Chapter 25 Chapter IX Industrial Organization (Continued).division of labor.mechanical influence

Practice makes perfect in the first session. The first condition of an efficient industrial organization is that it should enable every man employed to do the work for which his ability and education qualify him, and should furnish him with the best machinery and equipment necessary for his work. Other tools.On the one hand, there are those who do the detailed work of production, and on the other hand, those who manage the general work of production and take risks. We will not study the division of labor between them for the time being; But only the division of labor among the different classes of workmen is studied, especially with regard to the influence of machinery.In the next chapter we shall consider the interplay between the division of labor and the determination of the location of industry; Mass production—to what extent; finally, we shall study the development of specialization in the management of enterprises.

Everyone is familiar with the fact that "practice makes perfect" and that a job that seems difficult at first is soon done with less effort and much better than before.Physiology explains this fact to some extent.For physiology justifies the belief that this change is due to the gradual development of new habits, more or less "reflexive" or automatic, and is not the same as the highest thought power supposed to reside in the brain. The central authority has nothing to do with it.But all conscious actions are attended to by the main central organ: it receives a message from a central or local organ—perhaps in some cases directly from a sensory nerve—and sends a message to a local organ, or In some cases, the musculoskeletal nerves send detailed and complex instructions directly, and their actions are very harmonious, so that the desired result can be achieved.

The physiological basis for purely mental work is not well understood; but what little we do know about the development of the structure of the mind seems to indicate that the exercise of thinking of any kind develops the various New relationships between parts.At any rate, we do know that practice enables a person to solve quickly, without great effort, problems that he had not so long ago coped with badly, even with his best efforts.The minds of businessmen, lawyers, physicians, and scientists have gradually acquired a wealth of knowledge and intuitive faculties which cannot be acquired except by the continual best efforts of a powerful thinker for many years on a more or less narrow class of problems. of knowledge and ability.Of course, the human spirit cannot be overused in any one direction during the many hours of the day: an industrious man may sometimes take pleasure in work which is not his business, but having to do it all day long is enough to wear him out.

It is true that some social improvers have maintained that those who do the most important mental work may do some manual work, as appropriate, without diminishing their ability to acquire knowledge and solve difficult problems.Experience, however, seems to show that the best relief from overtiredness is to do work which begins when the emotion comes and stops when the emotion passes, that is, to do things of the sort which the general instinct regards as "pastime."Any work of such a commercial character that a man must sometimes be compelled by force of will to continue doing it, is a drain on his nerves, not a complete diversion: so, from the point of view of society, It is uneconomical unless its value is more than sufficient to compensate for the great injury to his principal work.

Section 2. In low-level jobs, extreme specialization can increase efficiency, but in high-level jobs, it does not always. How far specialization should take place in the highest branches of work is a difficult and unsolved question.It seems to be a true law in scientific investigation that the field of study should be widened in youth, and gradually narrowed with age.For example, one doctor always specializes in a certain disease, while another doctor studies the relationship between this disease and general health by virtue of his extensive experience, and then gradually concentrates more and more on the research of this disease, thus accumulating In this case, even if the former has a rich professional experience and fine instincts, the former may not be as good as the latter even on his specific problems.But there can be no doubt that efficiency can be greatly increased by the division of labor in occupations where manual skill alone is greatly required.

Adam Smith once pointed out: A boy who does nothing but make nails all his life can make nails twice as fast as a first-class blacksmith who only makes nails occasionally.Anyone who has to do exactly the same kind of work day after day with things that are exactly the same shape, by actions that are almost automatic, and with a greater power than can be achieved by waiting for each action to be consciously directed by the will. Gradually he learns to use his fingers completely freely.A well-known example is the winding work done by child labor in spinning mills.Another example is that in a garment factory or a boot factory, a worker sews exactly the same seams manually or mechanically on a piece of leather or cloth of exactly the same size every day and every hour. A workman of much greater, and of much higher general skill, accustomed to make a complete garment or a complete pair of boots, can do so with far less labor and speed.

Next, in the wood and metal trades, if a man has to do exactly the same work over and over again on the same piece of material, he acquires the habit of holding the material as it needs it, and putting tools and other The things to be used are kept in their proper places and within easy reach, with the least loss of time and effort of his own bodily movements.Accustomed to taking these things in the same place and in the same order, his hands work in harmony with each other, almost automatically: with continual practice, his nervous energy is even more exhausted than his physical energy. for rapid reduction.

