unbearable because no one can make a profit of their labor they must be idle and starve, or drag out a miserable existence aided by the crumbs of cold charity! If our social economy were such that we produced things for use because they were useful and beautiful, we should go on producing with a good will until everybody had a plentiful supply. If we found ourselves producing too rapidly, faster than we could consume the things, we could easily slacken our pace. We could spend more time beautifying our cities and our homes, more time cultivating our minds and hearts by social intercourse, and in the companionship of the great spirits of all ages through the masterpieces of literature, music, painting, and sculpture. But instead, we produce for sale and profit. When the workers have produced more than the master-class can use and they themselves buy back out of their meager wages, there is a glut in the markets of the world, unless a new market can be opened up by making war upon some defenseless, undeveloped nation. When there is a glut in the market, Jonathan, you know what happens. Shops and factories are shut down, the number of employees is reduced, the army of unemployed grows, and there is a rise in the tide of poverty and misery. Yet why should it be so? Why, simply because there is a superabundance of wealth, should people be made poorer? Why should little children go without shoes just because there are loads of shoes stacked away in stores and warehouses? Why should people go without clothing simply because the warehouses are bursting with clothes? The answer is that these things must be so because we produce for profit instead of for use. All these stores of wealth belong to the class of profit-takers, the capitalist class, and they must sell and make profit. The root of evil, the taproot from which the evils of modern society develop, is the profit idea. Life is subordinated to the making of profit. If it were only possible to embody that idea in human shape, what a monster ogre it would be! And how we should arraign it at the bar of human reason! Should we not call up images of the million of babes who have been needlessly and wantonly slaughtered by the Monster Idea; the images of all the maimed and wounded and killed in the wars for markets; the millions of others who have been bruised and broken in the industrial arena to secure somebody's profit, because it was too expensive to guard life and limb; the numberless victims of adulterated food and drink, of cheap tenements and shoddy clothes? Should we not call up the wretched women of our streets; the bribers and the vendors of privilege? We should surely parade in pitiable procession the dwarfed and stunted bodies of the millions born to hardship and suffering, but we could not, alas! parade the dwarfed and stunted souls, the sordid spirits for which the Monster Idea is responsible. See also 87. 91. Unrest because of Violation of Reciprocity. 185. The Delicate Mechanism of Industry. 310. Impersonality under the Primary Régime. CHAPTER VI SPECIALIZATION AND INTERDEPENDENCE A. Problems at Issue In our discussion of the present day individual-exchangeco-operative-pecuniary society we have assumed both the existence. and the defensibility of specialization and interdependence. This was permissible. They are familiar concepts-commonplaces. It frequently happens, however, that the significance of commonplaces is overlooked and these particular commonplaces are so pregnant with consequences that they must not be passed by without some detailed explanation. In considering the topic specialization, care must be given to terminology. Some writers use the expression "division of labor" as synonymous with "specialization." Others use "division of labor" with particular reference to the apportionment of tasks within the industrial plant. Still others use the phrase in no single definite sense. In this introductory statement, specialization will be used as the inclusive term and such phrases as "separation of occupations,' "division of labor" (within a given plant), and "territorial or geographical specialization" will be regarded as sub-classifications of the general heading. In no event should confusion of terminology prevent our seeing that capital, land, and organization are as truly "divided" or "specialized" as is labor. What is a specialized society? It has two significant aspects. The first is differentiation, but differentiation would be purposeless and barren of results were there not also present unification. How far differentiation can be carried, as a matter of laboratory experiment, will depend upon technological considerations primarily. It will be conditioned by the prevailing state of the arts and sciences. How far differentiation may wisely be carried is another matter. That will involve a sense of proportion-will raise considerations of the economical expenditure of social energy. If differentiation is "carried too far" there is waste, readily seen by everyone. If differentiation is "not carried far enough" there is none the less waste, uneconomical expenditure of energy, even if it be not so readily seen. Clearly there must be some means of estimating