875] Machinery and Labor 77 



By lightening the tasks of those who labor with their 

 hands, and by increasing the quantity of the necessaries 

 of life which a given amount of labor can procure, 

 machinery has not only favored a higher standard of 

 living, but has increased the chances of attaining it. 1 

 Moreover, the use of machine power has made it possi- 

 ble for many now to devote themselves wholly to intel- 

 lectual pursuits without involving either the enslave- 

 ment or the degradation of others. 2 



lyooking at the question from the standpoint of the 

 whole social body, there can be no other conclusion than 

 that the use of machinery, by increasing the supply of 

 utilities and by making utilities more accessible, 8 has 



'"To-day the world obtains commodities of excellent quality at 

 prices which even the preceding generation would have deemed in- 

 credible .... The poor enjoy what the rich could not before 

 afford. What were the luxuries have become the necessaries of life. 

 The laborer has more comforts than the farmer had a few generations 

 ago. The farmer has more luxuries than the landlord had and is 

 more richly clad and better housed. The landlord has books and 

 pictures rarer, and appointments more artistic, than the king could 

 then obtain." Carnegie : The Gospel of Wealth, p. 4. 



2 " If every instrument, at command, or from foreknowledge of its 

 master's will, could accomplish its special work .... if the 

 shuttle would weave, and the lyre play of itself; then neither would 

 the architect want servants, nor the master slaves." Aristotle : 

 " Politics" I, sec. 4 (Translation by Edward Walford.) 



3 "There is no fact in modern history more easily demonstrated 

 than that the products of steam-driven machinery are mainly con- 

 sumed by the common people the masses." Gunton : Principles of 

 Social Economics, p. 147. 



" Quand je vous ai prouve", messieurs, que 1'introduction des 

 machines expe"ditives, telles que le moulin a farine, ne diminue pas 

 les moyens d'existence de la classes laborieuse, et n'a que 1'incon- 

 vdnient, assez grave & la ve'rite', de changer la nature de ses occupa- 

 tions, je n'ai pas completement rendu justice aux machines. Le fait 

 est que, dans la plupart des cas, elles sont favorables aux ouvriers 

 memes dont elles semblaient sopprimer le travail. Tout procexle' 

 expe*ditif, en reduisant les frais de production, met le produit a la 

 porte"e d'un plus grande numbre de consommateurs. I/expe*rience 

 prouve meine que le nombre des consommateurs s'augmente dansune 

 proportion bien plus rapide que la baisse du prix." J. B. Say : Cours 

 Complet d' Economic Politique, Tome I, p. 193. 



