passes through the hands of a succession of workmen whose skill is assisted by machinery—to the creation of which almost every class of labourers has contributed, from the collier to the skilled and thinking mechanician. Every one may also be regarded as an important participator in the work, who has, by his saving, contributed to the accumulation of the capital by which the industry of the labourers has to be sustained. We are quickly carried into endless ramifications if we attempt to ascertain the labour which has, either directly or indirectly, assisted in the production of an apparently simple commodity.
Productive and unproductive labour.Although no wealth whatever can be produced without labour, yet there is much labour which does not contribute to the creation of wealth. Hence, labour is divided into two great classes, productive and unproductive labour. This is a distinction which, in name, is familiar to those who have not studied political economy.
Functions of labourBefore the characteristics which distinguish productive from unproductive labour are explained, it will be necessary to revert to our primary conception of wealth. Nature, as has been before remarked, supplies the materials. Man is powerless to create any material object; he combines substances together which would never be combined without his interposition, and thus creates a product which nature could never construct without his aid. Man takes the wheat and puts it in that situation where it will be ground; with the flour he mixes a certain quantity of water and yeast, and when he has brought the mixture within the influence of the requisite heat, a loaf of bread will have been made. It is through the agency of man's labour that these utilities are embodied in material objects which give them their exchange value. For instance, the utility which man confers upon coal is to place it in those situations in which it may be required. in conferring utility directly.There can be no doubt, therefore, that all that labour is productive which confers utility upon material objects.
Such is the labour of all ordinary workmen. Agricultural labourers, manufacturing operatives, bricklayers, &c., must all be manifestly ranked as productive labourers. All those, too, who are employed in transporting