Society
and nature, equally pitiless, are in accord in the execution of
this new decree.
"When a new machine, or, in general, any process whatever that
expedites matters," says J. B. Say, "replaces any human labor
already employed, some of the industrious arms, whose services
are usefully supplanted, are left without work. A new machine,
therefore, replaces the labor of a portion of the laborers, but
does not diminish the amount of production, for, if it did, it
would not be adopted; IT DISPLACES REVENUE. But the ultimate
advantage is wholly on the side of machinery, for, if abundance
of product and lessening of cost lower the venal value, the
consumer--that is, everybody--will benefit thereby."
Say's optimism is infidelity to logic and to facts. The question
here is not simply one of a small number of accidents which have
happened during thirty centuries through the introduction of one,
two, or three machines; it is a question of a regular, constant,
and general phenomenon. After revenue has been DISPLACED as Say
says, by one machine, it is then displaced by another, and again
by another, and always by another, as long as any labor remains
to be done and any exchanges remain to be effected.
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