What does making things by machine give us, and what does it ask of those who make them?
Most of what people use is now made in numbers, by divided labour and machines. What does that give us, and what does it ask of the people who do the work?
The picture
What the numbers show, read from the Data library each time the page opens.
How to read the chart above, and the words it uses (for manufacturing).
How to read the data
The figure is the value added by factories, the value of what they make less the materials they use up, as a share of the whole economy. It shows how large manufacturing is, not how many people it employs.
Key terms
Value added
The value of output less the cost of the materials and services used up in making it.
Manufacturing
Making goods from raw materials by hand or machine, in workshops and factories.
Share of GDP
A sum set against the total value of what a country produces in a year.
Who has a stake
Each interest, then readings from the Catholic library and the Classics library that bear on it, oldest first. Choose a group to read.
To be paid justly, to work in conditions fit for a person, and to find in the work a part of their own dignity.
To be able to risk capital, organise the work and earn a return that justifies it.
That goods are plentiful, good, and within their means.
That trades are honoured, that no class of workers is used up, and that the benefits are shared by the places that make them.
For discussion
Smith shows what division of labour makes possible and Cicero distrusts the trades that rest on it. What would each make of the factory worker’s place in the community?
Leo XIII says labour must be limited to what strength admits. How might owners’ need for a return and workers’ need for rest and a just wage both be weighed?
John Paul II holds that the machine does not change who the work is for. What do buyers owe to those who make what they buy?
