
Book
One:
OF
THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR,
AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY
DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER
I
Of the Division of Labour
The
greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and
the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with
which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been
the effects of the division of labour.
The
effects of the division of labour, in the general business of
society, will be more easily understood by considering in what
manner it operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly
supposed to be carried furthest in some very trifling ones;
not perhaps that it really is carried further in them than in
others of more importance: but in those trifling manufactures
which are destined to supply the small wants of but a small
number of people, the whole number of workmen must necessarily
be small; and those employed in every different branch of the
work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed
at once under the view of the spectator. In those great manufactures,
on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants
of the great body of the people, every different branch of the
work employs so great a number of workmen that it is impossible
to collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see
more, at one time, than those employed in one single branch.
Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really
be divided into a much greater number of parts than in those
of a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious,
and has accordingly been much less observed.
To
take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture;
but one in which the division of labour has been very often
taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated
to this business (which the division of labour has rendered
a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery
employed in it (to the invention of which the same division
of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps,
with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly
could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business
is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade,
but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater
part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire,
another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a
fifth grinds it at the top for receiving, the head; to make
the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it
on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it
is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the
important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided
into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories,
are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same
man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen
a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed,
and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct
operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but
indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they
could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve
pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four
thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore,
could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in
a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight
thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight
hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately
and independently, and without any of them having been educated
to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of
them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is,
certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the
four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present
capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and
combination of their different operations.
In
every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division
of labour are similar to what they are in this very trifling
one; though, in many of them, the labour can neither be so much
subdivided, nor reduced to so great a simplicity of operation.
The division of labour, however, so far as it can be introduced,
occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive
powers of labour. The separation of different trades and employments
from one another seems to have taken place in consequence of
this advantage. This separation, too, is generally called furthest
in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry
and improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude state
of society being generally that of several in an improved one.
In every improved society, the farmer is generally nothing but
a farmer; the manufacturer, nothing but a manufacturer. The
labour, too, which is necessary to produce any one complete
manufacture is almost always divided among a great number of
hands. How many different trades are employed in each branch
of the linen and woollen manufactures from the growers of the
flax and the wool, to the bleachers and smoothers of the linen,
or to the dyers and dressers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture,
indeed, does not admit of so many subdivisions of labour, nor
of so complete a separation of one business from another, as
manufactures. It is impossible to separate so entirely the business
of the grazier from that of the corn-farmer as the trade of
the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the smith.
The spinner is almost always a distinct person from the weaver;
but the ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and
the reaper of the corn, are often the same. The occasions for
those different sorts of labour returning with the different
seasons of the year, it is impossible that one man should be
constantly employed in any one of them. This impossibility of
making so complete and entire a separation of all the different
branches of labour employed in agriculture is perhaps the reason
why the improvement of the productive powers of labour in this
art does not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures.
The most opulent nations, indeed, generally excel all their
neighbours in agriculture as well as in manufactures; but they
are commonly more distinguished by their superiority in the
latter than in the former. Their lands are in general better
cultivated, and having more labour and expense bestowed upon
them, produce more in proportion to the extent and natural fertility
of the ground. But this superiority of produce is seldom much
more than in proportion to the superiority of labour and expense.
In agriculture, the labour of the rich country is not always
much more productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it
is never so much more productive as it commonly is in manufactures.
The corn of the rich country, therefore, will not always, in
the same degree of goodness, come cheaper to market than that
of the poor. The corn of Poland, in the same degree of goodness,
is as cheap as that of France, notwithstanding the superior
opulence and improvement of the latter country. The corn of
France is, in the corn provinces, fully as good, and in most
years nearly about the same price with the corn of England,
though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior
to England. The corn-lands of England, however, are better cultivated
than those of France, and the corn-lands of France are said
to be much better cultivated than those of Poland. But though
the poor country, notwithstanding the inferiority of its cultivation,
can, in some measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness
of its corn, it can pretend to no such competition in its manufactures;
at least if those manufactures suit the soil, climate, and situation
of the rich country. The silks of France are better and cheaper
than those of England, because the silk manufacture, at least
under the present high duties upon the importation of raw silk,
does not so well suit the climate of England as that of France.
But the hardware and the coarse woollens of England are beyond
all comparison superior to those of France, and much cheaper
too in the same degree of goodness. In Poland there are said
to be scarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of those coarser
household manufactures excepted, without which no country can
well subsist.
This
great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence
of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable
of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first,
to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly,
to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing
from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention
of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour,
and enable one man to do the work of many.
