III. Upon the Quality of Labor.

In considering the influence of machinery upon the quality of labor, i.e. skill, duration, intensity, etc., we have first to meet two questions: What are the qualities in which machinery surpasses human labor? What are the kinds of work in which machinery displaces man? Now, since the whole of industrial work consists in moving matter, the advantage of machinery must consist in the production and disposition of motive power. The general economies of machinery are two: (1) The increased quantity of motive force it can apply to industry; (2) Greater exactitude in the regular application of motive force (a) in time – the exact repetition of the same acts at regulated intervals, or greater evenness in continuity, (b) in place – exact repetition of the same movements in space. All the advantages imputed to machinery in the economy of human time, the utilization of waste material, the display of concentrated force or the delicacy of manipulation are derivable from these two general economies. Hence it follows that wherever the efficiency of labor power depends chiefly upon the output of muscular force in motive power, or precision in the regulation of muscular force, machinery will tend to displace human labor. Assuming, therefore, that displaced labor finds other employment, it will be transferred to work where machinery has not the same advantage over human labor, that is to say, to work where the muscular strain or the need for regularity of movement is less. At first sight it will thus seem to follow that every displacement of labor by machinery will bring an elevation in the quality of labor, that is, will increase the proportion of labor in employments which tax the muscles less and are less monotonous. This is in the main the conclusion towards which Professor Marshall inclines.

So far as each several industry is concerned, it has been shown that the introduction of machinery signifies a net reduction of employment, unless the development of trade is largely extended by the diminution in expenses of production. It cannot be assumed as a matter of course that the labor displaced by the introduction of automatic folders in printing will be employed in less automatic work connected with printing. It may be diverted from muscular monotony in printing to the less muscular monotony of providing some new species of luxury, the demand for which is not yet sufficiently large or regular to justify the application of labor-saving machinery. But even assuming that the whole or a large part of the displaced labor is engaged in work which is proved to have been less muscular or less automatic by the fact that it is not yet undertaken by machinery, it does not necessarily follow that there is a diminution in the aggregate of physical energy given out, or in the total “monotony” of labor.

One direct result of the application of an increased proportion of labor-power to the kinds of work which are less “muscular” and less “automatic” in character, will be a tendency towards greater division of labor and more specialization in these employments. Now the economic advantages of increased specialization can only be obtained by increased automatic action. Thus the routine or automatic character which constituted the monotony of the work in which machinery displaced these workers, will now be imparted to the higher grades of labor in which they are employed, and these in their turn will be advanced towards a condition which will render them open to a new invasion of machinery.

Nor is it shown that the introduction of machine production tends to diminish the physical strain upon the worker. As regards those workers who pass from ordinary manual work to the tending of machinery, there is a good deal of evidence to show that their new work taxes their physical vigor quite as severely as the old work. Professor Shield Nicholson quotes the following striking statement from the Cotton Factory Times:

It is quite a common occurrence to hear young men who are on the best side of thirty years of age declare they are so worked up with the long mules, coarse counts, quick speeds and inferior material, that they are fit for nothing at night only going to bed and taking as much rest as circumstances will allow. There are few people who will credit such statements; nevertheless they are true, and can be verified any day in the great majority of the mills in the spinning districts.

Professor Nicholson thus sums op his evidence upon this head:

It is clear that the use of machines, though apparently labor-saving, often leads to an increase in the quantity of labor; negatively by not developing the mind, positively by doing harm to the body.

When any muscular or physical effort is required, it is pretty evident that an increased duration or a greater continuity in the slighter effort may tax the body quite as severely as the less frequent application of a much greater bodily force. There can be no question that in a competitive industrial society, there exists a tendency to compensate for any saving of muscular or other physical effort afforded by the intervention of machinery, in two ways: first, by “forcing the pace” – compelling the worker to tend more and more machines, and to increase the strain, if not upon the muscles, then upon the nerves; secondly, by extending the hours of labor. A lighter form of labor spread over an increased period of time may of course amount to an increased tax upon the vital energy. It is not disputed that a general result of the factory system has been to increase the average length of the working day, if we take under our survey the whole area of machine production in modern industrial communities. This is only in part attributable to the fact that workers can be induced to sell the same daily output of energy as before, while a longer time is required for its expenditure. Another influence of equal potency is the economy of machinery effected by longer hours.

