Output

“ Records of individual efficiency are comparatively easy to make when output is separated. But even when work must be done by gangs or teams of men, there is provision made in Scientific Management for recording this gang work in such a way that either the output or the efficiency, or both, of each man shows up separately. ”

“ The formula is indeed perfectly exact if we regard the total product of a capitalistically producing society as the output of one year’s labour, and wish to analyse it into its respective components. The quantity c shows how much of the labour of former years has been taken over towards the product of the present year in the form of means of production. ”

“ Even where the scale of operations is being enlarged, expenditures for machines, fuel, raw materials, and labor may have been so carefully planned in advance with reference to the desired increase of output or pecuniary311 profit that no special problem of motivation attaches directly to them. ”

“ Under Scientific Management the work of each man is arranged either so that his output shows up separately and on the individual records, or, if the Work is such that it seems best to do it in gangs, the output can often be so recorded that the individual's output can be computed from the records. ”

“ Lastly, as the man can increase his output, with continued experience, above that of the task, he receives a differential rate piece on the excess quantity, this simply making an increasing stimulus to exceed his previous best record. ”

“ A'L' is a curve indicating, by its diminishing distance from AL, the diminishing expense of producing each unit of the increased output, so that the expense of producing the first ton, if only one is produced, is AA', that of the millionth ton, if one million are produced, BB', and so on. ”

“ In short, we must still look in various directions to become aware of all the relations between the psychological factors and the economic output. We may begin with one question which plays a large, perhaps too large, rôle in the economic and especially in the popular economic literature. ”

“ In almost all of the other more complicated cases the large increase in output is due partly to the actual physical changes, either in the machines or small tools and appliances, which a preliminary time study almost always shows to be necessary, so that for purposes of illustration the simple case chosen is the better, although the gain made in the more complicated cases is none the less legitimately due to the system. ”

“ It is, however, useful to state the theoretical considerations in determining the ultimate volume of output and therefore the size of equipments, for the theory will serve to illuminate the Page 154 practical limitations. ”

“ Instruments of production, on the other hand, have indirect utility, since all that they are good for is to help produce things that render the immediate service. They have productivity, and this has to be measured in determining their value. What we need to know about hoes and shovels, hammers and anvils, spindles and looms, etc., is how much power they have to [Pg 43] create the goods that we want for consumption. Here again the measurement has to be made in the specific way. The capital goods have to be taken unit by unit if their value for productive purposes is to be rightly gauged. ”

“ We may readily see, moreover, that those two primary allocations subdivide into almost infinitesimal and extremely confusing secondary categories, comprising every variety of Labor, every variety of Land, every variety of Wealth, every variety of Economic desire. It is to satisfy those desires out of that continuous flow of Wealth that the infinitude of processes indicated in the next preceding Lesson enter into the comprehensive Productive Process which includes delivery to ultimate consumers, and that an infinitude of corresponding processes enter into Distribution. ”

“ A study of the forms of the productivity curves will show that if we take as the increment of labor used in making the test only a tenth of the whole force, we exaggerate the product imputable to it by a very minute fraction, say by less than a one-hundredth part; and if we take a hundredth of the labor as a final unit, we exaggerate the product that is solely attributable to it by an amount so minute that it is of no consequence in practice or in any theory that tries to be applicable to practice. ”

“ The various parts, materials, and agents that unite to form products are called the factors of production. In a general sense every separate thing that enters into industry is a factor; as, in agriculture, for example, the seed, plows, fields, fences, barns, cattle, labor. But usually in economic discussion, these numerous factors are grouped in large classes. The main factors are two, variously named as man [Pg 261] and nature, or labor and material agents, or humanity and wealth. ”

“ When we do not distinguish different parts in the final process of production we do distinguish the value of the materials. The value of these materials may often be again decomposed many times, exhibiting as many clearly defined steps in the creation of the final value. At each of these steps we habitually estimate a creation of value, an addition to capital. ”

“ In calculating the exchangeable value of a commodity we must add to the quantity of labor last employed, the quantity of labor previously worked up in the raw material of a commodity, and the labor bestowed in the implements, tools, machinery, and buildings, with which labor is assisted. ”

“ By this method the theory of an institution or a phase of life may be stated in conventionalised terms of the apparatus whereby life is carried on, the apparatus being invested with a tendency to an equilibrium at the normal, and the theory being a formulation of the conditions under which this putative equilibrium supervenes. In this way we have come into the usufruct of a cost-of-production theory of value which is pungently reminiscent of the time when Nature abhorred a vacuum. ”

“ In multitudinous detail it is an inexplicable mystery except to an all comprehensive body of experts, and even to them if they ignore the Basic Facts. Yet every complexity disappears when the details are assigned to their appropriate natural categories of Man as the sole producer, Natural Resources as the sole basis and source of production, and Artificial Objects as the product; or, reverting to technical Economic terms, when the confused details are appropriately assigned to Labor as the Productive73 power, to Land as the basis and source of Production, and to Wealth as the Product. ”

“ When we consider that the individual's value to the rest of society is measured by the excess of his production over consumption, while his position in industry is determined by his rate of accumulation, which is merely his acquisition minus his consumption, we shall see how important it is that acquisition and production should be identified. ”

“ An example of the second, intensified to a degree never before experienced, is to be found in the results of the improvements in production and distribution which have been made especially effective within the last quarter of a century. A given amount of labor, operating through machinery, produces or distributes at least a third more product on the average, in given time, than ever before. ”

