final result-till in the series we come at last to one cause which we can control conveniently by our own natural powers. This is the true importance which attaches to our entering on roundabout ways of production, and this is the reason of the result associated with them; every roundabout way means the enlisting in our service of a power which is stronger or more cunning than the human hand; every extension of the roundabout way means an addition to the powers which enter into the service of man, and the shifting of some portion of the burden of production from the scarce and costly labour of human beings to the prodigal powers of nature. And now we may put into words an idea which has long waited for expression, and must certainly have occurred to the reader; the kind of production which works in these wise circuitous methods is nothing else than what economists call Capitalist Production, as opposed to that production which goes directly at its object, as the Germans say, "mit der nackten Faust." And Capital is nothing but the complex of intermediate products which appear on the several stages of the roundabout journey. 158. WHAT THE MACHINE IS1 Mathematicians and mechanicians, and in this they are followed by a few English economists, call a tool a simple machine, and a machine a complex tool. They see no essential difference between them, and even give the name of machine to the simple mechanical powers, the lever, the inclined plane, the screw, the wedge, etc. As a matter of fact, every machine is a combination of those simple powers, no matter how they may be disguised. From the economical standpoint this explanation is worth nothing, because the historical element is wanting. Another explanation of the difference between tool and machine is that in the case of a tool, man is the motive power, while the motive power of a machine is something different from man --is, for instance, an animal, water, wind, and so on. According to this, a plough drawn by oxen, which is a contrivance common to the most different epochs, would be a machine, while Claussen's circular loom, which, worked by a single labourer, weaves 96,000 picks per minute, would be a mere tool. All fully developed machinery consists of three essentially different parts, the motor mechanism, the transmitting mechanism, and Adapted by permission from Karl Marx, Capital, I, 405-18. (Charles H. Kerr & Co., 1909.) finally the tool or working machine. The motor mechanism is that which puts the whole in motion. It either generates its own motive power, like the steam engine, the caloric engine, the electro-magnetic machine, etc., or it receives its impulse from some already existing natural force, like the water-wheel from a head of water, the windmill from wind, etc. The transmitting mechanism, composed of fly-wheels, and shafting, toothed wheels, pullies, straps, ropes, bands, pinions, and gearing of the most varied kinds, regulates the motion, changes its form where necessary, as for instance from linear to circular, and divides and distributes it among the working machines. These two first parts of the whole mechanism are there solely for putting the working machines in motion, by means of which motion the subject of labour is seized upon and modified as desired. The tool or working-machine is that part of the machinery with which the industrial revolution of the eighteenth century started. And to this day it constantly serves as such a starting-point, whenever a handicraft, or a manufacture, is turned into an industry carried on by machinery. On a closer examination of the working-machine proper, we find in it, as a general rule, though often, no doubt, under very altered forms, the apparatus and tools used by the handicraftsman or manufacturing workman; with this difference, that instead of being human implements, they are the implements of mechanism, or mechanical implements. An organized system of machines, to which the motion is communicated by the transmitting mechanism from a central automaton, is the most developed form of production by machinery. Here we have, in the place of the isolated machine, a mechanical monster whose body fills whole factories, and whose demon power, at first veiled under the slow and measured motions of his giant limbs, at length breaks out into the fast and furious whirl of his countless working organs. Just as the individual machine retains a dwarfish character, so long as it is worked by the power of man alone and just as no system of machinery could be properly developed before the steam engine took the place of the earlier motive powers, animals, wind, and even water; so, too, Modern Industry was crippled in its complete development so long as its characteristic instrument of production, the machine, owed its existence to personal strength and personal skill, and depended on the muscular development, the keenness of sight, and the cunning of hand with which the detail workmen in manufactures, and the manual labourers in handicrafts, wielded their dwarfish imple ments. 159. FUNCTIONS OF MACHINERY' Man does his work by moving matter. Hence machinery can only aid him by increasing the motive power at his disposal. 