887] Machinery and Labor 89 



Ambitious men will even overwork themselves. It is 

 too much to expect that they should, voluntarily, be 

 more solicitous for the welfare of their employees. 



We have now to inquire concerning the effect of 

 yoking together the machine and labor factors, the 

 one yielding the highest net return, when worked almost 

 incessantly, either for short or for long terms of employ- 

 ment ; the other yielding the highest net return when 

 worked for longer or shorter periods, according to the 

 length of the term of employment, but always, unless in 

 the case of employment for a single day, when consider- 

 able portions of each day are allowed for rest and recu- 

 peration. It is like harnessing together a racer and a 

 plow horse. From the standpoint of the employer, the 

 machine and labor factors do not work in harmony. 

 Under any conditions the employer is interested in get- 

 ting as much service as possible from his employee and, 

 when using machinery, is constantly impelled, accord- 

 ing to the amount of his investment in the machine 

 factor 1 to spur on the labor factor to a longer working 

 day. 



The position of the employee is radically different 

 from that of the employer. When making a contract 

 for the sale of his labor power, the employee does not 

 seek to establish a long working day. He wants a cer- 

 tain amount of exercise, and he may even be glad to do 

 some work for the pleasure which comes of achieve- 

 ment, but a long working day, or a day of intense or 

 otherwise exhaustive toil, is not desired. Not infre- 



1 "As machinery became more and more costly, the length of the 

 working-day was lengthened until it became, even for women and 

 children, sixteen and eighteen hours in cases not rare. Indeed, it 

 has been generally longer where women and children have been the 

 predominating labor force, because they are less powerful to resist 

 oppression." Ely : Labor Movement in America, p. 109. 



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