Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/161

 154 THE POVERTY OF PHILOSOPHY

an instant “the evolution in the series of the under- standing,” he ‘would draw from Adam Smith his knowl- edge of the time when the automatic factory had scarcely come into existence; in fact, learn the difference between the division of labor as it existed in the time of Adam Smith and as we see it in the automatic factory. In order to make this clearly understood it will be sufficient to cite some passages from the “Philosophy of Manufactures,” by Doctor Ure:—

“When Adam Smith wrote his immortal elements of economics, automatic machinery being hardly known, he was properly led to regard the division of labor as the grand principle of manufacturing improvement; and he showed, in the example of pin-making, how each handi- craftsman, being thereby enabled to perfect himself by practice in one point, became a quicker and cheaper workman. In each branch of manufacture he saw that some parts were, on that principle, of easy execution, like the cutting of pin wires into uniform lengths, and some were comparatively difficult, like the formation and fixation of their heads; and therefore he concluded that to each a workman of appropriate value and cost was naturally assigned. This appropriation forms the very essence of the division of labor..... But what was in Dr. Smith’s time a topic of useful illustration, cannot now be used without risk of misleading the public mind as to the right principle of manufacturing industry. In fact, the division, or rather adaptation of labor to the different talents of men, is little thought of in factory employment. On the contrary, wherever a process re- quires peculiar dexterity and steadiness of hand it is with- drawn as soon as possible from the cunning workman, who is prone to irregularities of many kinds, and it is