1. Machinery enables forces of man or nature to be more effectively applied by various mechanical contrivances composed of levers, pulleys, wedges, screws, etc. 2. Machinery enables man to obtain the use of various motor forces outside his body-wind, water, steam, electricity, chemical action, etc. Thus by the provision of new productive forces, and by the more economical application of all productive forces, machinery improves the industrial arts. Machinery can increase the scope of man's productive ability in two ways. The difficulty of concentrating a large mass of human force upon a given point at the same time provides certain quantitative limits to the productive efficiency of the human body. The steamhammer can perform certain work which is quantitatively outside the limit of the physical power of any number of men working with simple tools and drawing their motor power from their own bodies. The other limit to the productive power of man arises from the imperfect continuity of human effort and the imperfect command of its direction. The difficulty of maintaining a small, even, accurate pressure, or a precise repetition of the same movement, is rather a qualitative than a purely quantitative limit. The superior certainty and regularity of machinery enables certain work to be done which man alone could not do or could do less perfectly. The work of the printing machine could not be achieved by man. Machinery has improved the texture and quality of certain woolen goods; recent improvements in milling result in improved quality of flour, and so on. Machinery can also do work which is too fine or delicate for human fingers, or which would require abnormal skill if executed by hand. Economy of time, which Babbage accounts a separate economy, is rightly included in the economies just named. The greater rapidity with which certain manufacturing processes-e.g., dyeing can be achieved arises from the superior concentration and continuity of Taken by permission from J. A. Hobson, The Evolution of Modern Capitalism, PP. 72-74. (The Walter Scott Publishing Co., Ltd., 1912.) force possible under machinery. All advantages arising from rapid transport are assignable to the same causes. The continuity and regularity of machine work are also reflected in certain economies of measurement. The faculty of self-registering, which belongs potentially to all machinery, and which is more utilised every day, performs several services which may be summed up by saying that they enable us to know exactly what is going on. When to self-registration is applied the faculty of self-regulation, within certain limits a new economy of force and knowledge is added. But machinery can also register and regulate the expenditure of human power. Babbage well says: "One of the most singular advantages we derive from machinery is in the check which it affords against the inattention, the idleness, or the knavery of human agents." This control of the machine over man has certain results which belong to another aspect of machine economy. 160. THE PRODUCTIVITY OF MACHINERY1 The number of days' work of man-labor requisite for producing the specified crops by the aid of machine power, together with the quantity of those several crops which the same labor-power could have produced by the earlier hand method, is shown in the following: Finding next the difference between the quantities of the several crops actually produced under machine methods in the years indicated, and the quantities which the labor-power requisite for their production with the aid of machines could have produced had it Adapted by permission from H. W. Quaintance, "The Influence of Farm Machinery on Production and Labor," Publications of the American Economic Association, Third Series, Vol. V (1904), No. 4, pp. 21-23. been devoted to the production of those same crops by hand methods, we have the following: The increased effectiveness of man-labor power when aided by the use of machinery, as indicated by these figures, varies from 150 per cent in the case of rye to 2,244 per cent in the case of barley. From this point of view, a machine is not a labor-saving but rather a productmaking device. Taking the percentage of labor saved as indicating the average proportion of these crops due to the use of machinery, it appears that the quantity of product is almost five times as great per unit of labor as it formerly was. 161. THE INCREASE OF ACTIVE CAPITAL IN THE In Table I we have an attempt to collect the various figures of the United States Census and combine them into a harmonious whole. While the numbers are, in no case, exact, it is believed that the errors are too small to vitiate any of the following conclusions. We see that the total supply of active capital has enormously increased; in fact, that in 1910 the value was about seventeen times as great as in 1850. In this great increase, all industries have participated, but the fishing equipment has grown most slowly and the transportation facilities fastest of all. At no census year has there been a recession in a single industry-development has been continuous in all lines. But an increase in the total value of active capital is not, in itself, significant. It must be compared with the increase in population and with a changing price-level before we can arrive at any conclusions concerning the influence of the change upon the social welfare. The Adapted by permission from W. I. King, The Wealth and Income of the People of the United States, pp. 42-44. (The Macmillan Co., 1915.) |