FARM MACHINERY 53 



Displacement of Labor 



The question of the displacement of labor is one of peculiar in- 

 terest to those who work for hire, because upon it seems to depend 

 the further question of whether the use of machinery decreases 

 the opportunities for earning a livelihood. That the introduction 

 of machinery does frequently deprive workmen of employment in 

 particular lines of work is undeniably true. The introduction of a 

 harvesting machine throws cradlers and binders out of employment 

 just as certainly as the introduction of water drives air out of a jug. 

 It is idle to say that machinery does not displace individual work- 

 men and equally idle to contend that such displacement does not 

 entail hardship and suffering, for the more thoroughly and com- 

 pletely one devotes himself to any particular line of work, the less 

 fitted does he become for taking up, and gaining a livelihood in, 

 some other occupation. The extent of change which the introduc- 

 tion of machinery produces in the occupation of individuals is 

 much obscured by the fact that the machine workman is usually 

 given the same name as was borne by his predecessor ; as, for 

 example, men who operate a steam threshing machine are called 

 threshers, though they may never have seen a flail and are almost 

 as little fitted for operating a flail and winnowing apparatus as 

 the old-time threshers would be to operate the new machine. 

 The old occupation is gone. What we now have is a new occupa- 

 tion passing under the old name. And a new class of workmen 

 (machinists) are in charge. 



It is only when we speak of labor as a quantity or of laborers in 

 mass that we can presume to say there has been no displacement 

 of labor by machinery ; and yet there may be, in this sense also, a 

 displacement of labor. The displacement may be absolute, as 

 where the labor force in any line of work is decreased, or it may 

 be only relative, as where the rate of increase in the number of 

 laborers employed falls below the rate of increase of laborers 

 employed in industries generally. 