But when action has thus become routine, it has almost reached the stage where it can be replaced by machinery.The chief difficulty to be overcome is to get the mechanical energy to hold the material firmly in place, just enough for the mechanical tools to work on it without wasting too much time in gripping the material.But this difficulty can generally be managed, if the labor and expense of the machinery are worth some; and the whole work can then often be managed by a workman, who sits in front of the Take a piece of wood or metal from the pile of materials, place it in a recessed place on the machine, and at the same time pull down the switch or otherwise activate the mechanical tool with the right hand, and finally, with the left hand, cut or chisel the machine just in a certain pattern, The drilled or planed material is put into another pile of material.In these industries in particular we see much in the reports of modern trade unions the complaint that work which formerly required the skill and judgment of a well-trained artisan has been replaced by improvements in machinery and an ever-increasing degree of subdivision of labor. and reduced to mere routine work, so that unskilled labourers, and even their wives and children, are employed in it.

Section III The influence of machinery on the quality of human life is partly good and partly bad. We thus arrive at a general law, more pronounced in some branches of industry than others, but valid for all.The law is that any industrial operation which can become uniform, so that exactly the same thing must be done again and again in the same way, must sooner or later be replaced by machinery.There will be delays and difficulties; but, if the work to be done by machinery is of sufficient scale, money and inventive power will be sparingly devoted to the task until success is achieved. Thus the two movements, the improvement of machinery and the increasing refinement of the division of labour, go hand in hand and are to some extent connected.But the relationship is not as close as is generally believed.Further subdivisions of labor have been induced by the enlargement of the market, and by the increased need for large quantities of articles of the same kind, and in some cases for manufactures of great precision; The work to be further divided is cheaper and more delicate.For example, "Bolton and Watt, when they set up their factories at Shahe, felt that the division of labor must be as far as practicable. There were no sliding lathes, planers, or drilling machines, as they do now, which make mechanical precision of construction almost unproblematic." tools. At that time everything depended on the precision of the eye and hand of the individual artisan; particular kinds of work, making them as expert as possible in that work. By continual practice in using the same tools and making the same things, they thereby acquire a great deal of personal proficiency." Thus machinery continually takes the place of that complete manual skill, and render it unnecessary; that is, in the time of Adam Smith, the chief advantage of the division of labor was the acquisition of this entirely manual skill.But machinery enlarges and complicates industry and increases the division of labour—

In particular, the division of labor in business operations—the tendency to create opportunities—has more than offset the above-mentioned effects. Section 4 The use of machines to manufacture machinery opened up a new era of parts replacement systems. Work requiring great precision cannot be done by hand, and the power of machinery to do it is perhaps best known in certain branches of the metal industry where the replacement system of parts is rapidly developing.One piece of metal can be made by hand to closely resemble or fit another piece of metal only after long training, and with great care and labor, but this precision is not perfect after all.But this is precisely what good machinery does most easily and most perfectly.Sowers and harvesters, for example, would be expensive initially if they had to be made by hand; when any part of them broke, the only option was to send the machines back to the factory, or to call in highly skilled technicians. It took a lot of money to get it replaced and repaired.In practice, however, the manufactory has many machines made of the same machine, identical to the damaged part, so that they can be exchanged for use.The farmer in the Northwestern United States, who may be a hundred miles from a good machine shop, can use complex machinery with confidence; because he knows that by telegraphing the number of the machinery, and the number of any part of the machinery he breaks, the next One train will bring a new piece of machinery, which he can install himself.The importance of this principle of exchange of parts has only recently been understood; however, there are many indications that this principle has played an important role in the extension of the use of machine-made machinery to all branches of production, even including domestic work and agricultural work. more useful than anything else.

