The Principles of Economics Part 23

[Sidenote: Machinery brought in an industrial revolution]

2. _Machinery of many sorts has long been used, but the "age of machinery" begins with the eighteenth century._ Inventions, new machines, and new processes, though not frequent, were not unknown in the Middle Ages; but no one cla.s.s of machines took possession of a whole field of industry and gave rise to a great economic problem by the displacing of labor. The great industrial changes in the Middle Ages generally grew out of political changes, or of changes of routes of trade whereby large industries were disturbed, or of changes in the use of land through new methods and the bringing into use of land in other places. The industrial changes in England at the end of the eighteenth century on the contrary were due mainly to great mechanical inventions.

The development of the textile machines for cotton and wool spinning and weaving mark the beginning of the movement. Here for the first time were inventions in such numbers, of such a nature, and under such conditions, that they were rapidly and widely applied, affecting the lives of a great number of workers. The steam-engine at the same time opened up the long line of mechanical inventions by which wood and iron are shaped and wrought, and the iron industry underwent notable developments. Since that time, have taken place in all Western countries that rapid expansion in the use of machines and those notable changes in industrial organization which distinguish our era from all others.

[Sidenote: Increased use of power]

3. _Machinery is applicable in very different degrees to the different processes and industries._ Machinery can save much labor in some directions, little or none in others. It is especially adapted to the application of power. In the United States, in 1870, in manufactures alone, two and one third million horse-power were used; in 1900, eleven and one third million, the increase being five-fold. It is said that in the world, in 1870, three and one half million horse-power was furnished by stationary engines, ten millions by locomotives. Probably to-day the total is four-fold as great.

[Sidenote: Machines can best be used in manufactures]

Machinery is applicable with especial advantage to industries that change the form of materials easily transported and widely used. There must be a large output to justify the use of machinery. In 1840 a man's work in spinning cotton was three hundred and twenty times as effective as in 1769, in 1855 it was seven hundred times; and though the rate of improvement is diminis.h.i.+ng, to-day the productivity of such labor is still greater. Similar examples are found in the manufacture of shoes, and in all varieties of wood- and iron-work. Machinery is most applicable where there is a compact plant; not so easily where the power has to be distributed over a wide area, unless a special track can be provided.

[Sidenote: Not to so great an extent in agriculture]

Machinery, therefore, has affected manufactures much more immediately and greatly than it has agriculture. It has not as yet, for example, been found practicable to apply steam to ploughing to any great extent.

As the profitable use of most farm machinery requires a level surface and a large area given to a single crop, it cannot be used as well east of the Alleghany Mountains as in the Mississippi Valley, and it is still uneconomical in large portions of the civilized world. Despite this difficulty the methods of the farmer of to-day contrast strongly with those of one hundred or fifty years ago. Planters and seeders, reapers, harvesters, corn-sh.e.l.lers, hay-loaders, automatic unloading-forks, elevators, water-power-, steam-, and gasoline-engines allow great economies. The labor needed to produce food for one hundred people is a fraction of what it was one hundred years ago. In many other industries machines are usable only in a slight measure, indirectly, or not at all.

They are of the least a.s.sistance in the personal services, and in the work of the thinker, the teacher, the speaker, and the artist.

-- II. EFFECT OF MACHINERY ON THE WELFARE AND WAGES OF THE Ma.s.sES

[Sidenote: Evil of sudden introduction of machinery]

1. _The immediate effect of improved machinery, if suddenly introduced, is almost always to throw some men out of employment._ Any sudden change in industry injures men who have become adapted to the work that is affected. A well-mastered trade, a wage-earning though intangible possession, may be made suddenly valueless. Men cannot quickly change their methods of working or their place of work. This is as true of change brought about by new trade routes or by scientific discoveries (where machinery does not enter in) as in the case of labor-saving machines. If machines displace labor rapidly, men who cannot adjust themselves to the new conditions suffer, and there are always some who cannot adjust themselves, always some who suffer. It is rarely possible for a man past middle life to s.h.i.+ft over into a new trade where his efficiency will be as great and his pay as high as in the old. New methods of puddling iron sent many old men into the poorhouses of Pennsylvania only a few years ago. Even where the total employment increases, the individual sometimes suffers. The increased demand resulting from the cheapening of a product may call for more workers than were employed before the new machinery came in, and yet some of the former workmen may be thrown out of employment. The introduction of the linotype is said to have displaced a large number of hand type-setters, but to have increased greatly the amount of printing. As the machines are expensive and cannot be worked properly by men not highly expert, men past thirty-five years of age have not been allowed to learn their use.

