The National Division of Commercial Operations and theConfederation of the National Productive ForcesThe school is indebted to its renowned founder for thediscovery of that natural law which it calls 'division of labour,'
but neither Adam Smith nor any of his successors have thoroughlyinvestigated its essential nature and character, or followed it outto its most important consequences.
The expression 'division of labour' is an indefinite one, andmust necessarily produce a false or indefinite idea.
It is 'division of labour' if one savage on one and the sameday goes hunting or fishing, cuts down wood, repairs his wigwam,and prepares arrows, nets, and clothes; but it is also 'division oflabour' if (as Adam Smith mentions as an example) ten differentpersons share in the different occupations connected with themanufacture of a pin: the former is an objective, and the latter asubjective division of labour; the former hinders, the latterfurthers production.The essential difference between both is, thatin the former instance one person divides his work so as to producevarious objects, while in the latter several persons share in theproduction of a single object.
Both operations, on the other hand, may be called with equalcorrectness a union of labour; the savage unites various tasks inhis person, while in the case of the pin manufacture variouspersons are united in one work of production in common.
The essential character of the natural law from which thepopular school explains such important phenomena in social economy,is evidently not merely a division of labour, but a division ofdifferent commercial operations between several individuals, and atthe same time a confederation or union of various energies,intelligences, and powers on behalf of a common production.Thecause of the productiveness of these operations is not merely thatdivision, but essentially this union.Adam Smith well perceivesthis himself when he states, 'The necessaries of life of the lowestmembers of society are a product of joint labour and of theco-operation of a number of individuals.'(1*) What a pity that hedid not follow out this idea (which he so clearly expresses) ofunited labour.
If we continue to consider the example of the pin manufactureadduced by Adam Smith in illustration of the advantages of divisionof labour, and seek for the causes of the phenomenon that tenpersons united in that manufacture can produce an infinitely largernumber of pins than if every one carried on the entire pinmanufacture separately, we find that the division of commercialoperations without combination of the productive powers towards onecommon object could but little further this production.
In order to create such a result, the different individualsmust co-operate bodily as well as mentally, and work together.Theone who makes the heads of the pins must be certain of the cooperation of the one who makes the points if he does not want torun the risk of producing pin heads in vain.The labour operationsof all must be in the proper proportion to one another, the workmenmust live as near to one another as possible, and theirco-operation must be insured.Let us suppose e.g.that every one ofthese ten workmen lives in a different country; how often mighttheir co-operation be interrupted by wars, interruptions oftransport, commercial crises, &c.; how greatly would the cost ofthe product be increased, and consequently the advantage of thedivision of operation diminished; and would not the separation orsecession of a single person from the union, throw all the othersout of work?
The popular school, because it has regarded the division ofoperation alone as the essence of this natural law, has committedthe error of applying it merely to the separate manufactory orfarm; it has not perceived that the same law extends its actionespecially over the whole manufacturing and agricultural power,over the whole economy of the nation.
As the pin manufactory only prospers by the confederation ofthe productive force of the individuals, so does every kind ofmanufacture prosper only by the confederation of its productiveforces with those of all other kinds of manufacture.For thesuccess of a machine manufactory, for instance, it is necessarythat the mines and metal works should furnish it with the necessarymaterials, and that all the hundred different sorts ofmanufactories which require machines, should buy their productsfrom it.Without machine manufactories, a nation would in time ofwar be exposed to the danger of losing the greater portion of itsmanufacturing power.
In like manner the entire manufacturing industry of a State inconnection with its agricultural interest, and the latter inconnection with the former, will prosper the more the nearer theyare placed to one another, and the less they are interrupted intheir mutual exchanges with one another.The advantages of theirconfederation under one and the same political Power in times ofwar, of national differences, of commercial crises, failure ofcrops, &c., are not less perceptible than are the advantages of theunion of the persons belonging to a pin manufactory under one andthe same roof.
Smith affirms that the division of labour is less applicable toagriculture than to manufactures.(2*) Smith had in view only theseparate manufactory and the separate farm.He has, however,neglected to extend his principle over whole districts andprovinces.Nowhere has the division of commercial operations andthe confederation of the productive powers greater influence thanwhere every district and every province is in a position to devoteitself exclusively, or at least chiefly, to those branches ofagricultural production for which they are mostly fitted by nature.