First, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its labor is generally applied; secondly, by the proportion between the number of those who are employed in useful labor, and that of those who are not so employed." It is to the first of these circumstances, which he observes is of much the greater influence, that our author's reasoning chiefly refer, and to the consideration of it, therefore, we may altogether confine ourselves.
"The chief cause operating on this, the main source of the productiveness of labor, is capital.Without capital, industry could scarce at all exist.
While a man is executing a piece of labor, he must have, to maintain him, a stock of goods, and he must have ready provided for him the tools and materials necessary for performing the work.These are all procured by capital.A weaver, for instance, could not apply himself to manufacture a web of cloth, unless there were somewhere stored up for him a supply of food, and other necessaries, sufficient to maintain him till he complete and sell it, and were he not provided beforehand with a loom and other requisite tools and materials.It is capital which provides all these, either his own or that of some other person.
"As capital is thus the most essential element in setting industry in motion, so it is by the amount of it, that the productiveness of that industry is chiefly determined.
"Every man having capital naturally endeavors to make the most of it;that is, to cause the labor which it puts in motion to yield the greatest amount of productions.This he effects by the division of that labor; that is, by separating the operations it has to perform into as many distinct parts as possible, and allotting each of them to one man, or one set of men, as a peculiar employment.
"The increase arising to the productive powers of labor, from this division of it, 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;lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labor.
"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 by much the dexterity of the workman.A common smith, for instance, will scarce make more than three hundred nails a day, and those very bad ones.
A boy who has devoted himself entirely to the business of making nails, can make upwards of two thousand.
"Secondly, time is not wasted in passing from one work to another, and the indolent sauntering habits induced by the frequent change of employment are avoided.
"Thirdly, 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.In consequence of it, the whole of every man's attention comes naturally to be directed to 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 labor should find out easier and readier methods of performing their own particular work, wherever the nature of it admits of improvement.In this mode a great number of such improvements on the productive power of labor have been made.
"The other improvements in machinery and manufactures (16) have been also owing to the division of labor.Many of them have been made by the ingenuity of those, who, from this separation of employments, have taken up the trade of making such machines; others, by that class of citizens of whom also philosophy or speculation becomes the sole trade and occupation.
"The perfection to which this division of labor may be carried depends on the amount of capital that sets it in motion; because the same number of workmen, executing a greater quantity of work in proportion as they are better classified and divided, require consequently, when so classified, a larger stock of materials, and the extent of the stock of materials provided must be regulated by the amount of capital accumulated.Again, when so divided, they both require and cause to be invented many new machines.
These machines, also, can only be procured by.a capital previously stored up.Not only, however, does the accumulation of capital, by providing more abundant materials and better machines, enable the same number of workmen to be better divided, and to produce more work, but it also may be observed that the number of workmen in any branch of business increases with the division of labor in that branch.Thus the increased accumulation of capital, by effecting a more and more extended division of labor, not only increases the productiveness of the labor of the same number of workmen, but adds to that number.By both means, therefore, it greatly augments the total riches of the society, the amount of necessaries, conveniences, and amusements produced by its members, and consequently enjoyed by them.
"These productions which labor, by the aid of capital, effects have to be transported to the places where they are to be consumed, have there to be stored up till they may be wanted, when they have to be divided into small portions, suited to the convenience of the persons who are to use them.The dealers in wholesale and retail are enabled to perform these useful offices by the instrumentality of capital, and the greater the amount of that capital the more easily and effectually they can perform them.
Hence, every addition their economy makes to that amount, tends also to the increase of the general prosperity.