“ Passing over the most abstract science, Logic, on the due guidance by which, however, the large producer or distributor depends, knowingly or unknowingly, for success in his business-forecasts, we come first to Mathematics. Of this, the most general division, dealing with number, guides all industrial activities; be they those by which processes are adjusted, or estimates framed, or commodities bought and sold, or accounts kept. No one needs to have the value of this division of abstract science insisted upon. ”

“ Thus, the total numbers receiving poor-law relief, or the numbers apprehended in the kingdom for drunkenness, are numerical results affected by the oscillations of trade, by the character of the seasons, the value of gold, etc., etc., as well as by the acts of the Legislature. To make a valid experiment we must have a certain thing subject to certain constant conditions, and we must introduce a single definite change of condition, which will then be probably the cause of whatever phenomenon follows. ”

“ Now, we saw, when we were considering the process of creating value, that, if a use-value be effectively consumed in the production of a new use-value, the quantity of labour expended in the production of the consumed article, forms a portion of the quantity of labour necessary to produce the new use-value ”

“ But it is not only the object that production provides for consumption. It gives consumption its definite outline, its character, its finish. Just as consumption gives the product its finishing touch as a product, production puts the finishing touch on consumption. ”

“ By the simple addition of a certain quantity of labour, new value is added, and by the quality of this added labour the original values of the means of production are preserved in the product. That part of capital which is represented by means of production, by the raw material, auxiliary material, and the instruments of labour, does not, in the process of production, undergo any quantitative alteration of value. ”

“ It must be borne in mind, that we are now dealing with the production of commodities, and that, up to this point, we have only considered one aspect of the process. Just as commodities are, at the same time, use-values and values, so the process of producing them must be a labour-process, and at the same time, a process of creating value. ”

“ Taken thus, products present themselves not merely according to their sources, but according to their value as well, as the syntheses of their productive elements. That product which requires them in greater quantity has the greater value. ”

“ The readiest way of expressing in figures the expenditure of materials and labour required to produce any article is to give the supplies to be consumed, the number of working days, the number of tons of coal, the time during which machinery is at work, the figure of each of the infinite number of items used in the production, and so on. ”

“ Although such loose distinctions may be of use in private business accountings, they are intolerable in the science of Economics, which, like every other science, demands precision in the differentiation of terms.
The application of Man’s powers of body and mind to Natural Resources for the production of Artificial Objects—of Labor to Land for the production of Wealth—is the Productive Process in Economics. ”

“ Means of production play an ever growing part in the productive process and on the commodity market. Compared to the machine, the worker recedes further into the background and the demand resulting from the consumption of the workers is also put into the shade by that which results from productive consumption by the means of production. ”

“ That no product of labor whatsoever can be affected in value by any variations in the value of the producing labor. But, if not by variations in its value, then of necessity by variations in its quantity, for no other variations are possible. ”

“ Much discussion has, during the growth of the science of economics, centred round what is and what is not productive or unproductive, and as to the relative importance of the functions of production and distribution. ”

“ Production, in the common signification of the word, means the conversion of one substance into another, weight for weight, agreeably with, or under, mechanical, chemical, and vital laws. I speak, of course, of material production. ”

“ Contains nearly 100,000 Business Calculations, Simple and Practicable Rules and Original Methods—the CREAM of this great and useful science—which makes it possible and EASY for any one, even a child, to make CORRECT and Instantaneous computations in Grain, Stock, Hay, Coal, Cotton, Merchandise, Interest, Percentage, Profit and Loss, Wages, Measurement of Lumber, Logs, Cisterns, Tanks, Granaries, Wagon-beds, Corn-cribs, Cordwood, Hay-stacks, Lands, Carpenters’, Plasterers’, and Masons’ work, besides THOUSANDS of other practical problems which come up every day in the year. ”

“ Before commodities can be multiplied in their kinds, there must be multiplier! kinds of producers; and, before each commodity can be produced in the most economical way, the different stages in the production of it must be apportioned out among special hands. ”

“ The process of human adaptation of Natural Resources to Artificial effects—or, to use the Economic term, the process of Production,—no matter how complex, is continuous from original conceptions in the human mind to completion and delivery of products to ultimate consumers by the human mind and hand. ”

“ Since the variation in the product follows more sharply the variation in this scarce factor than that of any of the more abundant factors in the combination, it is not uncommon to speak of the scarcest factor as having the highest productivity. ”

“ Production, distribution, exchange, and consumption thus form a perfect connection, production standing for the general, distribution and exchange for the special, and consumption for the individual, in which all are joined together. ”

“ Products of a Series of Units of Labor.—If we continue this process till we have ten units of labor, employing the same amount of capital as was formerly used by one, we shall find that each unit as it begins to work adds less to the previous product than did the unit which preceded it, and that the tenth unit adds the least of all. ”

“ If he conceives it to be an operation, it is clearly equally connected with its result and with its author, as in every kind of production one may see the operation alike in the product and the producer, appearing in the production of the effects and not separated from their artificer. ”

“ For example, a scientific farmer must be able to compute his costs and results in order to determine accurately his net profits. The business man who is conducting his business with efficiency knows accurately his costs of production and distribution. ”

“ Whether there is any object, which, though it cannot measure the power of purchasing generally under the varying facilities of production and varying state of the demand and supply by which different commodities are affected, may be a correct measure of absolute and natural value as above described, is the specific object of the present inquiry. ”