TECHNOLOGY AT WORK
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16<br />
Citi GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions February 2015<br />
notwithstanding has greatly benefited from their erection [and] destroying them in<br />
this country would only be the means of transferring them to another [...] to the<br />
detriment of the trade of Britain.” 28 To be sure, there was still resistance to<br />
technology displacing artisan workers. The “Luddite” riots between 1811 and 1816<br />
partly reflected the fear of mechanisation. Nevertheless, the Crown and the guilds<br />
lacked the political influence to halt creative destruction.<br />
As the Industrial Revolution spread across the Atlantic and to mainland Europe,<br />
there were still forces that counteracted innovation. On the continent, where the<br />
guilds were still largely present, innovators often left for less regulated markets. For<br />
example, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, the founder of Steinway & Sons, famously<br />
left Germany for New York with his five sons in 1850, as the local guilds’ heavy<br />
regulation of the piano-making process did not allow for the Steinway production<br />
methods. Over 150 years later, New York is still the leading factory for Steinway<br />
pianos, alongside Hamburg.<br />
The general tendency has been towards<br />
embracing technological progress as<br />
workers gradually see the benefits of<br />
technological change<br />
While the regulation of innovation activities may have long-lasting effects, the<br />
general tendency since the Industrial Revolution has been towards embracing<br />
technological progress. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that this shift in<br />
attitudes was only a result of a shift in political power. Although working conditions<br />
were often horrific, the sustained progress that followed was as much a result of<br />
many ordinary workers gradually seeing the benefits of technological change.<br />
Steam Powered Production: From the Artisan Shop to the<br />
Factory System<br />
Low-skilled workers benefited from the<br />
Industrial Revolution as it simplified the<br />
tasks workers had to perform in production<br />
An important feature of the manufacturing technologies associated with the<br />
Industrial Revolution is that they mainly benefited low-skilled workers by simplifying<br />
the tasks workers had to perform in production. 29 This skill replacing process<br />
occurred as the artisan shop was gradually displaced by the factory system, and<br />
picked up pace as production was increasingly mechanised, following the adoption<br />
of steam power. 30 As a result, manual work that had previously been performed by<br />
highly skilled artisans was now decomposed into specialised sequences.<br />
Key innovations in manufacturing, such as continuous-flow production and<br />
interchangeable parts, were even specifically designed for low-skilled workers. At<br />
Ford, the new assembly line introduced in 1913 turned a one-man job into a 29-man<br />
operation, reducing the overall work time by 34%. This allowed complex products to<br />
be assembled from mass-produced individual components; work that required less<br />
skill, but more workers, to perform. 31<br />
The differences in productivity between the factory and the artisan shop is nicely<br />
illustrated in the production of plows. In one artisan shop, two men spent 118 manhours<br />
using hammers, anvils, chisels, hatchets, axes, mallets, shaves and augers in<br />
11 tasks to produce a plow. By contrast, a steam-powered plow factory employed<br />
52 workers performing 97 distinct tasks to produce a plow in just about 3.75 manhours.<br />
28 Mantoux (2006).<br />
29<br />
Braverman (1977); Goldin and Katz (1998).<br />
30 Atack, et al. (2008a).<br />
31 Bright (1958).<br />
© 2015 Citigroup