_Natural Transformations of Society increase its Productive Power._--There is no doubt that the changes of shape through which the social organism is going cause it to grow in strength and efficiency. More and more power to produce is coming, as we have seen, in consequence of these transmutations. They always involve shifting _labor_ about within the organization and often involve shifting laborers, taking some of them out of the subgroups in which they are now working and putting them into others, something that cannot be done without cost. _Immediate Effects of Labor Saving._--Inventing a machine that can do the work of twenty men will cause some of the twenty to be discharged. They feel the burden of finding new places, and if they are skilled workmen and their trade is no longer worth practicing, they lose all the advantage they have enjoyed from special skill in their occupations. Do they themselves get any adequate offset for this, or does society as a whole divide the benefit in such a way that those who pay nearly the whole cost get only their minute part of the gain? Is there unfair dealing inherent in progress in the economic arts, and must we justify the movement only on the ground of utility, though knowing that a moralist would condemn it? These are some of the general questions that are to be decided by a study of this phase of economic dynamics. We need to know both what the movement will in the end do for humanity and what it will at once do for particular workmen.[2] In addition to ascertaining what the ultimate results of the movement will be, we need to trace, with as much accuracy as is possible, the effects of the disturbances that are involved in generally beneficent changes. [2] Our study may lead to a moral verdict without being itself an ethical study; we limit the inquiry to questions of fact, but perceive that some of the facts are of such a kind that they must lead a reader to condemn or approve the social economic system. CHAPTER XVI EFFECT OF IMPROVEMENTS IN METHODS OF PRODUCTION