The substitution of machinery diminishes (sometimes,but not always,)the income of the class whose funds consist of corporeal and manual faculties,to augment the income of the class whose funds consist in intellectual faculties and in capitals.In other words,expeditious machines,being in general more complex,require more considerable capitals;consequently they compel the enterpriser who employs them to purchase more of what we have called productive service of capital,and less of what we call productive services of laborers.At the same time,as perhaps they require greater attention and more care in their general and particular management,they employ more of that kind of productive service from whence the enterpriser's income proceeds.A cotton spinner who uses the small wheel,as we see in many places in Normandy,scarcely deserves the name of enterpriser,whilst a large wholesale cotton manufactory is an enterprise of magnitude.
But the most important effect,although perhaps the least perceptible,which proceeds from the employment of machinery in general,of all other expeditious processes,is the increase of income which results from them to the consumers of their productions;an increase which costs nothing to any body,and of which it is worth while to give some detail.
If wheat were pounded in our days,as it was by the ancients,by the strength of the arm,I apprehend it would take twenty men to grind as much flour as one pair of stones in a mill can grind.These twenty men,in the neighbourhood of Paris,being continually employed,would cost 40francs per day,at 300days'work in the year they would cost per year fr..12,000The machine and the stones cost suppose 20,000fr.a year's interest on which would be ---1,000No enterpriser would probably be found to undertake such an enterprise,unless it brought him in yearly about -3,000The cost,therefore,of the flour that may be obtained from a pair of stones in one year would,by this means,amount to about ....fr.10,000Instead of which a miller now a days can hire a windmill for -2,000He pays his man --1,000
I suppose he gains for his labor and abilities ---3,000The same quantity of flour can therefore be ground for ---fr.6;000instead of 16,000,which it would have cost if we still followed the custom of our ancestors.
The same population can be fed,for the mill does not diminish the quantity of flour ground:the profit gained in society serves to pay for fresh productions,for the moment the 6,000francs cost of production are paid,a profit of 6,000francs is gained;and society enjoys this essential advantage,that mankind who compose it,whatever be their means of existence or their income,whether they live upon their labor,their capital,or their stock of land,reduce the portion of their expences destined to the payment of the cost of the flour in the proportion of sixteen to six or five-eighths.He who spent eight francs annually for his food would only spend three,which is exactly equal to an increase of income;for the five francs saved in this article can be employed in any other.If an equal improvement had taken place in all the productions in which we employ our incomes,they would really have been increased five eighth;and a man who gains three thousand francs,either in making flour,or in any other manner,would actually be as rich as if he had eight thousand and the improved method had not been discovered.
M.Sismondi has not .aid attention to this,when he wrote the following passage.
"Every time,"he says,(37)"that the demand for consumption exceeds the means of the population to produce,every new discovery in mechanism or the arts is a benefit to society,because it gives the means of satisfying existing wants.Every time,on the contrary,that the production is fully adequate to the consumption every such discovery is a calamity,because it only adds to the enjoyment of consumers by satisfying them at a cheaper rate,whilst it suppresses the life itself of the producers.
It would be odious to weigh the advantage of a cheap rate against that of existence.."M.Sismondi,as appears,does not sufficiently appreciate the advantage of a cheap rate,and does not feel that by giving less for one article we can afford to give more for another,beginning with the most indispensable.
Up to this time no inconvenience is perceptible in the invention of flour mills,but the advantage of a diminution in the price of the production is very visible,which is equal to an increase of income to all those who use them.
But this increase of income procured for the consumers,is taken away from the nineteen unfortunate men whom the mill has thrown out of work.
This I deny.The nineteen laborers have their industrious faculties left,with the same strength,the same capacities,the same means of labor as before.The mill does not compel them to remain unemployed,but only to seek another occupation.Many circumstances occasion a similar inconvenience without carrying with them the same remedy.
A fashion out of use,a war which blocks up a vent,a commerce which changes its course,do a hundred times more injury to the laboring classes than any new invention whatever.
I suppose that it will be said and insisted on,that the nineteen vacant laborers,supposing even they immediately find capitals to set them to work at a fresh business,could not sell their production because the mass of production of society would be thereby increased,but not the amount of their income.It has then been forgotten that the incomes of society are increased by the very fact of the production of the nineteen new laborers.
The salary for their labor is the income which enables them to acquire the produce of their labor,or to exchange it against any other equivalent production:this is sufficiently established in my preceding letters.
