XXIV. The Paradox

CHAPTER XXIV. THE PARADOX. I F our investigation has as yet led to no satisfactory conclusion it has at least explained why the controversy so long carried on between protectionists and free traders has been so indeterminate. The paradox we have reached 58 one toward which all the social problems of our day con verge, and had our examination been of any similarques tion it must have come to just such a point. Take, for instance, the question of the effects of machi.. nery. The opinion that finds most influential expression is that labor-saving invention, although it may sometimes cause temporary inconv~nience or even hardship to a few, is ultimately beneficial to all. On the other hand, there is among working-men a wide-spread belief that labor-saving -machinery is injurious to them, although, since the belief sloes not enlist those powerful special interests that are concerned in the advocacy of protection, it has not been wrought into an elaborate system and does not get any..

thing like the same representation in the organs of publio opinion. Now, should we subject this question to such an exami nation as we have given to the tariff question we should reach similar ~esults. We should find the notion that invention ought to be restrained as incongruous. as the notion that trade ought to be restrained-as incapableQ~ 253 254 PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE' being carried to its logical conclusions without resulting in absurdity. And while the nse of machinery enormously increases the production of wealth, examination would show in it nothing to cause inequality in distribution. On the contrary, we should see that the increased power given by invention inures primarily to labur, and that this gain is so diffused by exchange that the effect of an improvement which increases the power of labor in one branch of industry must be shared by labor in all othe~ branches. Thus the direct tendency of labor-savinp improvement is to augment the earnings of labor. Nor ir this tendency neutralized by the fact that labor-saving inventions generally require the use of capital, since compe tition, when free to act, must at length bring the profits of capital used in this way to the common level. Even the monopoly of a labor-saving invention, while it can seldom be maintained for any length of time, cannot prevent a large (and generally much the largest) part of the benefits from being diffused. * From this we might conclude with certainty, that the tendency of labor-saving improvements is to benefit all, and especially to benefit the working-class, and hence might naturally attribute any distrust of their beneficial effects partly to the temporary displacements which, in a highly organized society, any change in the forms of industry must cause, and partly to the increased wants called forth by the increased ability to satisfy want.

Yet, while as a matter of theory it is clear that labor. saving inventions ought to improve the condition of all; as a matter of fact it is equally clear that they do not. In countries like Great Britain there is still a large class living on the verge of starvation, and constantly * For a fuller examination of the effects of machinery see my " Social Problems. '> THE PARADOX. 255 slipping over it-a class who have not derived the slight est benefit from the· immense increase of productive power, since their condition never could have been any worse than it is-a class whose habitual condition in times of peace and plenty is lower, harder, more pre carious and more degraded than that of any savages. In countries like the United States, where such a class did not previously exist, its development has been con· temporaneous with wondrous advances of labor-saving invention. The laws against. tramps which have been placed upon the statute-books of our States, the restric tions upon chilq. labor which have been found necessary, the walking advertisements of our cities, the growing bitterness of the strife which working-men are forced to wage, indicate unmistakably that while discovery and invention have been steadily increasing the productive power of labor in every department of industry, the ·cor....

dition of the mere laborer has been growing worse. It can be proved that labor-saving invention tends to benefit labor, but that this tendency is in some way aborted is even more clearly evident in the facts of to-day than it was when John Stuart Mill questioned if mechanical invention had lightened the day's toil of any human being. That in some places and in some occu~ .pations there has been improvement in the condition of labor is true. But not only is such improvement nowhere commensurate with the increase of productive power; it is clearly not due to it. It exists only where it has been won by combinations of workmen or by legal interference. It is trades-unions, not the illcreased power given by machinery, that· have in many occupations in Gl."eat Britain reduced hours and increased pay; it is legislation, not any improvement in the general condi. tion of labor, that has stopped th~ harnessing of women in mines and the working of little children in mills and 256 PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE7 brick-yards. Where such in.fluences have not been felt, it is not only certain that labor-saving inventions have not improved the condition of labor, but it seems as if they had exerted a depressing effect-operating to make labor a drug instead of to make it more valuable.