"Suppose a clothing manufacturer learns of a machine that will make men’s and women's overcoats for half as much labor as previously. He installs the machines and drops half his labor force.This looks at first glance like a clear loss of employment. But the machine itself required labor to make it; so here, as one offset, are jobs that would not otherwise have existed. The manufacturer, how ever, would have adopted the machine only if it had either made better suits for half as much labor, or had made the same kind of suits at a smaller cost. If we assume the latter, we cannot assume that the amount of labor to make the machines was as great in terms of pay rolls as the amount of labor that the clothing manufacturer hopes to save in the long run by adopting the machine; otherwise there would have been no economy, and he would not have adopted it.So there is still a net loss of employment to be accounted for. But we should at least keep in mind the real possibility that even the first effect of the introduction of labor-saving machinery may be to increase employment on net balance; because it is usually only in the long run that the clothing manufacturer expects to save money by adopting the machine: it may take several years for the machine to "pay for itself."After the machine has produced economies sufficient to offset its cost, the clothing manufacturer has more profits than before. (We shall assume that he merely sells his coats for the same price as his competitors, and makes no effort to undersell them.) At this point, it may seem, labor has suffered a net loss of employment, while it is only the manufacturer, the capitalist, who has gained. But it is precisely out of these extra profits that the subsequent social gains must come. The manufacturer must use these extra profits in at least one of three ways, and possibly he will use part of them in all three: (1) he will use the extra profits to expand his operations by buying more machines to make more coats; or (2) he will invest the extra profits in some other industry; or (3) he will spend the extra profits on increasing his own consumption. Whichever of these three courses he takes, he will increase employment."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Libertarians from the United StatesAgnostics from the United StatesEconomists from the United StatesLibertarian conservativesJournalists from Philadelphia
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Hazlitt
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Henry Hazlitt
Henry Stuart Hazlitt (November 28, 1894 – July 9, 1993) was an American journalist who wrote about business and economics for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The American Mercury, Newsweek, and The New York Times.
16 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Henry Hazlitt →
Related Quotes
"But this brings us to what I consider the fatal flaw in the monetarist prescriptions. If the leader of the school can…"
"Every man knows there are evils in this world which need setting right. Every man has pretty definite ideas as what t…"
"The "Austrian" economists, more consistently than those of any other school, have criticized nearly all forms of gove…"
"The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; …"
"It is often sadly remarked that the bad economists present their errors to the public better than the good economists…"
"Let us begin with the simplest illustration possible: let us, emulating Bastiat, choose a broken pane of glass.A youn…"
"So we have finished with the broken window. An elementary fallacy. Anybody, one would think, would be able to avoid i…"
"Though some of them would disdain to say that there are net benefits in small acts of destruction, they see almost en…"
"Among the most viable of all economic delusions is the belief that machines on net balance create unemployment. Destr…"
"In brief, on net balance, machines, technological improvements, economies and efficiency do not throw men out of work."