Essentials of Economic Theory: As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public PolicyClark, John Bates
General
Essentials of Economic Theory: As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy
Clark, John Bates
Economics
_Nature of the Incidental Evils to be Dreaded._--The problem we have
to face is a danger that labor may be displaced either (1) from the
particular point within a productive establishment at which it is now
working, or (2) from the productive establishment as a whole, or (3)
from a subgroup, or (4) from the general group of which the subgroup
is a part. Out of industrial society in its entirety it cannot thus be
forced. There is a case in which the men whose crafts are supplanted
by machines may all stay where they are and operate the machines; but
that involves forcing other men to change their occupations. There are
more cases in which these men may stay in the mill or shop that
employs them, but not in the same department of it. There are still
more cases in which they may stay in their original subgroups, and in
a majority of cases they may stay in their general groups. In every
instance there are places for them in the working society.
_Local Expulsions of Labor._--When a single employer who is one of
many competitors in an industry adopts an important labor-saving
device, it may be possible for him to keep all his men employed and to
let the improvement show itself wholly as a means of increasing the
output. He may secure a machine which will do what twenty men formerly
did. If it were possible to cut the uppers of a dozen shoes by the
quick stroke of a single die, the machine that carried this armature
would do the work of perhaps twelve knives handled by that number of
skillful workmen. If the original number of men were retained in the
cutting department, and if each of them were furnished with the new
appliance, it would mean that twelve times as many uppers would be cut
as were cut before the change was made. There would, of course, be no
use in trying to do so much cutting of uppers for shoes, without doing
twelve times as much sewing, welting, making soles and heels, etc.,
and to secure all this at once would require a twelve-fold enlargement
of the manufacturer's plant. This is too much to secure at once. The
manufacturer might perhaps double the output of his mill and nearly
double the number of his employees, but that would require only two
of the twelve cutters he formerly had. The new workers would be in
parts of the mill other than the one where the great saving of labor
was effected. Ten men would be removed from the cutting department,
and the two left there would cut, by the aid of the new machines,
twice as many uppers as the whole number cut before, and that would
require the furnishing of a double number of all other parts of the
shoes and a double working force to make them. The ten men liberated
from the cutting department would be available for this purpose, and
new ones would be brought in and set sewing, pegging, lasting,
welting, etc. Within a single establishment, therefore, a radical
saving of labor at one point usually involves some shifting of labor
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