First,
the improvement of the dexterity of the workman necessarily
increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division
of labour, by reducing every man's business to some one simple
operation, and by making this operation the sole employment
of his life, necessarily increased very much dexterity of the
workman. A common smith, who, though accustomed to handle the
hammer, has never been used to make nails, if upon some particular
occasion he is obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am assured,
be able to make above two or three hundred nails in a day, and
those too very bad ones. A smith who has been accustomed to
make nails, but whose sole or principal business has not been
that of a nailer, can seldom with his utmost diligence make
more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have
seen several boys under twenty years of age who had never exercised
any other trade but that of making nails, and who, when they
exerted themselves, could make, each of them, upwards of two
thousand three hundred nails in a day. The making of a nail,
however, is by no means one of the simplest operations. The
same person blows the bellows, stirs or mends the fire as there
is occasion, heats the iron, and forges every part of the nail:
in forging the head too he is obliged to change his tools. The
different operations into which the making of a pin, or of a
metal button, is subdivided, are all of them much more simple,
and the dexterity of the person, of whose life it has been the
sole business to perform them, is usually much greater. The
rapidity with which some of the operations of those manufacturers
are performed, exceeds what the human hand could, by those who
had never seen them, be supposed capable of acquiring.
Secondly,
the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost
in passing from one sort of work to another is much greater
than we should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible
to pass very quickly from one kind of work to another that is
carried on in a different place and with quite different tools.
A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must lose a good
deal of time in passing from his loom to the field, and from
the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on
in the same workhouse, the loss of time is no doubt much less.
It is even in this case, however, very considerable. A man commonly
saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of employment
to another. When he first begins the new work he is seldom very
keen and hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and
for some time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose.
The habit of sauntering and of indolent careless application,
which is naturally, or rather necessarily acquired by every
country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools
every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different ways
almost every day of his life, renders him almost always slothful
and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application even on
the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his
deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always
reduce considerably the quantity of work which he is capable
of performing.
Thirdly,
and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is facilitated
and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is unnecessary
to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore, that the
invention of all those machines by which labour is so much facilitated
and abridged seems to have been originally owing to the division
of labour. Men are much more likely to discover easier and readier
methods of attaining any object when the whole attention of
their minds is directed towards that single object than when
it is dissipated among a great variety of things. But in consequence
of the division of labour, the whole of every man's attention
comes naturally to be directed towards some one very simple
object. It is naturally to be expected, therefore, that some
one or other of those who are employed in each particular branch
of labour should soon find out easier and readier methods of
performing their own particular work, wherever the nature of
it admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines
made use of in those manufactures in which labour is most subdivided,
were originally the inventions of common workmen, who, being
each of them employed in some very simple operation, naturally
turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier
methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to
visit such manufactures must frequently have been shown very
pretty machines, which were the inventions of such workmen in
order to facilitate and quicken their particular part of the
work. In the first fire-engines, a boy was constantly employed
to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler
and the cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or
descended. One of those boys, who loved to play with his companions,
observed that, by tying a string from the handle of the valve
which opened this communication to another part of the machine,
the valve would open and shut without his assistance, and leave
him at liberty to divert himself with his playfellows. One of
the greatest improvements that has been made upon this machine,
since it was first invented, was in this manner the discovery
of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.
All
the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been
the inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines.
Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers
of the machines, when to make them became the business of a
peculiar trade; and some by that of those who are called philosophers
or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do anything,
but to observe everything; and who, upon that account, are often
capable of combining together the powers of the most distant
and dissimilar objects. In the progress of society, philosophy
or speculation becomes, like every other employment, the principal
or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of citizens.
Like every other employment too, it is subdivided into a great
number of different branches, each of which affords occupation
to a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers; and this subdivision
of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business,
improves dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes
more expert in his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon
the whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased
by it.
It
is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different
arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions,
in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends
itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has
a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he
himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly
in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity
of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the
same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He
supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and
they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for,
and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different
ranks of the society.
Observe
the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-labourer
in a civilised and thriving country, and you will perceive that
the number of people of whose industry a part, though but a
small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation,
exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which
covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear,
is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen.
The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder,
the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller,
the dresser, with many others, must all join their different
arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many
merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in
transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others
who often live in a very distant part of the country! How much
commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders,
sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in
order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the
dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world!
What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce
the tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of
such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill
of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider
only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form
that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd
clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting
the ore, the seller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal
to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the
brick-layer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the mill-wright,
the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different
arts in order to produce them. Were we to examine, in the same
manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture,
the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes
which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the
different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which
he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for
that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought
to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage, all the
other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table,
the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which
he serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed
in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which
lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the
rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing
that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern
parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable
habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen
employed in producing those different conveniences; if we examine,
I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour
is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without
the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very
meanest person in a civilised country could not be provided,
even according to what we very falsely imagine the easy and
simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared,
indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation
must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may
be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a European prince
does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal
peasant as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many
an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties
of ten thousand naked savages.
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