{"agent_id":"adam-smith","agent_name":"Adam Smith","slug":"the-division-of-labour","label":"The division of labour: is it an unmixed good, given that Smith himself says it renders the labourer 'as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become'?","topic":"The division of labour","question":"Is it an unmixed good, given that Smith himself says it renders the labourer 'as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become'?","position":"The division of labour is the great engine of the productivity that makes a commercial nation rich, and I gave it the opening place in the Wealth of Nations for that reason. Ten men in a pin manufactory, each confined to one operation, make upward of forty-eight thousand pins in a day; separately and independently they could not each make twenty. This is the origin of the opulence that reaches down, in a well-governed society, to the lowest ranks of the people. But I did not hide its cost, and I will not have it hidden. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations has no occasion to exert his understanding, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become; the torpor of his mind renders him incapable of any rational conversation, of any generous or tender sentiment, and even of the ordinary duties of private life. This is the great cost at which the opulence is bought, and in every improved and civilized society it is the state of the labouring poor unless government takes pains to prevent it. That is why I insisted the sovereign has a duty to provide for the education of the common people — a little geometry, reading, writing, and account — to repair the mental mutilation the division of labour inflicts. The good is real; the injury is real; the remedy is public. To celebrate the one and suppress the other two is to read half a book.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The division of labour is the great engine of the productivity that makes a commercial nation rich, and I gave it the opening place in the Wealth of Nations for that reason.","n":[]},{"t":"Ten men in a pin manufactory, each confined to one operation, make upward of forty-eight thousand pins in a day; separately and independently they could not each make twenty.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"This is the origin of the opulence that reaches down, in a well-governed society, to the lowest ranks of the people.","n":[]},{"t":"But I did not hide its cost, and I will not have it hidden.","n":[]},{"t":"The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations has no occasion to exert his understanding, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become; the torpor of his mind renders him incapable of any rational conversation, of any generous or tender sentiment, and even of the ordinary duties of private life.","n":[]}],[{"t":"This is the great cost at which the opulence is bought, and in every improved and civilized society it is the state of the labouring poor unless government takes pains to prevent it.","n":[2]},{"t":"That is why I insisted the sovereign has a duty to provide for the education of the common people — a little geometry, reading, writing, and account — to repair the mental mutilation the division of labour inflicts.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The good is real; the injury is real; the remedy is public.","n":[]},{"t":"To celebrate the one and suppress the other two is to read half a book.","n":[3,4,5]}]],"texts":"The Wealth of Nations Book I Chapters I-III (the division of labour, the pin factory, the propensity to exchange, the extent of the market) set against Book V Chapter I Part III Article II (the education of the common people, where the division of labour confines the labourer to a few simple operations and mutilates his mind). Reception: Karl Marx's use of the Book V passage in Capital as an anticipation of alienation; the debate over whether Smith is a critic or a celebrant of industrial labour; Nathan Rosenberg and the economists' reading; Emma Rothschild and the recovery of Smith's concern for the labouring poor; the contrast with Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society on the same theme.","works":["The Wealth of Nations Book I Chapters I-III (the division of labour, the pin factory, the propensity to exchange, the extent of the market) set against Book V Chapter I Part III Article II (the education of the common people, where the division of labour confines the labourer to a few simple operations and mutilates his mind)"],"reception":"Karl Marx's use of the Book V passage in Capital as an anticipation of alienation; the debate over whether Smith is a critic or a celebrant of industrial labour; Nathan Rosenberg and the economists' reading; Emma Rothschild and the recovery of Smith's concern for the labouring poor; the contrast with Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society on the same theme.","status":"Smith's treatment of the division of labour is foundational to economics and, in the Book V passage, one of the earliest and sharpest statements of what would become the alienation critique of industrial labour. Karl Marx quoted the \"stupid and ignorant\" passage in Capital and in the Grundrisse as an anticipation of his own account; Adam Ferguson developed the theme contemporaneously. The tension between Book I (celebration of productivity) and Book V (the human cost and the demand for public education) is central to the reading of Smith as either an apologist for or a critic of commercial society. Emma Rothschild and the revisionists emphasize the Book V passage as evidence of Smith's Enlightenment concern for the labouring poor; the economists (Nathan Rosenberg) emphasize the analytical productivity account. The passage is a standing rebuke to the libertarian Smith.","era":"1723-1790","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Wealth of Nations","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth, part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and…","label":"The Wealth of Nations"},{"n":2,"work":"The Wealth of Nations","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"In other cases, the state of the society does not place the greater part of individuals in such situations; and some attention of government is necessary, in order to prevent the almost entire corruption and degeneracy of the great body of the people.","label":"The Wealth of Nations"},{"n":3,"work":"The Wealth of Nations","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"We can seldom see more, at one time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much greater number of parts, than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious, and has accordingly been much less observed.","label":"The Wealth of Nations"},{"n":4,"work":"Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"Everything of this kind is odious as it is rare. When the greater part of people are merchants, they always bring probity and punctuality into fashion, and these, therefore, are the principal virtues of a commercial nation. There are some inconveniences, however, arising from a commercial spirit. The first we shall mention is that it confines the views of men.","label":"Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms"},{"n":5,"work":"Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms","page":"","canonical":"","quote":"'A Search into the Nature of Society,' pp. 325, 326). A shorter reference to the number of operations requisite to provide a coat occurs in Harris, Essay of Money and Coins, pt.i. 12. 2 W. of N. bk. i. chs. vi, viii. vol. i. pp. 50, 67, 68. CHEAPNESS OR PLENTY 163 there is no equal division, for there are a good many who work none at all'. The division of opulence is not according to the work.","label":"Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-invisible-hand","label":"The invisible hand: does the pursuit of self-interest, coordinated by the market, promote the public good?"},{"slug":"the-impartial-spectator","label":"The impartial spectator: is moral judgment grounded in sympathy and the view of an imagined impartial observer, rather than in reason or a moral sense?"},{"slug":"das-adam-smith-problem","label":"Das Adam Smith Problem: is there a contradiction between the sympathy-governed human being of the Moral Sentiments and the self-interested agent of the Wealth of Nations?"},{"slug":"the-role-of-the-state","label":"The role of the state: is Smith the prophet of laissez-faire and minimal government, or does the 'system of natural liberty' rest on justice, public works, and the duties of the sovereign?"}]}