Page:Olive Malmberg Johnson - Woman and the Socialist Movement (1908).djvu/15



During the past three centuries there has been such development of social-economic forces as to cause complete revolutions in every relation of human life. It began with the great development in navigation, which resulted in the discovery of vast continents and the opening of world-wide markets for the manufacturing and trading classes. It blossomed out in the development of the great science of chemistry and the manifold discoveries and inventions consequent thereupon. It finally culminated in the discovery of steam and electricity as motive powers. The development of all these branches has forced on and in turn been forced on by the wonderful inventions and improvements in the means of production. A machine is an appliance by which the actual performance of the working process is taken out of the hands of man and is accomplished by the mechanism. In the handicraft period the operative process was limited to the use of a tool in man's own hand and the duration of the workday was subjected to man’s physical capacity within the twenty-four hours. Stretch this as they might, man had to eat and sleep even be he denied all further recreation.

But the machine is a different "animal." There is no limit to the number of "hands" with which it may perform the working process. There is no limit to its hours of activity. Twenty-four hours are as good as eight. It needs either rest nor sleep nor recreation. It indulges in no vices that unfit it for work. It gets no "lazy feelings" nor "cranky notions." Modern machinery is well nigh ideal perfection as far as the performance of the labor process is concerned.