Principles of Political Economy

Answers

• Q17LABOR

  Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?

  No. so far inventions have not lightened toil. Doubts that all mechanical inventions so far have lightened the day's toil of any human being; they have let more people live the same life of drudgery and made fortunes for manufacturers.

  Even the industrial arts might be as earnestly and as successfully cultivated, with this sole difference, that instead of serving no purpose but the increase of wealth, industrial improvements would produce their legitimate effect, that of abridging labour. Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers, become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot.

  Book IV, Chapter VI: Of the Stationary State · Passage confirmed in Gutenberg #30107 (abridged ed.); chapter location confirmed on Wikisource 1871 ed. page and Econlib.

• Q19LABOR

  Who should receive the benefits when machinery increases the amount a worker can produce?

  The workers, through co-operative ownership. Expects labourers to associate as equals, collectively own the capital they work with, and elect their managers.

  Book IV, Chapter VII: On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes · Fetched Wikisource 1871 ed. page; confirmed chapter title and the association passage.