clothing and cookware is reclaimed for other purposes. Additionally, great use has been made of things that once had little purpose at all: the diamond, once an ornament, has been found to be excellent for cutting glass and trees that were once regarded as too weak to provide construction materials and too resinous to provide fuel are not used to create dyes, varnishes, sealants, and other useful goods.
Tools and Machines
There's a bit of fussiness about the difference between a tool and a machine.
A tool is a simple device that relies upon the power of the human body to do its work. A sharpened stick is more efficient at creating a hole than the human finger (and by virtue of its hardness can puncture harder materials) and a hand-operated drill even more so. The hand-drill still requires the movement of the muscles to create the pressure and rotation needed to bore the hole.
A machine replaces human labor that is directly applied to the work. A steam-drill uses a power other than human muscle to turn the bit, though a human operator is still necessary to guide the work of the machine. A more complicated machine can even load the material into place, drill the hole, and eject the drilled part with the simple pull of a lever. The action of the muscles upon the lever directs the machine, but does not apply directly to the task.
(EN: And in modern times, there are robotic systems that use sensors and computers to direct the efforts of machinery, such that human effort is not necessary at all except to load raw material, carry away finished goods, and maintain or repair the equipment as necessary.)
Benefits of Mechanization
He gives the example of the worker in a needle-factory whose job is to place finished needles into boxes. Gathering them up manually, setting them parallel, and placing them into a box is a tedious occupation that consumes many hours. A simple tool (a shaker-box with a metal grid) made the process easier - the worker would place a handful of needles into it and shake the box, and the needles would fall through the slits in a grid into a collection compartment, where they would be parallel. A machine could also perform the actions of loading and shaking the tool, with needles landing directly in the box - such that the worker need only place and replace boxes beneath the chute to load them with needles.
He observers that machinery is often criticized for replacing human workers - but it replaces them at the most tedious and onerous of professions. True, the machine above replaced perhaps a dozen women and children who once sorted needles by hand with a single worker, but needle-sorting is not a desirable occupation at all - and the eleven unemployed workers can find more meaningful things to do with their labor.
He further suggests that machinery enables people who were once considered useless by virtue of their weakness or disability. A person who had lost an arm in some unfortunate accident could serve as the attendant of the needle-boxing machine, as only one arm is needed to move the boxes beneath the chute. Likewise, the elderly, children, and women can do many jobs that once required the brute physical strength of a powerful man because machinery provides the strength required for a task.
He specifically mentions the Liverpool Institution for the Blind, which had for years been a charitable organization that kept its patients like animals, feeding and clothing them at public expense and giving them lives of very little meaning. The introduction of machines that enable blind people to weave "sash-lines" has given them meaningful activity and the ability to sustain themselves without need of charitable donations - to become contributors to society rather than dependents upon it.
Classification of Machinery
Babbage insists that there is a very important distinction to be made between two classes of machinery: those that produce power and those which transmit this force to perform work.
The lever, the pulley, the wedge, the drill, and other such devices do not create any power of their own - force must be applied to them, and they transmit this force to other objects. Human effort (or the motive power of another machine) is necessary for them to do their work, but the amount of effort is decreased.
Other machines produce power by harnessing natural forces - of wind and water - that diminish the necessity of human effort. He observes that they merely gathers and redirects a force of motion that exists in nature - a water mill takes the force of river currents that exist in nature and convert them to a spinning motion in a fixed location. Arguably, this diminishes the force by which the water flows downstream, but by very little, and nature is not prevented from achieving her original purpose by stealing a small amount of her power for other purposes.
In other instances man seems to create power, though he is merely availing himself of natures properties. That is, he may use a boiler to create steam and use its pressure to drive machinery. The steam did not exist in nature, but only because he uses water and fuel in a boiler to arrange a source of power. It is still a natural force, guided by man by the use of a machine.
(EN: The point of all this deliberation is lost on me, except perhaps to speak to a superstitious audience who believes that machines have some magical or unnatural power, which was likely an attitude common in the author's time.)
Production and Trade
There is a brief bit about the manner in which mechanization in one country affects the economy of another. The author reckons that this only occurs when there is a disparity in productive capability.
That is, a textile factory in Britain buys its cotton and sells its cloth within Britain and the whole operation is contained to the domestic market. It is only when the demand for material exceeds the capacity of local farmers that materials are purchased from abroad, and it is only when the demand for finished cloth in the domestic market is sated that the products are sold aboard.
(EN: This seems to be to imply that manufacturing does not diminish the local economy, which is another common criticism, but Babbage's suppositions fail to account for pricing. When foreign producers can provide materials more cheaply or offer a higher price for finished goods, then the local economy is arguably diminished because both the farmer and consumer are ignored in favor of more profitable trading partners overseas. But this counterargument is in favor of supporting inefficient production - domestic producers must demand more for materials because their methods of production are less efficient than foreign sources. The answer is not to compel the manufacturer to support inefficient suppliers - which drives up the price of his product to the local market and harms consumers - but to encourage local suppliers to be more efficient, or find a trade at which they are more competent.)