...how a laborer working at one of a number of total procedures available in machinic culture "generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become."41 This necessary wounding of the worker is required by the growth of social wealth and, indeed,...

...advanced commercial societies is not offset by some form of education. "The torpor of [the worker's] mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part of any rational conversation, but of conceiving any tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any...

...difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. Notice here that he is saying not so much that it is an insult to the worker's intelligence, as that...

...exert his understanding. . . . He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. (Smith 1776, vol. 2, book V, ch. 1, art. 2, 302-3) While Smith exaggerates, there is also truth. (We...

...even more eloquently than Ruskin, deplored the effects of the division of labor, which rendered a man "as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. " This would be the condition of "the great body of the people, "Smith concluded, "unless government...

...body of the people" will, as a result of the progress of the division of labor, necessarily become "as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become" — "unless government takes some pains to prevent it" (WN Vif50; cf. 61). His central hope is that...

...life in a job requiring repetitive operations might develop great skill in his trade while becoming "as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become." He became incapable of judgment in political issues and unable to defend his country if there were...

...nefarious effects; on this Smith said that the division of labor "will turn working people into objects as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to be."15 The antidote was government action, which should be initiated to overcome devastating market...

...difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to become. The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part...

..."The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations," he writes, "... generally accordingly, is said but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment...