§4.This general survey shows that the human 'costs' of labour are closely associated in most cases with that subdivision and specialisation of activities which takes its extreme form in machine tending and which conforms most closely to mere 'repetition' as distinguished from the creative branches of production.But this identification of 'repetition' and human costs cannot be pressed into a general law.For reflection shows that repetition or routine does not always carry cost, and that on the other hand some labour which has considerable variety is very costly.Healthy organic life permits, indeed requires, a certain admixture of routine or repetition with its more creative functions.A certain amount of regular rhythmic exercise of the same muscles and nerve-centres yields vital utility and satisfaction.In some sports this exercise may be carried so far as to involve considerable elements of fatigue and endurance which are offset during their occurrence by the sense of personal prowess and the interest of achievement, This sentimental zest of endurance may notoriously be carried to extremes, injurious to the physical organism.Moreover, a certain amount of narrow physical routine often furnishes a relief element for the tired nerves or brain.Digging or knitting, though intolerable as a constant employment, may furnish by their very physical routine an organic benefit when applied as a recreation.The same, indeed, is true of most other not too taxing forms of manual or mental routine labour, especially if they contain some obvious utility.Some slight element of skill seems needed for certain natures, but a bare uninteresting repetition commonly suffices.
Such considerations dispose of the assumption that all repetition or routine in productive work is necessarily indicative of human cost and carries no organic utility or satisfaction.It is only when repetition is extended so as to engage too large a share of the time and energy of a human being that it involves a cost.
So, on the other hand, it is not the case that all labour containing variety and opportunity for skill is costless and organically good.Take for a notable example agricultural labour.Irregularity of soil and weather, the changes and chances of animal and vegetable life, the performance of many different processes, remove such work from the category of exact routine.
Yet most of the labour connected with agriculture is, under the actual conditions of its performance, heavy, dull and joyless.In each process there is usually enough repetition and monotony to inflict fatigue, and the accumulation of separate fatigues in a long day's work, unalleviated by adequate personal interest in the process or its product, makes a heavy burden of cost.
The same holds of other departments of industry where some inherent elements of skill and interest are found.The total burden of effort given out in a long day's work, continued week after week, year after year, under the conditions of wagedom, greatly outweighs these technical advantages.
Duration and compulsion cancel most, though not all, of the superiority of such work over machine tending, or clerking.A little labour in any of the handicrafts, in machine-running, the management of motor-cars or boats, in gardening and other modes of agriculture, serves as a pleasant pastime when undertaken as a voluntary and occasional employment.Make it regular, continuous, compulsory, and the enjoyment soon vanishes.The very elements of interest for the casual amateur often constitute the heaviest cost for the worker who lives by doing this and nothing else.Take motor driving for an example.The quick exercise of nerve and muscle, the keenness of eye, wrist and attention, required to drive easily, quickly and safely, amid traffic or in a tangle of roads, gives nerve and interest to driving as a recreation.But this multiplication of little strains and risks, accumulating in a long day's work, and undertaken day after day, in all conditions of health, disposition and weather, soon passes from an agreeable and stimulating exercise into a toilsome drudgery.
Consideration of the work in the distributive trades, wholesale and retail, which absorb an ever-growing proportion of our wage-earners, is most instructive for understanding the respective parts played by specialisation, duration, and compulsion in the human costs.Machinery has little direct control over the work of these clerks, warehousemen, shop-assistants, typists, etc.: their work contains constant little elements of variety in detail, and a moderate amount of it imposes no fatigue.But the scope afforded for personal skill or achievement is insufficient; most of it is unmeaning and uninteresting so far as useful results are concerned; it involves constant obedience to the orders of another; and it is unduly prolonged.
§5.We are now in a position to sum up the results of our general analysis of the human costs of labour, in which Tarde's distinction between creation and imitation or repetition was our starting point.So far as the merely or mainly physical costs are concerned, the muscular and nervous strain and fatigue, excessive repetition is a true description of the chief cause.Machine tending at a high pace for a long working-day is in itself the most 'costly' type of labour, and, in so far as a machine controls the sort and pace of work done by a human being, these 'costs' accumulate.
But most work is not so directly controlled by machinery, and yet is so highly specialised that the routine constantly over-taxes with fatigue the muscles, nerves and attention.The duration and pace of such labour are usually such as to heap up heavy costs of physical wear and tear and of physical discomforts.