These two forces operating together have lengthened the average working day. Certain subsidiary influences also deserve notice, in particular the introduction of cheap illuminants. Before the cheap provision of gas, the working time of those engaged in retail trade was limited by daylight. Now a part of nature’s rest is annexed to the working day. There are of course powerful social forces working for the curtailment of the working day, and these very forces are, as we shall observe, powerfully though indirectly aided by machinery. But the direct economic influence of machinery is in favor of an extended working day. The full significance of this is not confined to the fact that a large proportion of the worker’s life is consumed in the growing monotony of production. The curtailment of the portion of time in which he figures as consumer must be set against any increase in real wages or power of consumption which has come to him from the increase of productive power under machinery. So far therefore as the age of machinery has converted handicraftsmen into tenders of machinery, it seems as if Mill were almost justified in his somewhat rhetorical verdict: “It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being."

Now to come to the question of “monotony.” Is the net tendency of machinery to make labor more or less monotonous, to educate the worker or to brutalize him? Does labor become more intellectual under the machine? Professor Marshall, who has thoughtfully discussed this question, inclines upon the whole in favor of machinery. It takes away manual skill, but it substitutes higher or more intellectual forms of skill. “The more delicate the machine’s power, the greater is the judgment and carefulness which is called for from those who see after it.” Since machinery is daily becoming more and more delicate, the tending of machinery would become more and more intellectual. The judgment of Mr. Cooke Taylor, in the conclusion of his admirable work, The Modern Factory System, is the same: “If man were merely an intellectual animal, even only a moral and intellectual one, it could scarcely be denied, it seems to us, that the results of the factory system have been thus far elevating.” Mr. Taylor indeed admits of the operative population that “they have deteriorated artistically; but art is a matter of faculty, of perception, of aptitude, rather than of intellect.” This curious and significant admission deserves more attention than I can here bestow upon it.

The question of the net intellectual effects of machinery is not one which admits of positive answer. It would be open to one to admit with Mr. Taylor that the operatives were growing more intellectual, and that their contact with machinery exercises certain educative influences, but to deny that the direct results of machinery upon the workers were favorable to a wide cultivation of intellectual powers, as compared with various forms of freer and less specialized manual labor. The intellectualization of the town operatives (assuming the process to be taking place) may be attributable to the thousand and one other influences of town life rather than to machinery, save indirectly so far as the modern industrial center is itself the creation of machinery. It is not, I think, possible at present to offer any clear or definite judgment. But the following distinctions seem to have some weight in forming our opinion.

The growth of machinery has acted as an enormous stimulus to the study of natural laws. A larger and larger proportion of human effort is absorbed in processes of invention, in the manipulation of commerce on an increasing scale of magnitude and complexity, and in such management of machinery and men as requires and educates high intellectual faculties of observation, judgment and speculative imagination. Of that portion of workers who may be said, within limits, to control machinery, there can be no question that the total effect of machinery has been highly educative. Some measure of these educative influences descends even to the “hand” who tends some minute portion of machinery.

So also allowance should be made for the skilled work of making and repairing machinery. The engineer’s shop is becoming every year a more and more important factor in the equipment of a factory or mill. But though “breakdowns” are essentially erratic and must always afford scope for ingenuity in their repair, even in the engineer’s shop there is the same tendency for machinery to undertake all work of repair which can be brought under routine. So the skilled work in making and repairing machinery is continually being reduced to a minimum, and cannot be regarded, as Professor Nicholson is disposed to regard it, as a factor of growing importance in connection with machine production. The more machinery is used, the more skilled work of making and repairing will be required, it might seem. But the rapidity with which machinery is invading these very functions turns the scale in the opposite direction, at any rate so far as the making of machinery is concerned. Statistics relating to the number of those engaged in making machinery and tools, show that the proportion they bear to the whole working population is an increasing one; but the rate of this increase is by no means proportionate to the rate of increase in the use of machinery. While the percentage of those engaged in making machinery and tools rises from 1.7 in 1861 to 1.8 in 1871 and 1.9 in 1881, the approximate increase of steam power applied to fixed machinery and locomotives shows a much more rapid rise, – from 2,100,000 horse power in 1860 to 3,040,000 in 1870 and 5,200,000 in 1880. Moreover, an increased proportion of machinery production is for export trade, so that a large quantity of the labor employed in those industries is not required to sustain the supply of machinery used in English work. In repairs of machinery, the economy effected by the system of interchangeable parts is one of growing magnitude, and tends likewise to minimize the skilled labor of repair.