The influence of machinery upon the nature of modern industry is well exemplified in watchmaking.Some years ago the chief center of such enterprises was in Switzerland, near France; there the division of labor was carried to a very high degree, though the greater part of the work was performed by a more or less dispersed population.There are about fifty different sectors of the industry, each of which performs a small subset of jobs.Almost all of these branches require highly specialized manual skill, but little judgment; wages are generally low, because the trade is so long established that there is little monopoly for those engaged in it, and the training of men of average intellect Children engage in this trade without difficulty.But the industry is now being overwhelmed by the American method of mechanical watchmaking, which requires little special manual skill.In fact, machines are increasingly automated and require less and less help from the human hand.But the finer the power of the machine, the greater the judgment and carefulness of those who manage it.Take, for example, a fine machine, which sucks steel itself from one end, and delivers fine little screws from the other; but they lead sedentary lives, poring over microscopes, feeling that their work offers little opportunity for talent beyond the mere use of their fingers.But this machine is complex and expensive, and the man who manages it must have intelligence and a strong sense of responsibility, and this intelligence and sense of responsibility are very useful for the development of good character; There are still very few people, so they can earn high wages.Undoubtedly, this is an extreme situation, and in the work of a watch factory, most of it is much simpler.But many of these jobs require higher talents than the old methods, and those who perform them earn, on average, higher wages; The poorer classes are also available for purchase, and it is showing that the highest work will soon be done. The workmen who complete the parts of a watch and fit them together must possess a high degree of special skill; but the machinery used in watchmakers is not, for the most part, of a general character as that used in any other light metal industry. different; Many of them are, in fact, mere adaptations of lathes, chisels, holers, drills, planers, shapers, finishers, and other machines common to all mechanical trades.This is a good instance of the fact that, while the division of labor is becoming ever more finely divided, the lines of division between trades of different names are shrinking in many cases, and are not difficult to cross.In the olden days a watchmaker, who happened to suffer from a diminished need for his watches, would have been no consolation to hear that the gun industry needed more men; Or working in a sewing machine factory or a textile machinery factory, you will see that many machines are very similar to the machines they are familiar with.A watch factory, together with the workers who work in it, can be converted into a sewing machine factory without much loss; the only condition is that, in the new factory, workers who are accustomed to a certain kind of work should not be called He goes to work that requires a higher general intelligence. Section V takes the printing industry as an example. The printing industry furnishes another illustration of the finer division of labor which is brought about by the improvement of machinery and the increase of output.Everyone is acquainted with the start of the newspaper editor in the new frontiers of America, who typed his articles as he wrote them; with the help of a boy, he printed them and distributed them to scattered neighbors.But when the secret of printing is not known, the printer must do everything himself, and besides, make all his own implements.These implements are now supplied to him by a separate "auxiliary" trade, from which the printer in the Border Woods gets everything he needs.But, though it can thus get help from without, a large printing house must keep within itself many different kinds of workmen.Not to mention those who organize and supervise enterprises, those who work in offices and manage materials, skilled "proofreaders" who correct possible mistypes on "proof sheets", engineers and mechanical repair workers, those who cast stereotypes and correct and match stereotypes People, those who manage warehouses, and the boys, girls and boys who help them, and other lesser classes of workers, as well as typesetters who set movable type, and machine workers and printers who do printing.Each of these two classes is divided into many subclasses, especially in the great centers of the printing industry.In London, for example, the workman accustomed to manage a kind of machinery, or the compositor accustomed to a kind of work, if he is unemployed, will not be willing to give up the benefit of his special skill, and rely on his general knowledge of the trade to Find work with another machine, or another job.These lines of division between subtle subdivisions of labor in an industry have played a large part in the modern tendency to specialization of industry of many kinds; Many are so subtle that a man who loses employment in one small branch can be transferred to a small adjacent branch without great loss of efficiency, but still manages to keep Working in his own trade, he does so after some time without success; and so, with regard to the little changes in the trade from week to week, these divisions are as valid as the stronger ones.But the division of artisans in the Middle Ages was of a very different kind from the deep and wide divisions which made the weavers suffer for life in unemployment. In printing, as in watchmaking, we see the instruments of machinery and science achieve results that would not have been possible without them; on the other hand, they leave to human hands those parts which do require the exercise of judgment, and create new kinds of labor in which judgment is very much needed.With every improvement and depreciation of the tools of the printer, there is demand for the judgment, taste, and literary knowledge of the proofreader, and for those who know how to arrange beautiful inside covers, or how to print engravings on paper, to suit them properly. The skill and aesthetic needs of people with light and dark colors will increase.It again increases the need for gifted and highly trained artists who paint or carve on wood, stone, or metal, and increases the correct report of knowing how to give the content of a ten-minute speech in ten lines— It is an intellectual skill, the difficulty of which we underestimate because it is so often done—the needs of the human being.In the second place, it would add to the work of photographers, electrotypes, typewriters, printing machinery makers, and many others, more than those who formerly stacked and unloaded paper, and folded newspapers, whose work had been done for them. Machines instead - higher training and higher income from work. Section 6. Machinery relieves the strain on human muscles, so that the monotony of work does not cause the monotony of life. We may now turn to consider the effect of machinery in alleviating the excessive muscular strain which, a few generations ago, was the lot of more than half the working people in a country like Great Britain.The most astonishing examples of mechanical force are found in the great ironworks, and especially in