REFERENCE TEXT and
SS’ACTIVITIES
The Wealth of the Nations
(The policy of "laissez-faire')
The following passage is taken from a 'classics' of
economic and philosophical thought belonging to the
same subject-matter: the meaning and organization of work. The extract is
from The Wealth of the Nations by Adam Smith.
Published in 1776, it is one of the most
important books in the history of economics. It is divided into two parts
and contains an argument in favour of allowing
people to engage in trade, manufacturing or other economic activity
without unnecessary control or interference from government.
In both parts Smith states his thesis in the
opening paragraph. In the next paragraphs he clarifies it and supports it with
examples.
THE
DIVISION OF LABOUR
I The greatest improvement in the productive powers of
labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgement
with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been
the effects of the division of labour. The effects of the division of
labour, in the general business of society, will be more easily understood
by considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufactures.
[...]
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 ot 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. In every other art
and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour are similar to what
they are in this very trifling one; though, in many of them, the labour
can neither be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so great a simplicity of
operation. The division of labour, however, so far as it can be
introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportion able increase of the
productive powers of labour. The separation of different trades and
employments from one another seems to have taken place in consequence of
this advantage. [...] This great increase of the quantity of work which,
in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are
capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first,
to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the
saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of
work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of
machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the
work of many. First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workman necessarily
increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of
labour, by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation, and
by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily
increases very much the dexterity of the workman. [...] Secondly, the
advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in passing from
one sort of work to another is much greater than we should at first view
be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very quickly from one kind
of work to another that is carried on in a different place and with quite
different tools. A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must lose
a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the field,
and from the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on in
the same workhouse, the loss of time is no doubt much less. It is even in
this case, however, very considerable. Thirdly, and lastly, everybody
must be sensible how much labour is facilitated and abridged by the
application of proper machinery. It is unnecessary to give any example. I
shall only observe, therefore, that the invention of all those machines by
which labour is so much facilitated and abridged seems to have been
originally owing to the division of labour. Men are much more likely n to
discover easier and readier methods of attaining any object when the whole
attention of their minds is directed towards that single object than when
it is dissipated among a great variety of things. But in consequence of
the division of labour, the whole of every man's attention comes naturally
to be directed towards some one very simple object. It is naturally to be
expected, therefore, that some one or other of those who are employed in
each particular branch of labour should soon find out easier and readier
methods of performing their own particular work, wherever the nature of it
admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines made use of in
those manufactures in which labour is most subdivided, were originally the
inventions of common workmen, who, being each of them employed in some
very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts finding out easier
and readier methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to
visit such manufactures must frequently have been shown very pretty
machines, which were the inventions of such workmen in order to facilitate
and quicken their own particular part of the work.
II.
This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not
originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that
general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though
very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature
which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck,
barter, and exchange one thing for another. [...] In civilised
society [man] stands at all times in need of the cooperation and
assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient
to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of
animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely
independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of
no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the
help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their
benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest
their self-love in his favour, and show them it is for their own advantage
to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a
bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and
you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer;
and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater
part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence
of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but
from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to
their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own
necessities but of their advantages. [...] As it is by treaty, by barter, and by
purchase that we obtain from one another the greater part of those mutual
good offices which we stand in need of, so it is this same trucking
disposition which originally gives occasion to the division of labour. In
a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person makes bows and arrows, for
example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently
exchanges them for cattle or for venison with his companions; he finds at
last that he can in this manner get more cattle and venison than if he
himself went to the field to catch them. From a regard to his own
interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows to be his chief
business, and he becomes a sort of armourer. Another excels in making the
frames and covers of their little huts or movable houses. He is accustomed
to be of use in this way to his neighbours, who reward him in the same
manner with cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it his interest
to dedicate himself entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of
house- carpenter. In the same manner a third becomes a smith or
a brazier, a fourth a tanner or dresser of hides or skins,
the principal part of the clothing of savages. And thus the certainly
of being able to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his
own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such
parts of the produce of other men's labour as he may have occasion
for, encourages every man to apply himself to a particular
occupation, and to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or
genius he may possess for that particular species of business.
(from: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776)
1 Read the first
part, lines 1-52.
a. Fill in the
following table.
b. Answer:
What does the
author want to prove by the example of the division of labour in the pin-
manufacture?
2 Read lines
53-100 and complete the diagram. Then answer:
What makes it possible to
increase the quantity of work in the division of labour?
3. In lines 53-100,
circle the connectives which help the reader follow Smith’s line of argument.
4 So far, the
text says that the division of labour increases production thanks to the:
- increase of dexterity in the workman;
- saving of time;
- application of proper machinery.
Say how
5 Read the second part and underline the author's
thesis in the passage.
6. Answer these questions:
a. What makes men different from animals in the matter
of dependency from other
b. How can we easily get what we need from other people
c. What examples of division of labour are mentioned?
(There are four altogether).
7 The last sentence contains the conclusion. What is
it?
Choose the correct statement.
a. The possibility of exchanging products makes every
man produce a great variety of things
b. The possibility of exchanging products makes people
specialize and improve in a particular work.
c. In order to exchange the surplus part of their
produce, workers encourage other men to consume more.
d. In order to get other workers’ products at the best
possible conditions, every man tries to became an
expert in business.