Even with the temporary advantages gained by the wiping out of
millions of workers in the Great War, labor's problem remains
unsolved. It has now, as always, to contend with the crop of young
laborers coming into the market, and with the ever-present "labor-saving"
machine which, instead of relieving the worker's situation,
makes it all the harder for him to escape. Fewer laborers are needed
to-day for a given amount of production and distribution than before
the invention of these machines. Yet, owing to the increase in the
number of the workers, labor finds itself enslaved instead of
liberated by the machine.
"Hitherto," says John Stuart Mill, "it is questionable if all the
mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any
human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same
life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of
manufacturers and others to make fortunes."
That, in a few words, sums up the greater part of labor's progress. We
blame capitalism and its wasteful, brutal industrial system for all
our social problems, but our numbers were vast and our bondage
grievous before modern industry came into existence.
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