Wealth of Nations: Division of Labor and Motivation

Book I Chapter 1 of Wealth of Nations revolves around the concept of the division of labor.  Smith goes to lengths to demonstrate that dividing labor into smaller, more simple tasks results in greater production, and when coupled with specialization, results in higher quality.  He argues that when people are left to their own devices, they will use their specialized knowledge and skills cooperatively and everyone benefits.  This reflects the more accurate view of humanity that man was created "good", and although we are fallen, we are still made in the image of God.  However accurately Smith's ideas of the division of labor reflect human nature, Smith's picture of the division of labor does not completely mesh with human nature.

In his depiction of the efficiency of the division of labor, Smith mentions two phenomenon which would put a bitter taste in some one's mouth.  For one, Smith refers to "making this business into some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life."  I understand completely what Smith is referring to: taking a complex task (like making cabinets), and breaking it down into simpler operations.  One person will be dedicated to running each operation, and that is all they are responsible for.  But this is what that boils down to: instead of making the whole of the cabinet, one person is responsible for cutting the wood for the doors, another for assembling the doors, and another for assembling the whole thing.  How can such an operation be good for the human person?  Your sole means of employ is doing a single, simple task.  While a worker may take pride in their work initially, how long before they begin to get bored with cutting wood, day in and day out?  A dissatisfied worker is an unproductive or poor worker, so while the number of products produced increase, the quality will diminish, as the worker puts in his time and goes home. 

Immediately preceding that phrase, Smith talks about a hypothetical country farmer who also weaves.  He mentions that as a weaver, his farming hinders how much weaving gets done, and as a farmer, his weaving hinders his farm's functioning.  Those are good points: a weaver who likes to work the ground and grow things hinders his ability to make a living from his trade. But what about the farmer who simply enjoys weaving, or the weaver who enjoys farming?  Perhaps their excursions into "side activities" isn't really for economic production, but to do something they enjoy. 

These two points go together.  As the division of labor turns complex jobs into a series of simple tasks, there will be those laborers who maintain a "side profession" to maintain their happiness.  It could be postulated that this is how craftsmen endure.  There are still craftsmen who exist not for the profit, but for the pure enjoyment of the task.  As an example, exploring the homes of Victorian America, one will find certain features that are all but extinct on modern houses.  For example, it was customary for the porches of Victorian homes to be decorated with ginger breading, and the arches between rooms would have bent trim around them.  Such practices require skill and time, to be sure, but even the domiciles of well-to-do Americans in the late 20th and 21st Centuries are lacking such examples of craftsmanship.  However, there still exist craftsmen who operate solely for two motivations: their love of Victorian architecture and the their love of quality craftsmanship.  Some, including a few I have talked to, are turned off by "assembly line production", and would rather put their own personal stamp on each piece they produce.

Herein lies another problem with Smith's depiction of the division of labor: Smith is focusing on the communal aspect, which is important because it is part of the human condition: humans are not simply individuals, but are part of a larger whole (or several larger wholes).  However, humans are simply collective: they exist individually, and never can it be said that the whole is more important or greater than the individual.  This focusing on the whole to the neglect of the individual is what brings up the problems noted above. 

Wealth of Nations Division of Labor and Human Nature

Nature has a way of taking revenge on those who mess with it.  For example, in Egypt and China, for millenia the major rivers of these nations have seasonally flooded, creating flood basins that were incredibly rich in soil and provided the people a consistent source of food.  In the 20th Century, "modern" leaders attempted to control nature by building dams.  Now, those countries are in crisis, most notably Egypt, because the people haven't stopped farming on the banks of the rivers, but the rivers aren't providing the soil they once did.  Thus food supplies are diminishing.  Thus, it can be stated that when humans work with nature (including natural moral law), their endeavors will have a greater rate of success than when they attempt to change or control nature.  Using this maxim, then, when we undertake actions that are inline with human nature, we can be reasonably assured that our endeavors will be relatively successful.

