Having thus hastily enumerated the several ways in which a division of em ployments adds to the efficacy of human labour, and increases the enjoyments of men, let us inquire in what manner it is restrained and limited. It may be col lected from several of the preceding re marks, that the power of distributing men into particular employments must be limited by the extent of the market in which the produce of their labour may be exchanged. When there are no means of exchanging, men must provide every thing for themselves that they require ; and there is no further division of em ployments than that which necessarily takes place in families, and in the most simple forms of industry. So in every degree in which the situation and cir cumstances of men give facilities of ex change, do particular employments be come assigned to individuals. A village draper sells all kinds of drapery, together with hats, shoes, coats, smock-frocks : nay, in some villages there is but one shop, in which nearly every kind of trade is carried on. In a populous city, on the other hand, trades are almost indefinitely subdivided. And why is this ? Solely be cause of the extent of the market. In the one case, if a man sold nothing but hats, he could not gain a livelihood, and therefore he sells coats, smock-frocks, shoes, and all kinds of drapery—every thing, in fact, which the people round about him are likely to buy. In the other case, there is so large a demand for hats, that a man can gain a better livelihood by the exclusive sale of them, than by a he terogeneous trade like that of the village shopkeeper.
But while, by means of exchange, em ployments are thus subdivided, the labour of many men is most efficiently combined in producing particular results. The combinations of industry for one object are often truly wonderful, while the em ployments of those who are really co operating with one another are so distinct, that they are wholly unconscious of any combination at all ; nor is their combina tion at once perceptible to others. If you ask a man " who made his coat ?"—he will naturally answer "his tailor?' But ask him to enumerate the persons who had contributed to its production, and he will pause long before he attempts any answer, however incomplete. He will be reminded of the grazier, the shepherd, the wool-salesman, the various workmen in the cloth factory—the button-makers, the manufacturers of silk, and thread, and needles : but still the catalogue will be imperfect. In producing the raw ma. terials, and in conveying, selling, and manufacturing them, the diversity of oc cupations is extraordinarily great. Each man attends to his own business, and scarcely thinks of its relations to the business of other people ; and yet all are co-operating in the most effectual manner, for the most perfect and economical ma nufacture of this finished work of varied art.
The general operation of the principles of a combination of labour and division of employments has now been sufficiently explained, so far as it relates to the efficiency of human industry. Of its effects upon the distribution of wealth (another important branch of political economy) no more need be said, than that by multiplying the modes in which in dustry is made productive, it is the main cause of the various grades of society which exist in all civilized countries. The different employments of men deter mine their social position as labourers or employers of labour ; and the wealth arising from the effective employment of labour is distributed, through the several classes, as rent, profits, and wages.
It has been urged as an objection to an extended division of employments, that it unfits men for any change of business which altered circumstances may require ; and that, on that account, great misery is caused when the demand for any particu lar kind of labour is reduced. Of this position the hand-loom weavers of Eng land and Scotland are a familiar example, who are said to have been thrown out of employment by the extension of machi nery. That they have been reduced to
great distress is certain ; but in their employment there was nothing to unfit them from engaging in power-loom weav ing. On the contrary, the transition from one employment to the other would have been perfectly natural ; but they preferred their independent life to the discipline of a factory, and for that and other reasons persisted in continuing in their old trade. In the mean time thousands of agricultural labourers and their families, whose occu pations had been totally dissimilar, flocked into the manufacturing districts, and rea dily learned their new business. This example, therefore, instead of sustaining the objection, _proves that a division of employments does not disable men, so much as might be expected, from trans ferring their labour to other departments of industry, whenever a sufficient induce ment attracts them. But any interruption or change in the ordinary course of in dustry is necessarily productive of tempo rary suffering to the working classes, from whatever cause it may arise ; and an al teration in the forms of applying labour is but one out of many such causes. Yet much as this evil must be deplored, it is a satisfaction to know that it is only occa sional, temporary, and partial in its ope ration, while the permanent welfare of mankind is promoted by all those means which render industry most productive and multiply the sources of human enjoy ment.
Another objection to a minute subdivi sion of employments is, that it reduces vast masses of men to the condition of organized machines, uses them like tools, and uses them as such merely because machines have not yet been invented to do their work. From these facts, which are, to a certain extent, undeniable, it is inferred that the moral and intellectual character of men is degraded. This in ference, however, is not supported by experience. Agricultural employments are less subdivided than trades and manufactures; • but no one will contend that the farm labourer is ordinarily more intelligent than the operative, nor that his morals are decidedly superior. In com paring their relative condition, we shall be led into error if we confine our atten tion to the influence of a division of em ployments. In the lower departments of labour the work is rarely of a kind to enlarge the understanding, whether it consist of a combination of several occu pations or of one only ; and in either case the greater part of a man's time is engaged in his daily work. It is, therefore, to the circumstances by which he is surrounded, rather than to the nature of his work itself, that we must generally refer his condition. In thinly peopled countries there can be comparatively little division of employments, and in populous cities the principle of division, for reasons already explained, is carried very far. In the one case the intercourse of persons with each other is very confined, and is enlivened with scarcely any variety : in the other case persons are crowded toge ther, and brought into continual inter course. These opposite circumstances produce different results for good and for evil. The intelligence of mankind is un questionably increased by extended inter course with one another : their morals, at the same time, are more liable to corrup tion. In large cities they are exposed to more temptations—they are under less restraint ; and, above all, they have, almost universally, higher wages, which enable them to indulge their propensities more freely. Much of the intellectual disparity of rural and town populations might be removed by an efficient system of education, by which men would be better qualified to observe and reflect upon the objects by which they may be surrounded. And great would be the moral influence of education in rendering high wages innocuous, by offering liberal sources of recreation to the operative, more attractive than the temptations of vice.