The Evolution of Modern Capitalism: A Study of Machine Production

by J. A. Hobson

The gain which accrues from high wages and a larger amount of leisure, over which the higher consumption shall be spread, may be more than counteracted by an undue strain upon the nerves or muscles during the shorter day. This difficulty, as we have seen, is not adequately met by assigning the heavier muscular work more and more to machinery, if the possible activity of this same machinery is made a pretext for forcing the pace of such work as devolves upon machine-tenders.

In many kinds of work, though by no means in all, an increase of the amount of work packed into an hour could be obtained by a reduction of the working-day; but two considerations should act in determining the progressive movement in this direction: first, the objective economic question of the quantitative relation between the successive decrements of the working-day and the increments of labour put into each hour; second, the subjective economic question of the effect of the more compressed labour upon the worker considered both as worker and as consumer.

There is not wanting evidence to show that increased leisure and higher wages can be bought too dear.

In drawing attention to this consideration it must not, however, be assumed that the increase of real wages and shortening of hours traced in progressive industries are necessarily accompanied by a corresponding increase in the compression of labour. In the textile and iron industries, for example, it is evident (pace Karl Marx) that the operatives had obtained some portion of the increased productivity of improved machinery in a rise of wages. Even where more machinery is tended we are not entitled to assume a correspondent increase in felt effort or strain upon the worker. A real growth of skill or efficiency will enable an increased amount of machinery to be tended with no greater subjective effort than a smaller amount formerly required. But while allowance should be made for this, the history of the factory system, both in England and in other countries, clearly indicates that factory labour is more intense than formerly, not, perhaps, in its tax upon the muscles, but in the growing strain it imposes upon the nervous system of the operatives.

The importance of this point is frequently ignored alike by advocates of a shorter working-day and by those who insist that the chief aim of workers should be to make their labour more productive. So far as the higher efficiency simply means more skill and involves no increased effort it is pure gain, but where increased effort is required the question is one requiring close and detailed consideration.

§ 7. Another effect of over-compressed labour deserves a word.

The close relation between higher wages and shorter hours is generally acknowledged. A rise of money wages which affects the standard of living by introducing such changes in consumption as require for their full yield of benefit or satisfaction an increase of consuming-time can only be made effective by a diminution in the producing time or hours of labour. When, for example, the new wants, whose satisfaction would be naturally sought from a rise of the standard living, are of an intellectual order, involving not merely the purchase of books, etc., but the time to read such books, this benefit requires that the higher wages should be supplemented by a diminution in the hours of labour in cases where the latter are unduly long. But it is not so clearly recognised that such questions cannot be determined without reference to the question of intensity of labour. Yet it is evident that an eight-hours day of more compressed labour might be of a more exhausting character than a ten-hours day of less intense labour and disqualify a worker from receiving the benefits of the opportunities of education open to him more than the longer hours of less intense labour. The advantage of the addition of two hours of leisure might be outweighed by the diminished value attached to each leisure hour. In other words, the excess of intense work might be worse in its effects than the excess of more extended work. This possibility is often overlooked in the arguments of those who support the movement towards a shorter working-day by maintaining that each unit of labour-time will be more productive. When the argument concerns itself merely with alleging the influence of higher wages, without shorter hours, upon the efficiency of labour, this neglect of the consideration of intense labour has a more urgent importance. It may be gravely doubted whether the benefit of the higher wages of the Massachusetts weavers is not overbalanced by the increased effort of tending so large a number of looms for hours which are longer than the English factory day. The exhausting character of such labour is likely to leave its mark in diminishing the real utility or satisfaction of the nominally higher standard of living which the high wages render possible. Where the increased productivity of labour is largely due to the improved machinery or methods of production which are stimulated by high wages without a corresponding intensification of the labour itself, the gain to labour is clear. But the possibility that short hours and high wages may stimulate an injurious compression of the output of productive effort is one which must not be overlooked in considering the influence of new industrial methods upon labour.

§ 8. Duration of labour, intensity of labour, and wages, in their mutual relations, must be studied together in any attempt to estimate the tendencies of capitalist production. Nor can we expect their relations to be the same in any two industries. Where labour is thinly extended over an inordinately long working-day, as in the Indian mills, it is probable that such improvements of organisation as might shorten the hours to those of an ordinary English factory day, and intensify the labour, would be a benefit, and the rise of wages which might follow would bring a double gain to the workers. But any endeavour to further shorten and intensify the working-day might injure the workers, even though their output were increased. Such an instance, however, may serve well to bring home the relativity which is involved in all such questions. The net benefit derived from a particular quantitative relation between hours of labour, intensity, and earnings would probably be widely different for English and for Indian textile workers. It would, à priori, be unreasonable to expect that the working-day which would bring the greatest net advantage to both should be of the same duration. So also it may well be possible that the more energetic nervous temperament of the American operative may qualify him or her for a shorter and intenser working-day than would suit the Lancashire operative. It is the inseparable relation of the three factors—duration, intensity, and earnings—which is the important point. But in considering earnings, not merely the money wage, nor even the purchasing power of the money, but the net advantage which can be obtained by consuming what is purchased must be understood, if we are to take a scientific view of the question.

It should be clearly recognised that in the consideration of all practical reforms affecting the conditions of labour, the "wages" question cannot be dissociated from the "hours" question, nor both from the "intensity of labour" question; and that any endeavour to simplify discussion, or to facilitate "labour movements," by seeking a separate solution for each is futile, because it is unscientific. When any industrial change is contemplated, it should be regarded, from the "labour" point of view, in its influence upon the net welfare of the workers, due regard being given, not merely to its effect upon wage, hours, and intensity, but to the complex and changing relations which subsist in each trade, in each country, and in each stage of industrial development between the three.

But although, when we bear in mind the effects of machinery in imparting intensity and monotony to labour, in increasing the number of workers engaged in sedentary indoor occupations, and in compelling an ever larger proportion of the working population to live in crowded and unhealthy towns, the net benefit of machinery to the working classes may be questioned, the growth of machinery has been clearly attended by an improved standard of material comfort among the machine-workers, taking the objective measurement of comfort.