Dai fatti alla Storia - volume 2

The Industrial Revolution ACTIVITY 4.D Complete the text about Adam Smith by inserting the words given. free division economist price interests society benefit demand Adam Smith (1723-1790) was a Scottish philosopher and (1.) ............ ... . In his main work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he considered the (2.) ............ ... of labour as the necessary condition for reducing the (3.) ............ ... for goods. Furthermore, he thought that each individual ought to pursue his (4.) ............ ... and his desire for wealth, so that it would benefit the entire (5.) ............ ... . This, according to Smith, was made possible by the invisible hand , an unseen force that, in a (6.) ............ ... market, preserves the equilibrium between the (7.) ............ ... and supply of goods, for the (8.) ............ ... of all. The Scottish economist Adam Smith portrayed by Charles Smith, 18th century. Of the Division of Labour One of the most lasting consequences of the Industrial Revolution was the principle of the division of labour. Industrial products were not realized by a single craftsman but by several workers. Each employee had a single task to carry out which resulted in lower production costs and cheaper final products. Adam Smith wrote about this in his main work An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations which was published in 1776. PRIMARY SOURCE from An inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour. [...] To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. [...] I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty perhaps not one pin in a day; certainly, not what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations. ACTIVITY 4.E Read the text Of the Division of Labour and decide whether the sentences are true (T) or false (F). Correct the false ones. 1. The improvement of the productive power of the labour resulted from the division of labour. T F 2. With the use of machinery a workman could only make one pin in a day. T F 3. The work done in the pin industry has many branches which include peculiar trades. T F 4. When workers exerted themselves, together they could make more than forty-eight thousand pins in a day. T F Without education and proper division to the particular business, workers could make twenty pins in a day. T F 5. 547