[Sidenote: Loss falls on the less efficient workers]

The least efficient men in any trade always suffer most. The change crushes hardest the man at the margin of employment. The more skilled workman can hasten his pace and still earn a living wage in compet.i.tion with a machine, while the less skilled can but drop out entirely, innocent victims of an economic change, sacrifices to the cause of industrial progress. Happily such pathetic incidents are relatively not numerous. Most machinery is introduced in commercial centers, and gradually spreads to other factories in such a way that most men can adapt themselves to the change. The effect of machinery must not be judged by the extreme cases. It was found that there were more hand-looms in use in England in 1850 than fifty years before, though in the meantime power-looms had displaced the hand-looms in all the great factories.

[Sidenote: Error of the "lump of labor" notion]

2. _After time for adjustment, the total sum of employment is as great as before, but the labor is differently distributed._ The "lump of labor" idea, as it is called, is widely held, especially among workingmen. The notion is that there is exactly so much labor predetermined to be done; therefore, if machines are introduced, there is that much less for men to do. The logical conclusion easily drawn is that every machine reduces wages. Few, however, would go on to the further conclusion that in the aggregate the existing machinery, like an enormous vampire, is sucking the life-blood of the working-people,--though traces of such a notion frequently appear.

[Sidenote: Effect of machinery varies in different industries]

If extreme examples are taken, it may be made to appear either that an increase or that a decrease of employment results from machinery.

Industries grade off from those that are capable of developing a greater and greater demand, to those at the other extreme that are capable of a very slight increase, as a result of a lowering of the price. There seems to be practically no limit to the consumption of textiles, provided their price falls; the demand for dress alone is indefinitely expansible. Queen Elizabeth, who had a different dress for every day in the year, has many potential imitators. There is a constant increase relatively, as well as absolutely, in the number employed in transportation, as each census shows; there are more railroad men relatively than there were stage-drivers and teamsters before the day of railroads. The number of people now engaged in printing books and papers is larger by far than in the days when all the books of the world were written by the old monks in their cloisters. The proportion of workers in agriculture, on the other hand, is less than it formerly was.

In part this is a change in appearance only, for the farmer once made a large part of his tools which are now made by workers employed in manufactures, yet who in a very real way are aiding in agriculture. In part the change is, however, the effect of the use of machinery and other improvements in agricultural processes. The amount of raw-food products required for each hundred persons is quite inelastic. As it becomes possible to expend more for food, the change is made in quality, variety, flavor, rather than in quant.i.ty. The greater part of the saving in the cost of food is, however, expended in other products, and the labor saved in agriculture finds employment in supplying these rising wants. In other cases also, new industries are made possible as machines liberate energy from the production of the more necessary goods. At each census it is necessary to change the schedule of occupations, because men have adopted callings unknown before.

[Sidenote: Abnormal effect of the new machinery in England]

3. _In some cases the introduction of new machines injures particular workmen._ The only reason for the use of machinery is to improve the quality or to lower the price of products. If the workers can do nothing but blindly pursue the same tasks, it is to be expected that the wages of hand-labor will fall in a particular trade into which machinery is suddenly introduced. When, as sometimes happens, employers introduce machines for the immediate purpose of breaking a strike, the workmen are convinced that machinery is the enemy of labor.

Because the extensive introduction of machinery in England was at first accompanied by the unhappy result of a lengthening of the hours of labor in factories, this result was deemed to be necessary in all other cases. It was in fact quite abnormal, and has not been seen elsewhere.

The owners of factories wished to keep their machines employed as many hours as possible; the laboring cla.s.ses of England, being at the same time demoralized and depressed by industrial and social influences that had no logical connection with machinery, had no power to resist this movement. In all other countries of Europe and in America, where the introduction of machinery has been more gradual and normal, it has been followed immediately by a shortening of working hours, as eventually it was in England also.