Finally it should be borne in mind that in several large industries where machinery fills a prominent place, the bulk of the labor is not directly governed by the machine. This fact has already received attention in relation to railway workers. The character of the machine certainly impresses itself upon these in different degrees, but in most cases there is a large amount of detailed freedom of action and scope for individual skill and activity.

Making allowance, then, for the intelligence and skill used in the invention, application, management and repair of machinery, what are we to say of the labor of him who, under the minute subdivision enforced by machinery, is obliged to spend his working life in tending some small portion of a single machine, the whole work of which is to push some single commodity a single step along the journey from raw material to consumptive good?

His work, it is urged, calls for “judgment and carefulness.” So did his work in manual labor before the machine took it over. His “judgment and carefulness” are now confined within narrower limits than before. The responsibility of the individual worker is greater, precisely because it is narrowed down so as to be related to and dependent on a number of other operatives in other parts of the same machine with whom he has no direct personal concern. Such realized responsibility is an element in education, moral and intellectual. But this responsibility is a direct result of the minute subdivision. It is, I think, questionable whether the vast majority of machine workers get any considerable education from the fact that the machine in conjunction with which they work represents a huge embodiment of the delicate skill and invention of many thousands of active minds, though some value may be accorded to Mr. Cooke Taylor’s contention that “the mere exhibition of the skill displayed and the magnitude of the operations performed in factories can scarcely fail of some educational effect.” Professor Shield Nicholson expresses himself more dubiously on the educational value of the machine: “Machinery of itself does not tend to develop the mind as the sea and mountains do, but still it does not necessarily involve deterioration of general mental ability.”

The work of tending machinery is not of course to be regarded as absolutely automatic. To a certain limited extent the “tender” of machinery rules as well as serves the machine: in seeing that his portion of the machine works in accurate adjustment to the rest, the qualities of care, judgment and responsibility are evoked. A great part of modern inventiveness, however, is engaged in devising automatic checks and indicators for the sake of dispensing with human skill and reducing the spontaneous or thoughtful elements of tending machinery to a minimum. When this minimum is reached the highly paid skilled workman gives place to the low-skilled woman or child, and eventually the process passes over entirely into the hands of machinery. So long, however, as human labor continues to co-operate with machinery, certain elements of thought and spontaneity adhere to it. These must be taken into account in any estimate of the net educative influence of machinery. But though these mental qualities must not be overlooked, exaggerated importance should not be attached to them. The layman is often apt to esteem too highly the nature of skilled specialist work. A locomotive superintendent of a railway was recently questioned as to the quality of engine-driving. “After twenty years experience he declared emphatically that the very best engine-drivers were those who were most mechanical and unintelligent in their work, who cared least about the internal mechanism of the engine.” Yet engine-driving is far less mechanical and monotonous than ordinary tending of machinery.

