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effort to resist the plans of the employers to increase output. 

 There will be demands for shorter hours, frequent holidays, 

 and sundry privileges which, all taken together, will handicap 

 the farmer who has to depend on hired labor in his competition 

 with the farmer who does his own work. In view of the fact, 

 therefore, that the technical advantages are not definitely and 

 decidedly on the side of large-scale production, these social ad- 

 vantages on the side of medium-scale production will give it the 

 upper hand so long as we maintain the present social conditions. 

 There are social conditions, however, which might change all 

 this and give a technical advantage to large-scale production. It 

 is well known that slave labor necessarily means large-scale pro- 

 duction. Now slave labor is necessarily of a low grade and cannot 

 be self -directed. It must work under the direct supervision of 

 an overseer or boss. This overseer must be a man of special 

 and somewhat exceptional ability, and must therefore be paid a 

 somewhat special or exceptional salary. It would be a wasteful 

 process to employ such a man to superintend the work of two 

 or three slaves. Even though the plantation owner does his own 

 superintending, he would find it a wasteful expenditure of his 

 time to superintend the work of a small number of slaves. In 

 order to get the full use of the time and ability of the overseer, 

 there must be a considerable number of slaves and sufficient 

 acreage, which means large-scale production. But any situation 

 where there was a large mass of low-grade labor, either slave or 

 free, incapable of directing itself, would produce a similar result ; 

 that is, it would necessitate large-scale production. If the mass 

 of the agricultural laborers do not know how to run farms and 

 cannot be even trusted to work alone without direct and im- 

 mediate supervision, then, of course, they must work under over- 

 seers. But an overseer could not economically give his time to 

 superintending the work of one or two free laborers any more 

 than he could that of one or two slaves. The consequence would 