those who manufacture steel plates, where the forces employed are so great that human muscle power is of no importance, and all movements, whether horizontal or vertical, must be Do it by water pressure or steam power, and a man just stands by to manage the machine, remove the ashes, or do some such secondary work. While such machinery increases our power over nature, it does not directly and greatly alter the nature of human work; for such machinery does work which man could not do without it.In other trades, however, machinery relieves human labor.Carpenters who build houses, for example, make the same things our ancestors used, but with a lot less effort.They are now principally engaged in those parts of the work which are most pleasant and interesting; meanwhile, in every town, and even in every village, there are steam-works for sawing, planing, and shaping, which lightened the The extreme fatigue that makes them prematurely old. New machinery often requires a great deal of love and attention when it is first invented.However, the work of workers who manage this kind of machinery is often divided: all operations that are uniform and monotonous are gradually taken over by the machine, so that the machine becomes more and more automatic and self-operating; Human hands have nothing to do except take out the finished product.It is still man's responsibility to see that the machinery is sound and working properly; but even this work is often lightened by the introduction of automatic mechanisms, which stop the machinery as soon as it fails. In former times the occupation of the weaver of plain cloth was the most narrow and monotonous.But now a female worker can manage four or more looms, and the work done by each loom in a day is many times higher than that of the old hand looms; Much more judgment.For every hundred yards of cloth woven, therefore, man is probably not doing one-twentieth as much wholly monotonous work as it used to be. This fact is to be found in the recent history of many trades: it is of great importance when we consider how the organization of modern industry has reduced the scope of the work of each individual, and thus made it monotonous.For the trade in which the division of labor is most finely divided is the trade in which the chief strain of muscles is most necessarily replaced by machinery; and the chief harm of monotonous work is greatly diminished.As Roscher said, the monotony of life is far more terrible than the monotony of work: the monotony of work is the most terrible harm only when it causes the monotony of life.Now, when a man's occupation requires great physical exertion, he cannot do much after work; unless his intellect is employed in his work, it has little opportunity for development.However, in the daily work of the factory, the expenditure of nervous power is not very great, at least in the factory where the noise is not too loud and the working hours are not too long.The social environment of factory life stimulates intellectual activity, both within and outside working hours; and among the workers whose occupations seem monotonous, many possess great intellect and resourcefulness. Indeed, the American farmer is capable, and the status of his children is also rapidly improving.But partly because of the abundance of land, and the fact that the land he cultivates is generally his own, he is in a better social condition than the English farmer; he must always think of himself, and already uses and repairs complex machinery.The English farmer had great disadvantages to contend with.Until recently the English peasantry had been poorly educated and largely under a semi-feudal rule which, if not without its benefits, stifled enterprise and even, to some extent, self-respect. .These unfavorable causes have been eliminated.Farmers in England are now fairly well educated in their youth.He learns to use machinery of all kinds, and he depends less so much on the goodwill of some squire or group of peasants; for his employment is more varied and more intellectually cultivating than the lowest urban employment, and his position It tends to increase both absolutely and relatively. Section VII compares specialized skills and specialized machinery.External and internal economics. We shall now proceed to consider under what conditions the economies of production resulting from the division of labor can best be obtained.It is evident that the efficiency of a particular machinery or skill is but one condition of its economical use; another condition is that there should be enough work to make it fully employed.As Baibiji points out, in a large factory "the owner divides the work to be done into different operations, each requiring a different degree of skill or strength, so that he can obtain the correct amount of skill and strength required for an operation; and, if the whole work is to be done by one workman, that person must be skilled enough to perform the most difficult of the various operations into which the work is divided, You must have enough strength to do the most difficult work." The economy of production not only requires everyone to operate continuously in a narrow scope of work, but also requires each person to take on different jobs. Make the most of his skills and abilities.In the same way, when a powerful lathe is set up especially for some kind of work, mechanical economy requires that it be used for that kind of work as long as possible; Then that kind of work should be one that is worth using the lathe, not that which can be done equally well with a much smaller machine. Therefore, in terms of the economics of production, man and machine are in very much the same position: however, machine is only a tool of production, and the welfare of man is the ultimate goal of production.We have already examined the question whether the specialization of duties, which makes all the most difficult work done by a few, is beneficial to mankind as a whole; Let's consider this question more carefully.The main content of the next three chapters is to investigate what makes the various modes of business management most suitable for benefiting from their environment, and most superior to other modes; Appropriate to what extent it is beneficial to the environment. Among those economies which are commonly regarded as the use of specialized skill and machinery which can only be acquired by very large factories, there are many which are not determined by the size of the individual factories.Some are determined by the aggregate of production of like kinds; and others—especially those economies concerned with the development of knowledge and the progress of the arts—are primarily determined by the aggregate of the production of the civilized world as a whole.Here we can propose two terms. We may divide the economies arising from the increase in the scale of production of any kind of goods into two categories: the first, the general development of the economy dependent on the industry; the second, the resources, organization and and economics of operating efficiency. We may call the former external economy and the latter internal economy.In this chapter we have mainly considered the internal economy; but now we shall move on to the very important external economy, which can often be achieved by the concentration of many small enterprises of a similar nature in a particular place--the so-called industrial district. distribution - and acquisition.