So far as the man follows the machine and has his work determined for him by mechanical necessity, the educative pressure of the latter force must be predominant. Machinery like everything else can only teach what it practices. Order, exactitude, persistence, conformity to unbending law, – these are the lessons which must emanate from the machine. They have an important place as elements in the formation of intellectual and moral character. But of themselves they contribute a one-sided and very imperfect education. Machinery can exactly reproduce; it can, therefore, teach the lesson of exact reproduction, an education of quantitative measurements. The defect of machinery, from the educative point of view, is its absolute conservatism. The law of machinery is a law of statical order, that everything conforms to a pattern, that present actions precisely resemble past and future actions. Now the law of human life is dynamic, requiring order not as valuable in itself, but as the condition of progress. The law of human life is that no experience, no thought or feeling is an exact copy of any other. Therefore, if you confine a man to expending his energy in trying to conform exactly to the movements of a machine, you teach him to abrogate the very principle of life. Variety is of the essence of life, and machinery is the enemy of variety. This is no argument against the educative uses of machinery, but only against the exaggeration of these uses. If a workman expend a reasonable portion of his energy in following the movements of a machine, he may gain a considerable educational value; but he must also have both time and energy left to cultivate the spontaneous and progressive arts of life.

It is often urged that the tendency of machinery is not merely to render monotonous the activity of the individual worker, but to reduce the individual differences in workers. This criticism finds expression in the saying: “All men are equal before the machine.” So far as machinery actually shifts upon natural forces work which otherwise would tax the muscular energy, it undoubtedly tends to put upon a level workers of different muscular capacity. Moreover, by taking over work which requires great precision of movement, there is a sense in which it is true that machinery tends to reduce the workers to a common level of skill, or even of un-skill.

Whenever a process requires peculiar dexterity and steadiness of hand, it is withdrawn as soon as possible from the cunning workman, who is prone to irregularities of many kinds, and it is placed in charge of a peculiar mechanism, so self-regulating that a child can superintend it.

That this is not true of the most highly skilled or qualitative work, must be conceded, but it applies with great force to the bulk of skilled labor. By the aid of machinery, i.e., of the condensed embodiment of the inventor’s skill, the clumsy or weak worker is rendered capable of assisting the nicest movements on a closer equality with the more skilled worker. Of course piece work, as practised in textile and hardware industries, shows that the most complete machinery has not nearly abolished the individual differences between one worker and another. But assuming that the difference in recorded piece wages accurately represents difference in skill or capacity of work, – which is not quite the case, – it seems evident that there is less variation in capacity among machine-workers than among workers engaged in employments where the work is more muscular, or is conducted by human skill with simpler implements. The difference in productive capacity between an English and a Hindoo navvy is considerably greater than the difference between a Lancashire mill-operative and an operative in an equally well-equipped and organized Bombay mill.

But this is by no means all that is signified by the “equality of workers before the machine.” It is the adaptibility of the machine to the weaker muscles and intelligence of women and children that is perhaps the most important factor. The machine in its development tends to give less and less prominence to muscle and high individual skill in the mass of workers, more and more to certain qualities of body and mind which not only differ less widely in different men, but in which women and children are more nearly on a level with men. The tendency of machine industry to displace male by female labor is placed beyond all question by the statistics of occupations in England, which show since 1851 a regular and considerable rise in the proportion of women to men workers in almost all branches of manufacture. Legal restrictions, and in the more civilized communities, the growth of a healthy public opinion, prevent the economic force from being operative to the same degree so far as children are concerned.

Those very qualities of care and judgment, of detailed attention, of regularity and patience which, as we saw, are characteristic of machine work, are common human qualities, in the sense that they are within the capacity of all and that even in the degree of their possession and practice there is less difference between the most highly trained mechanic and the raw “half-timer” than in the possession and practice of such powers as machinery has superseded. It must, I think, be recognized that machinery does exercise a certain equalizing effect by assigning a larger and larger relative importance to those faculties which are specific, as compared with those which are individual. The antagonism between machinery and art in this respect is fundamental and irreconcilable. So long and so far as the public continue to sink their individual differences as consumers and employ their expanding powers of purchase in demanding increased quantities of the same kinds of consumptive goods, machinery, with its economic faculty of exact, cheap and rapid reproduction, will gain an increasing control over the processes of production. When the public becomes more individualistic in its consumption, in demanding greater variety and adaptability to individual taste, instead of immense quantity, this new character of consumption will reduce the advantages enjoyed by machinery, and will operate as an increased demand for art in the sense of individual effort of production.

JOHN A. HOBSON