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The Curse of Machinery 43Yes, we should keep at least one eye on Joe Smith. He has beenthrown out of a job by the new machine. Perhaps he can soon getanother job, even a better one. But perhaps, also, he has devoted manyyears of his life to acquiring and improving a special skill for which themarket no longer has any use. He has lost this investment in himself, inhis old skill, just as his former employer, perhaps, has lost his investmentin old machines or processes suddenly rendered obsolete. He was askilled workman, and paid as a skilled workman. Now he has becomeovernight an unskilled workman again, and can hope, for the present,only for the wages of an unskilled workman, because the one skill he hadis no longer needed. We cannot and must not forget Joe Smith. His isone of the personal tragedies that, as we shall see, are incident to nearlyall industrial and economic progress.To ask precisely what course we should follow with Joe Smith—whether we should let him make his own adjustment, give him separationpay or unemployment compensation, put him on relief, or trainhim at government expense for a new job—would carry us beyondthe point that we are here trying to illustrate. The central lesson is thatwe should try to see all the main consequences of any economic policyor development—the immediate effects on special groups, and thelong-run effects on all groups.If we have devoted considerable space to this issue, it is becauseour conclusions regarding the effects of new machinery, inventionsand discoveries on employment, production and welfare are crucial. Ifwe are wrong about these, there are few things in economics aboutwhich we are likely to be right.