4. Custom and national temperament affect the efficiency of labor by determining the normal period of labor time. After the bare necessities of life are provided for, the worker has a wide or narrow margin of productive energy to use as he pleases. If four hours' work a day would enable him to live, will he work longer or will he stop? The answer is determined by the balance of utility and disutility. Will additional hours of labor yield more gratification than idleness yields? Does the pain of toil repel more than its fruits attract? The use made of spare time differs according to climate, race, and temperament. In the tropics the margin is converted usually into loafing, in the temperate zones largely into objective forms of enjoyment. Individual differences are plainly seen when each man labors on his own field. The prudent man, in the old maxims, makes hay while the sun shines and ploughs deep while sluggards sleep. In the modern larger organization of industry, working hours are much the same for all workers in the establishment. Individual preferences are still expressed, however, in irregularity of employment. In the South some manufacturers have found that on an average the negroes will work in a factory not more than five or six hours a day, working ten hours for four days and lying off two days a week. Such a standard of working hours is the mark of the primitive stage of wants and industrial qualities, although a shortening of the hours of manual labor, as incomes increase above bare subsistence, is in accord with a rational valuation of leisure. A moderate change in that direction cannot but increase rather than diminish the efficiency of labor.
§ III. DIVISION OF LABOR
Division and exchange of labor
1. Division of labor is a term expressing that complex arrangement of industrial society whereby individual workers are enabled to apply themselves to the production of certain kinds of goods, securing others by exchange. The term "division of labor" is simple, but the thought is a complex one. Its full discussion would cover the whole field of political economy, but only its most essential aspects can here be touched upon. Division of labor and exchange are counterparts and mutually determine each other. Division of labor depends on the extent of the market, and in turn widens its limits. The number of articles that any one would care to produce at one time and place depends upon the opportunity to exchange them. These two aspects of industry thus are inseparable in thought and practice. The worker finds division of labor existing as a social institution and, according as he adapts himself to it wisely or foolishly, it increases more or less his efficiency.
Division of labor between trades and territories
2. Division of labor is primarily between individuals, but appears between trades, territories, and nations. In division of labor between trades, each worker applies himself to the production of some product or group of products and secures other goods by exchange. A special form of this is territorial division of labor, arising out of differences in soil, climate, and natural products, when each community develops in a high degree some one class of products to exchange in distant or foreign trade. Division of labor beginning because of such natural differences, becomes fixed by habit and training, by the advantage of a larger and regular labor supply, by the economy of nearness to related and tributary industries, and by the use of waste products where industry is conducted on a large scaled. The natural advantages in another district must be large to enable it to start successfully against these acquired economies, and territorial division of labor thus tends to continue for long periods when once established.
Advantages of division of labor
3. Division of labor increases efficiency by: (a) increasing skill; (b) saving time; (c) saving tools and materials; (d) improving quality; (e) increasing knowledge; (f) stimulating invention; (g) encouraging enterprise; (h) economizing talent. There is a tradition that an ingenious lecturer in one of our universities was accustomed to give to his class eighty reasons why division of labor was of advantage. It is none too many, as every reason for the modern, as contrasted with the primitive, organization of industry should be included. The phrase division of labor is but a synonym for specialization, a word that expresses all that is most characteristic of our complex industrial society. The headings just given may serve, however, to suggest the leading phases of the subject. Repetition of the same task trains the muscles, forms a mental habit, and gives the swiftness and deftness of touch called skill. Specialization saves time by making unnecessary the physical change of place for the worker, the frequent shifting of tools, and the mental readjustment required for the undertaking of a new task. Specialization saves tools for, either each kind of work must be most ineffectively done, or there must be provided for each worker a complete set of tools which thus will be used rarely and will rust out rather than wear out. If a few tools are thoroughly used, they yield a larger income on the investment, and require less care and repairs in proportion to their uses. In fact this fuller economic use of machinery and plant where a large product is turned out at one place, is a prime factor in the advantages of large production, a subject to be treated elsewhere much more fully than is here possible. By specialization is made possible a quality of goods never to be secured by the less skilled efforts of the Jack-of-all trades. The specialist steadily grows in knowledge of his materials and of the best processes, and he gains a power of delicate observation and facility in meeting new difficulties that are impossible when attention is divided among a number of tasks. By dividing and simplifying processes, specialization stimulates invention. The most complex machines have been developed gradually by combinations and adaptations of simple tools, and the more a process is subdivided, the greater is the chance of hitting upon a device to repeat mechanically the few simple movements. Division of labor increases the motives of emulation and enterprise, by making possible the more exact comparison of results. It economizes talent by giving to each the highest task of which he is capable, while fitting the less efficient workers into the minor places made possible by subdivision. In an American wagon-factory, a one-armed man operating a machine is turning out as large a product and earning as high wages as any other employee. The same advantages of specialization are found with modifying conditions in educational and professional lines. The marvelous progress of science in recent years has been made possible by each worker's doing a few things and doing them well.
Best adjustment of talent and occupation
Choice of a life career