One of the joys of an economic education is being able to spot things which are entirely true but also wholly irrelevant. Or, to put this in a rather milder format, people not quite grasping the importance of the entirely true thing they've just said.
This is a perfect example of just that from this newspaper: "Agriculture officials say if mechanized cultivation can be expanded widely, the country will be more prosperous in food production in the next few years."
Yes, it's true, but near entirely missing the point. We'll not be more prosperous in food production by the mechanization of agriculture -- although we will, in a minor way -- we'll be more prosperous in everything else other than food production by the mechanization of agriculture.
A very short economic history would be that for thousands of years we had to have 90% of the people on the land in order to feed 100% of the people. As we mechanized agriculture -- where I'm from we call this “the tractor” -- we needed fewer people farming to feed all the people.
In the US, it's now down to 1% of the population; in my native Britain, perhaps 2%. We do not have a shortage of food, our major problem is obesity as we all eat too much of this now too cheap food.
It is also true that the US and UK are markedly rich by any global or historical standards. But that's not because we use 1 or 2% of the population to labour in the fields. It's because we use that 88% freed up from being in the fields to do other things.
For example, in the US the health care system employs 13% of the entire population. You can't do that if 90% of everyone has to be growing food. What mechanization of farming has done is freed up labour so we can have a health care system.
This is true of everything. When people can stop having to be farmers they can be ballet dancers, nurses, teachers, software programmers and, as a job that tests the idea that we get richer through this process, bureaucrats.
We are not made richer by the food produced -- although, in a small way we are. What really makes us richer is that we now have food plus ballet plus health care plus education plus smartphone apps plus, sadly, bureaucrats.
The mechanization of agriculture gives us food, surely it does. But the way it really makes us rich is that agriculture now needs less of that scarce resource, human labour, which can now go off and provide us with something else. It's that something else which is the riches that comes from the tractor, not the food.
This is a really fundamental thing for us to understand. Mechanization -- here of agriculture -- is indeed a good thing but not just because it removes backbreaking labour from that most essential of industries. But because it frees up labour to go and do other things. We're richer by the existence of those other things, not by the absence of the backbreaking labour.
There are indeed transitional problems with such changes. Karl Marx made much of the “weavers of Silesia” in one of his works to show the problems. A sudden mechanization of that weaving led to those whose livings depended upon hand weaving to starve. No, that's not good; no, we don't think that's what we should just shrug and accept to gain that greater wealth for all of society. With the mechanization of farming -- no, that transition from 30 years of paddy farming to ballet dancing is unlikely.
But changes over a generation? Why not? Why shouldn't the children of paddy farmers become dancers? Or nurses, teachers, programmers, even, shudder, bureaucrats?
For the majority of those given such a choice it'll be easy. The water buffalo or indoor work with no heavy lifting? I know the choices my ancestors made (for which I am most grateful) and I can see the choices being made around the world as well -- give me that desk is the usual response. And hurry up with it too.
The underlying and much more basic point here is that people decry mechanization because “What about the jobs?” The tractor kills jobs in agriculture, yes it most surely does. That's the point. The mechanical loom kills jobs in hand weaving -- yes, great, isn't it? Big retail stores kill jobs in small shops -- how wondrous that is.
Because exactly and precisely the point of all technological advancements is to be able to use less human labour to sate this particular human need or want. That, then, frees up that labour to go and supply some other need or want. The other name we have for this is civilization.
Transitions can be difficult, which is an argument for soothing the transition, not an argument for stopping the change itself.
Or, as we can put it, mechanization kills jobs. Yes, it does, that's the point, because killing jobs is the starting point and beating heart of all economic advance.
“Kill a job, today!” should be on posters everywhere.
Tim Worstall is a senior fellow at the Adam Smith Institute in London.