[Sidenote: Higher wages logically result from the use of machinery]

4. _Indeed, the economic effect of improved appliances is logically and inevitably to raise wages._ It has been shown above, in the discussion of wages, that if the efficiency of machines increases faster than does the number of workers who use them, the marginal application of labor stops at the higher uses or services of agents and is not forced to the lower. The more perfect the economic environment, the higher the incomes even of those who own no part of the machinery. A part of this benefit may appear in the form of higher money wages received, a part in the form of the lower price of things bought. Real wages are the essential thing, and as a consumer the laborer shares with every other member of society in the benefits of improved machinery. The benefits resulting from greater abundance are diffused, and as goods are brought from the high, or scarcity, end of the scale of value down toward the level of free goods, everybody gains by the abundance and cheapness.

[Sidenote: Some grades gain more than others]

The general, or average, gain is not to be judged by comparing the conditions of the lowest grade of society with those of fifty years ago, for while that grade may have been bettered only a little, it has been possible for large numbers to rise to higher grades because of the use of machinery. The physical tasks are to-day much lighter than ever before, and a larger proportion of society is engaged in industries that require skill and thought rather than physical labor. That portion of the work is being more and more s.h.i.+fted upon machines. It is important, though, to distinguish between cla.s.ses of workers in judging of the benefits and evils of machines. A machine is "an iron man," it has been said, and comes into compet.i.tion with other men to lower their wages by outworking and underbidding them. But this iron man can do only automatic tasks; it is not capable of exercising judgment. Every intelligent laborer who can adjust, adapt, fit himself for more intelligent action will rise above the machine and profit by its presence. But the crude physical labor which can compete only on the plane of automatic machines, must find its field of employment more and more hedged in. If the wages of unskilled labor are not depressed, it is because of the enterprise of others who rise to more skilled employments and thus reduce the compet.i.tors of the lowest rank.

[Sidenote: The growth of factories]

5. _The early effects of the factory system on the health, intelligence, and morals of the workers often have been bad; but not necessarily the abiding effects._ Some kinds of machines can be more profitably used when they are grouped in great factories, and, where this is common, it is spoken of as the factory system. In the ideal modern factory (realized in few cases) each smaller machine is a part of a larger organization of machinery, so perfect that the material goes in at one end of the building and out at the other without the loss of a single motion. Factories compel great numbers of laborers to live near each other and to work together. The sudden crowding together of people into new social relations is usually bad for morals. Men are moral under the eyes of their neighbors, acquaintances, and families; habits become adjusted to right standards, and the temptations in new conditions are always great. Until of late, engineering science has not been able to deal with the problems that arise where population is densely crowded, and the early factories with their surroundings were most unsanitary.

Under the degrading conditions that resulted in some places, especially in England, the effect of machinery on the intelligence of the workers was bad. Whether this is its natural result is debatable, but the factory worker in general does not appear to be less intelligent than the agricultural worker. The alertness of the city dweller is due doubtless to social contact more than to the immediate work he does.

This work may or may not be less thought-awakening than work with simple tools. There is a general improvement along all the lines of intelligence, morals, and health. The conditions in the cities as regards health and morals are approaching those of agricultural communities. While many factory districts are forlorn, there may be seen around many factories more happy conditions, better buildings, better sanitation, increased leisure for workers, workmen's clubs, educational agencies, and many other evidences of civic and social progress.

[Sidenote: Problems of large industry]

6. _The great social consequences flowing from the concentration of industry and wealth are the most serious problems in the relation of machinery to labor._ The owners.h.i.+p of tools was widely diffused in medieval times. It is not yet evident how many can own a share in great factories, but the control drifts into few hands. It is not yet clear what social effects great corporations will have on our democratic inst.i.tutions. Many problems of large industry remain to be solved in the near future. The question in the old form, as to the effect of machinery on labor, is no longer open. It has been clearly answered by experience and explained by theory: the economic effect of machinery is to lift the productiveness and efficiency of the average man. The benefits are unequally distributed, but nearly all share in them to some degree. The question which the future will have to answer is, What will be the social and political effects of the great fortunes that have been made possible by the enormous development of machinery?

CHAPTER 27

TRADE-UNIONS

-- I. THE OBJECTS OF TRADE-UNIONS

[Sidenote: Definition and purposes of trade-unions]

1. _A trade-union is an a.s.sociation of wage-workers for purposes of mutual information, mutual help, and for the raising of wages._ The term trade-union is used in a general sense both of combinations of workers in the same trade, and of men in different trades, though usually the latter are called _labor_-unions. The "Knights of Labor" is a good example of the labor-union, the "American Federation of Labor" of a combination of trade-unions. The Knights of Labor is composed of local branches to which workers of every cla.s.s except lawyers and saloon-keepers are admitted. The Federation of Labor, however, is composed of chapters, or lodges, that are h.o.m.ogeneous, all the men of each lodge being in the same trade.

