Episode 1 - Of the Division of Labour - Wealth of Nations

When you're ready to slow down, especially before bed, listen to Saul Good Sounds. We create calming audio, ambient soundscapes, and peaceful listening experiences designed to help you relax, unwind, and fall asleep. Search Saul Good Sounds wherever you listen to podcasts. That's S-O-L-G-O-O-D sounds. Saul Good Sounds. Rest well. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. Book 1 of the causes of improvement in the productive powers of labor and of the order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the different ranks of the people. Chapter 1 of Book 1 of the Division of Labor The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labor 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 labor. The effects of the division of labor in the general business of society will be more easily understood by considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufacturers. It is commonly supposed to be carried furthest in some very trifling ones, not perhaps that it is really carried further in them than in others of more importance, but in those trifling manufacturers which are destined to supply the small ones 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 manufacturers 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 manufacturers, 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 manufacturer, but one in which the division of labor has been very often taken notice of, the trade of a pin maker. A workman not educated to this business, which the division of labor 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 labor 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 manufacturing 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 a 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 forty-eighth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth, part of what they are at present capable of performing in consequence of a proper division in combination of their different operations. In every other art and manufacturer, the effects of the division of labor are similar to what they are in this very trifling one, though in many of them the labor can neither be so much subdivided nor reduced to so great simplicity of operation. The division of labor, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions in every art a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labor. 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 carried 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 labor, too, which is necessary to produce any one complete manufacturer is almost always divided among a great number of hands. How many different trades are employed in each branch of the linen and woolen manufacturers from the growers of the flacks and the wool to the bleachers and smoothers of the linen or to the diars and dressers of the cloth? The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not admit of so many subdivisions of labor, nor of so complete a separation of one business from another as manufacturers. 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 plowman, the harrower, the sewer, the seed and the reaper of the corn are often the same. The occasions for those different sorts of labor 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 as separation of all the different branches of labor employed in agriculture is perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive powers of labor and this art does not always keep pace with their improvements in manufacturers. The most opulent nations, indeed, generally excel all their nations in agriculture as well as in manufacturers, but they are commonly more distinguished by their superiority in the latter than in the farmer. Their lands are in general better cultivated and having more labor 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 labor and expense. In agriculture the labor 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 manufacturers. 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 cornlands of England however are better cultivated than those of France, and the cornlands 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 know such competition in its manufacturers, at least if those manufacturers 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 manufacturer, 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 woolen of England are beyond all comparison superior to those of France and much cheaper to in the same degree of goodness. In Poland there are said to be scarce any manufacturers of any kind, a few of those coarser household manufacturers accepted, without which no country can well subsist. This great increase in the quantity of work which in consequence of the division of labor, 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 labor, 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 labor by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily increases very much the 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 two 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 importance. most diligence make more than 800 or 1000 nails in a day. I have seen several boys under 20 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 2,300 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 and 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 workouts, 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 triples 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 20 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 and 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 labor 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 labor is so much facilitated and abridged seems to have been originally owing to the division of labor. 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, then when it is dissipated among a great variety of things. But in consequence of the division of labor, the whole of every man's attention comes naturally to be directed towards some one very simple object. It is naturally to be accepted therefore that some one or other of those who are employed in each particular branch of labor should soon find out easier and readier methods of performing their own particular work whenever the nature of it admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines made use of in those manufacturers in which labor is most sub-divided were originally the invention 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 manufacturers most frequently have been shown very pretty machines which were the inventions of such workmen in order to facilitate and quicken their own 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 play fellows. 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 labor. 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 soul trade in 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 a philosophy as well as in every other business improved austerity 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 and consequence of the division of labor which occasions in a well governed society the universal opulence which extends itself to the lower strengths 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 unable 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 ample 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 artificial or day labor in a civilized 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 woolen coat for example which covers the day labor as coarse and rough as it may appear is the produce of the joint labor of a great multitude of workman. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool comor or Carter, the dire, 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 humbly 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 shipbuilders, sailors, sailmakers, rope makers must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dire which often come from the remotest corners of the world. What a variety of labor 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 labor 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 feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting house, the brick maker, the brick layer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, 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 to 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 rituals, 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 in divides his rituals, 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 workman employed in producing those different conveniences, if we examine, I say, all these things and consider what a variety of labor is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and cooperation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized 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 masters of the lives and liberties of 10,000 naked savages. End of Book 1 Chapter 1