Chapter 205: If you keep telling a lie, it becomes the truth (7)
Adam Smith said that the division of labor is the greatest force driving economic development.
According to the famous pin factory story...
If one craftsman can make 10 pins in a day, then if 10 craftsmen are gathered and a thorough division of labor is implemented, they can produce up to 48,000 pins.
To be honest, that was an exaggeration to emphasize the effects of division of labor.
‘It may be unrealistic to reach 48,000, but 3,000 should be doable.’
Even that would yield more than 30 times the efficiency compared to individual craftsmen making the pins.
In short, it means that goods are produced at a speed that was unimaginable before.
“The most important factor in the Industrial Revolution was the steam engine, but the production increase during the early Industrial Revolution was driven by the advanced division of labor.”
When James Watt created the steam engine, in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, there was nothing other than steam engines, steam pumps (machines for pumping water), and machines for making clothes.
But it was the division of labor that succeeded in increasing production efficiency.
And over time, various machines were invented.
“Even without the steam engine, it would still be like an Industrial Revolution.”