The definition given is broad enough to include the various degrees of help given and the various methods adopted by trade-unions to accomplish their objects. Trade-unions are mutual-benefit a.s.sociations: insurance against accident, sickness, death, or lack of employment, forms an important part, and in some cases almost the whole of their work. All unions in a measure serve their members as employment bureaus, while in some unions this is a most important feature. Through trade-papers, correspondence, and personal meetings, information is exchanged regarding trade conditions, and great mutual service is thus rendered.

But a great deal of the help given is in the more impersonal economic ways: help to get from the employers better wages, to secure shorter hours, to improve in various ways the conditions of employment.

[Sidenote: Lack of personal touch between employers and workmen]

2. _The organization of workers has resulted from the separation of the economic and personal interests of employers and workmen._ The control of industry has become more concentrated during the age of machinery, and this has reduced the feeling of economic unity among the different ranks of industry. There is now to the average workman no possibility of becoming a master, an employer. The largeness of industry forbids, moreover, the meeting and personal acquaintance of employer and workman which were before possible. Misunderstandings grow when men cannot talk over their differences. The social chasm has widened between the workmen and the responsible director of industry. As a result of these changes, the att.i.tude of the employer very often has become that of the buyer of labor as a mere ware. He has with the ma.s.s of his employees no personal relations whatever. Under these conditions, when the employer feels the presence of compet.i.tion, he is more likely to force the lowest wage that is possible. It is not unusual for the immediate direction of factories to be intrusted to paid managers, who are responsible to the stockholders and whose work is judged only by the dividends they succeed in earning. Many examples might be found where the managers or the resident owners have wished to pursue a more liberal policy than the absentee shareholders would permit.

[Sidenote: Lack of personal acquaintance among workers]

3. _The need of organization of labor has grown with the growth of factories and with the loss of personal touch among the workers._ This is another aspect of the point just mentioned. The smaller the number of employers, the easier is it by an understanding to suppress compet.i.tion on their side. If there is only one factory of a kind in a town or city, the employer is able to drive a harder bargain with the worker.

Especially in times of industrial depression is a change of employment difficult for the laborer; it involves much risk, and loss of time and money in moving. In the long run compet.i.tion must be felt even in such cases. The unfair employer will find his workmen drifting away, his force reduced in number and quality, and his evil reputation going abroad among workmen. But there is a great deal of friction in this adjustment and the loss falls largely upon the workman. In a large industry, especially, the workers have no personal acquaintance with each other, nothing to give them a sense of unity and power. In the old-fas.h.i.+oned shop, with its close a.s.sociation and its interchange of views, could grow up a strong public opinion; but in the wilderness of a modern factory the worker may be unknown in name and character to the man who touches elbows with him. Moreover, in America differences in nationality and in speech among immigrant workers is often an effective factor in preventing the a.s.sertion of their interests. There is an a.n.a.logy (though it is only an a.n.a.logy) between these conditions and the political conditions that have led pure democracies to give way to representative governments. So long as a community is small and men know each other personally, there may be popular government, but when the number becomes larger the only way in which public opinion can be concentrated and made effective is by delegating the functions of government to representatives.

[Sidenote: Main objects of trade-unions to-day]

4. _The main objects of labor-unions to-day are to improve conditions in their working places, to maintain or increase wages, and to shorten working hours._ Better conditions of safety and sanitation in their work were not the first thought of the unions. The workers, as a result of habit and ignorance, were strangely unconcerned about this matter.

Reforms in this direction at the outset had to come largely from sympathetic observers. But since better ideals have been developed, organized laborers strive to improve the sanitary, moral, and other conditions in the places of work. Their main object, however, was for a long time to raise wages, or to resist any decrease. Shorter hours have been a prime object of recent years, and almost coordinate with that of higher wages. The eight-hour movement has declined somewhat of late, but a few years ago it seemed possible that the eight-hour day would become the rule. This aim has never been lost sight of, however, and now and then another step is taken toward it. Labor leaders have repeatedly a.s.serted in recent years, when the two demands have been made together, that shorter hours were more desirable than increased wages.

-- II. THE METHODS OF TRADE-UNIONS