In the introduction to the volume of Wealth of Nations I am reading, the editor says that Smith's economic theories reflected a concept of man that was foreign to  the "longstanding traditions of absolutism and trancendentalism with their view of human beings as inherently wayward, sinful and therefore in constant need of strong secular and ecclesiasiastical authority."  I am almost instantly drawn to Jean Calvin's depiction of man as "totally depraved" and Martin Luther's assumption that we are as dung-heaps when the editor claims this.  Certainly he is not referring to the millenia-old cry of Pope St. Leo the Great: "Christians, remember your dignity!"  St. Leo based his exhortation on two facts: man is created in the image and likeness of God, and God chose to become fully man.  According to St. Leo's logic (which is indicative of the Christian Tradition, up until the time of Luther), God is inherently Good, and if we are made in the image and likeness of that which is Good, we cannot be inherently bad (which is what Luther and Calvin claim).  In addition, God chose to become one of us, thus raising our fallen dignity even more.  What is at issue here is an accurate understanding of human nature.  Are humans totally depraved, as Adam Smith's contemporaries believed, or are they inherently good, as Adam Smith presupposed?
Remember that Smith "calls it as he sees it."  His depiction of the fruits of division of labor is not simply philosophical or speculative, but through observation.  Through these observations, he is keenly aware that when "manufatures" are broken into simpler tasks (which are then called peculiar businesses), the quantity and quality of everything that is produced increases tremendously.  He uses several easy examples, for instance, a smith is used to making many things out of iron.  However, due to circumstances, many smiths excel at making, say, hammers, but don't make many nails.  If asked to make nails, they could do it, but their nail production, because of a lack of experience, would make say a couple hundred in a day.  Another smith, due to circumstances, has extensive experience in making nails, and indeed has it down to a science, and therefore makes a couple thousand a day.  Smith argues that if we simply let the hammer-producing smith make hammers and the nail producing smith make nails, there are more hammers and more nails to go around than if every smith had to make both items.  This is an easy observation to make, and is, quite simply, common sense.  What is most compelling for our purposes, here and now, is the implication this has for human nature.

Smith goes from simple manufacturing to philosophy, and from philosophy to the rest of society.  He says, "Each individual becomes an expert in his own peculiar branch [of philosophy], more work is done on the whole, and the quantity of science is increased by it."  So, if division of labor and specialization can work for industry, it stands to reason, then, that it would work for other things as well: arts, sciences, politics, even religion.  St. Paul talks about the different roles and different gifts that the Faithful have.  In his body analogy, he makes it quite clear that when each member of the Church assumes the responsibilities of his/her roles/gifts, then the Body as a whole is made stronger, and Christ is glorified.  This is akin to what Smith is saying, and he says it explicitly at the end of Book I Chapter 1: when everyone completes their specialized tasks in a cooperative manner, everyone benefits, from the peasant to the prince.  Smith is not simply referring to material benefits here, but to arts, sciences, architecture, etc.  The principal of using one's gifts in a cooperative manner (as opposed to purely selfish manner) means that society as a whole benefits.

Smith's admonition that people could, on their own devices and without coercion by the state or the ecclesiatical authority, work together for the betterment of all harkened back to the view of mankind held by St. Leo the Great and St. Anselm.  His observation that people will cooperate on their own volition (without coercion by the state or church) is directly opposite to the contemporary practice of creating government-sponsored monopolies (which restrict free cooperation among individuals).  This is why, I believe that the English and Americans were able to quite quickly create wealthy societies without the use of government sponsored monopolies.  Their economic policies were based on an accurate understanding of human nature, and because of that, they succeeded.  When we contrast the economic policies of say, Spain, with those of 19th Century England, we see some remarkable differences.  While Spain was a Catholic nation, and as such was no stranger to Pope Leo the Great's understanding of humanity, its political structure embraced the ideas of Hobbes and the de facto his assumptions of human nature, especially when it came to non-Catholics and natives in their colonies.   By 1830, England's national wealth far surpassed that of Spain's.

When the Reformers assumptions of a totally depraved and dung-heap humanity are put into action, people are oppressed, and, at least economically, people's standard of living are poor.  When Catholic assumptions of an inherently good, but fallen humanity are put into action, people are free, and at least economically, people's standard of living are higher.  If we accept the earlier postulation that adherence to nature will reflect in "success", then we can assume that Calvin's and Luther's assumptions of mankind are flawed, and while Smith's (and by extension, those of St. Leo the Great) assumptions are more accurate.