Division of Labor and Productivity Article
Division of Labor and Productivity Article
- What does Thoreau think of the division of labor? Explain.
- Do you see a similarity between Thoreau’s views and the message implied by Charlie Chaplin’s famous “Factory Scene”? Explain. What is given up when we have a division of labor?
- How would a classical economist (such as Adam Smith or David Ricardo) respond to Thoreau? (and Charlie Chaplin. :))
- What is your vision of the division of labor after studying chapter 3 and reading the Thoreau and Smith passages?
ORDER NOW FOR CUSTOMIZED SOLUTION PAPERS
Adam Smith on Division of Labor and Productivity: Lessons
from the Pin Factory
“To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division
of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not
educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor
acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same
division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost
industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which
this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided
into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man
draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the
top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to
put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put
them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided
into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by
distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I
have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where
some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were
very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they
could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a
day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten
persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day.
Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered
as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately
and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business,
they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is,
certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part
of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and
combination of their different operations.”
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Book I, Chapter I, “Of
the Division of Labor”. Edwin Cannan, ed. 1904. Library of Economics and Liberty. 6 February 2011.
<http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN1.html>.
Questions:
How many pins per day could a workman produce without special training and
independently?
………………………………………………..
How many different operations is the pin making business divided into? ……………..
What is the productivity of one worker in the manufacture plant with a division of labor?
(i.e. how many pins/day)?
…………………………………………………………………..Thoreau on the Division of Labor
“There is some of the same fitness in a man’s building his own house that there is in a bird’s
building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands,
and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty
would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But
alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have
built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign
the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the
experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so
simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not
the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant,
and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve?
No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so
to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden. “Economy.” The Project Gutenberg EBook of Walden
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm
Questions for Thought and Discussion:
1. What does Thoreau think of the division of labor?
2. How would a classical economist respond to Thoreau
from the Pin Factory
“To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division
of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not
educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor
acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same
division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost
industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which
this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided
into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man
draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the
top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to
put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put
them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided
into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by
distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I
have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where
some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were
very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they
could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a
day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten
persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day.
Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered
as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately
and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business,
they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is,
certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part
of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and
combination of their different operations.”
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Book I, Chapter I, “Of
the Division of Labor”. Edwin Cannan, ed. 1904. Library of Economics and Liberty. 6 February 2011.
<http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN1.html>.
Questions:
How many pins per day could a workman produce without special training and
independently?
………………………………………………..
How many different operations is the pin making business divided into? ……………..
What is the productivity of one worker in the manufacture plant with a division of labor?
(i.e. how many pins/day)?
…………………………………………………………………..Thoreau on the Division of Labor
“There is some of the same fitness in a man’s building his own house that there is in a bird’s
building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands,
and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty
would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But
alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have
built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign
the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the
experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so
simple and natural an occupation as building his house. We belong to the community. It is not
the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant,
and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve?
No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so
to the exclusion of my thinking for myself.”
Henry David Thoreau, Walden. “Economy.” The Project Gutenberg EBook of Walden
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/205/205-h/205-h.htm
Questions for Thought and Discussion:
1. What does Thoreau think of the division of labor?
2. How would a classical economist respond to Thoreau
Division of Labor and Productivity Article