and correlating the results of differentiation-there must be some unifying agency. The unifying agency mainly used by our private-exchange-co-operative society is the appeal to gain. We carry differentiation as far as it pays to carry it. Whether that is a long or a short distance depends, barring monopoly and predation, upon the size of the opportunity commercial organization has created. The term "commercial organization" will be found to include a great number of factors. Patent to the most artless mind would be considerations of market area, whether it be time area or geographical area, considerations of the efficiency of marketing agencies, and of the character as well as the volume of the demand. Conditioning these will be found technological considerations, psychological considerations, and the efficiency of the mechanism of the pecuniary organization of society. A differentiated-united society is in the nature of the case an interdependent society. No individual of civilized society is today economically independent. What one does is a matter of concern to many others, and he must not be surprised if they feel disposed to regulate his activities. The connective fibers of this interdependent structure are numerous, interlacing, and of curious composition. QUESTIONS 1. Is specialization peculiar to our society? Was there specialization in the manorial economy? Would there be specialization under socialism? 2. Can you think of anyone today who engages in every kind of work necessary to produce the commodities which he uses? 3. "Any intelligently ordered society will have specialization; it is only a competitive society that requires also trade and money." What does this mean? Is it true? What other possible devices (than trade and money) could be used to secure and maintain a specialized society? 4. Nowadays one machine completes the process of pin-making which in Adam Smith's day occupied ten men. Has there been an increase or a decrease in specialization? 5. Give examples of (a) the division of labor; (b) territorial grouping of related industries; (c) territorial grouping of plants of the same industry; (d) geographical specialization in agricultural products. 6. "Perhaps the form of specialization which is of greatest importance in economics is the functional specialization in bringing labor, land, capital, etc., into the productive process." What does this mean? Name some economic and social problems which grow out of this functional specialization. 7. What new forms of specialization and what enlargements of the market accompanied the transition from the handicraft to the factory system? 8. "Capital, land, and organization are as truly divided or specialized as is labor." Cite illustrations. 9. Is specialization responsible for the increased participation of woman in work outside the home? 10. "Whatever unpleasant effects the division of labor may have, as regards monotony, may be counteracted and mitigated." How? Can these unpleasant effects be entirely overcome? II. "Division of labor promotes invention by standardizing a process and thus pointing out how it may be taken over by a machine." "Division of labor hinders invention by deadening human faculties." With which quotation do you agree? 12. "Once we had a watchmaker; now we have a one hundred and fortieth part of a watchmaker confined to a single process. A man has become a small part of a man. This is the boasted gain of specialization." Comment. 13. “Division of labor tends to reduce the pleasure men derive from their work." Do you agree? 14. How can it be argued that specialization makes possible greater quantity and better quality of products? 15. Draw up in parallel columns the advantages and disadvantages of specialization. 16. In what ways does specialization "greatly facilitate the acquisition and retention of the sum of knowledge which is transmissible from one generation to another ?" 17. Classify the advantages of division of labor (within a given business unit) according to (a) the business point of view, (b) the social point of view. 18. Mr. X is a high-grade lawyer. He is also the best stenographer in his state. Is he likely to hire someone to do his stenographic work? Why or why not? 19. A is a good musician but is temperamentally unfitted for other work. B, while fond of music, is efficient only in farming. Is an exchange likely to take place? Would the situation be different if A and B represented regions of different natural endowment? 20. A by one day's labor can make 9 units of x or 2 units of y. B by one day's labor can make 2 units of x or 9 units of y. Would specialization and exchange be likely to take place? Would the situation be different if A and B represented regions instead of men? 21. A by one day's labor can make 20 units of x or 10 units of y. B by one day's labor can make 15 units of x or 5 units of y. Would specialization and exchange be likely to take place? Would the situation be different if A and B represented regions instead of men? 22. An American statesman of the nineteenth century declared that it was bad policy for the United States to import any commodity that could be procured in the United States. Do you agree? |