Quotation
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“The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour seems to have been the effects of the division of labour.”
Adam Smith · Moral philosophy · Enlightenment · 1776
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the opening as the book's first cause: the productive powers of labour improve above all through the division of labour, which he will illustrate with the pin factory, where separate small operations multiply output. A rival reading hears a celebration with no cost, but the same book will later describe the mental mutilation of workers confined to a few simple operations. The sentence begins chapter 1. This entry shortens a longer grammatical subject; The claim is still his.
Did Adam Smith really say this?
The library’s label is Well attested. Smith's own English, shortened from the opening sentence of The Wealth of Nations, book one, chapter 1. The full sentence also mentions skill, dexterity, and judgement. The claim and the wording are his. The shortening drops a clause.
Where it comes from
The Wealth of Nations I.1
Approximate date: 1776.
How to use it
A kitchen in a hospital in Birmingham that splits plating, dietary checks, and delivery will, on his account, produce more meals than each cook doing every step, and it may also make the work harder to inhabit. He thinks both facts can be true. The pin factory is not a hospital, and the principle is the same shape; Quoting only the improvement, and never the later chapters on education and the stupidity induced by detail work, edits the book into an advert.
A mindset reading
Seems is still in the sentence, a caution modern summaries often drop. He is pointing to the greatest improvement he can see, not deducing a law of history. A rival use treats the division of labour as a moral ideal of personhood; It is, in this chapter, a cause of productivity; What it does to a person is a question he does not forget, and a reader who stops at chapter 1 will.
Understand the philosophy
The key term is the division of labour, the separation of a craft into distinct operations performed by different people. Chapter 1's pin-maker is the illustration. The Wealth of Nations opens here and moves toward price, wages, and the policy of a commercial society. The English is his; This entry omits the clause about skill, dexterity, and judgement, which is why the note records a shortening even though the words that remain are his.
- society
- change
- power
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the opening as the book's first cause: the productive powers of labour improve above all through the division of labour, which he will illustrate with the pin factory, where separate small operations multiply output. A rival reading hears a celebration with no cost, but the same book will later describe the mental mutilation of workers confined to a few simple operations. The sentence begins chapter 1. This entry shortens a longer grammatical subject; The claim is still his.
Did Adam Smith really say this?
Well attested. Smith's own English, shortened from the opening sentence of The Wealth of Nations, book one, chapter 1. The full sentence also mentions skill, dexterity, and judgement. The claim and the wording are his. The shortening drops a clause.
Which work is it in?
The Wealth of Nations I.1 Approximate date: 1776.