Divide and Rule
on Anthony Lovat in Bolgatanga (Ghana), 24/Oct/2010 12:28, 34 days ago
Adam Smith, the 18th century father of modern economics, used the example of pins to describe the division of labour. If a man needs a pin, he does not mine a lump of haematite, extract the iron from the ore and then fashion it himself somehow into a pin. Each step in the manufacturing process is done by a specialist. It requires a level of communication, organisation and trade but, assuming these are in place, makes for a more efficient and productive system. The division of labour and its increasing specialisation, it was argued, will ultimately contribute to the wealth of nations and the individuals who live and work within these nations. I bought a box of pins recently in Bolga market. They were made in China and cost the equivalent of 10p. VSO works for the development and growth of Ghana. We are working to try and increase the wealth of this nation so Adam Smith’s idea of the division of labour is one that must interest us.The division of labour is nothing new. Near Caterham, along the North Downs Way, is a Neolithic factory where flint arrow and axe heads have been chipped away and occasionally discarded. The people working in the factory roughly 8000 years ago were specialists. They spent all their time making the flint tools that were then traded for, presumably, food, clothing and other goods and services.Most towns, villages and families in this area of Ghana specialise in a particular product. Bolga is known for its woven grass baskets. Every market day, crowds of women walk into the centre of town from the surrounding villages carrying baskets on their heads hoping to sell for a good price. There is even a manufacturing, storing and distribution facility near the centre of town specifically for Bolga baskets. The hand made creations are piled high in the huge warehouses. Lorries and trucks drive in, load up, and drive south to mark up and sell on– often to Europe. Laura recently went to the Bolga basket market and treated herself to a brand new washing basket (that hints at how labour is divided in our household!) It is colourful, practical and expertly made. Laura is delighted with it (Laura gets delighted with the strangest things). Itwould take me years of practice before I would be able to produce anything even remotely as well made but, thanks to the wealth creating efficiency produced by the division of labour, it cost us the equivalent of £12.50.Many villages around Bolga specialise in producing charcoal. Teams of people collect wood from the surrounding forests, others smoke the wood, other bag it and, finally, it is bartered and sold. Labour is divided and contributes towards the wealth of the village. Another village on the way to Tamale appears to specialise in smoked fish. Some people catch the fish; others smoke them in big metal drums or earth ovens dug into the ground; other people source the correct wood to smoke the fish with and others transport and sell the final product. Again, labour is divided and the overall wealth of the village is increased.In Bolga, the division of labour still has some room for efficiency saving. To take one example, Donatus is a carpenter. He has a carpentry shop on the main road and, along with every other carpenter in Bolga, displays his wares outside his shop. He is friendly with his fellow carpenters. He is even a member of the Woodworkers Association of Ghana and wears his bright yellow‘WAG’ polo shirt proudly. There must be hundreds of carpenters in Bolga – the vast majority, including Donatus, working only with hand tools. He makes beds, sofas, dressing tables, chairs, doors, anything and everything. Each carpenter employs a number of ‘small boys’ in his workshop (it is an exclusively male profession). They run errands, carry wood and buy water but, in the process, learn the trade of carpentry. It cannot be dissimilar to what Jesus Christ experienced when he was a small boy growing up in Galilee. Some times are good and Donatus is able to save money. Some times are bad and money must be made to last. This financial planning is all part of the skill involved as a successful carpenter and is a skill the small boys must learn. To attract new business, Donatus must advertise the best items of furniture outside his shop and must encourage his customers to recommend him to their friends – marketing is therefore an essential skill as a carpenter. Donatus must have good people skills and customer service. He must be able to train the small boys and manage them as a team of workers. The work of being a carpenter in Bolga is therefore varied, interesting, challenging and relatively unspecialised.Donatus told me about a Dutch short term volunteer who came to Bolga some years ago to help develop the carpentry industry. He recommended that a central warehouse be established. This place would be managed by a team of specialised staff who would market the furniture, sell it to the customers and even be able to deliver it. The carpenters themselves would sell their furniture exclusively to the central warehouse so they can concentrate on the woodwork. Some may specialise in making sofas or beds or cabinets and the warehouse could guarantee a fixed price for these products. The Dutchman also recommended investment in electrical tools. It would speed up the work and reduce the employment of underpaid children in the workshops– thereby encouraging them into school and, if they choose, organised carpentry training in a polytechnic or other registered institution where qualified individuals would specialise in the teaching of the trade.It would divide the labour more fully. It would make the industry far more efficient and would enable more wealth to be created. In the short term, many unspecialised carpenters such as Donatus will be laid off and very many more‘small boys’. In the long term, more job opportunities may be created in marketing, financial services, teaching, sales and delivery. This is what development is about – dividing the labour more totally. This drive towards efficiency may even be inevitable as the world becomes more interconnected. As the OECD advised in June 2005, “Job losses in some sectors, along with new job opportunities in other sectors, are an inevitable accompaniment of the process of globalisation... The challenge is to ensure that the adjustment process involved in matching available workers with new job openings works as smoothly as possible.”Donatus and other Ghanaian workers are no longer competing amongst themselves (not that it seems like there’s much competition within WAG), they are competing within the global market. There are plenty of cheap Chinese imports, such as my 10p box of pins, on display in Bolga market alongside local products. The “adjustment process” in finding work for unemployed carpenters in other sectors will certainly be a “challenge”. Donatus, like Jesus Christ, is a highly skilled carpenter but illiterate and without basic formal academic qualifications. Perhaps there is no room for such individuals in the efficient, specialised and globalised society we’re inevitably developing.As a science teacher in the UK, I was trained to be just that and nothing else. I am a specialist in a particular field. I am wonderfully efficient at teaching secondary school aged pupils about science. That is my cog in the machine that is Britain. That is my contribution towards the wealth of my nation.There were times back in London when I was a teaching machine. My alarm would wake me before six and my first thoughts were of my first classes. I’d be in school by seven o’clock preparing lessons. I’d work through my lunch break and fuel myself on caffeine. I would still be in school at six or seven o’clock in the evening. I’d take marking home and work after tea. When I slept, I’d dream of school, of students, of classes. The pastoral side of the job is increasingly being taken away from classroom teachers so that we can ‘concentrate on teaching’. I was part of the production line of students – fixing the science module onto their education whilst others concentrated on their PE, history, citizenship and mental welfare. I was such a perfect science teaching tool that, after just a few years, I was qualified to come to Ghana to help share some of the skills I’d honed – to try and turn Ghanaians into similarly specialised individuals and to help divide the labour of education more fully so the wealth of thisnation is developed in the same way as my own.I know that other people work as hard as I did in London, often in far more specialised fields. Our society is now so specialised and our labour is so well divided that individuals struggle to operate outside of their fields. Can a doctor fix a fridge? Can a teacher raise livestock? Can a taxi driver also run a pharmacy? Can an office worker also build a house? Can a radio presenter also be a seamstress? Not in the UK, but in Ghana almost certainly. Faced with this lack of specialisation, people don’t seem to define themselves through their work in quite the same way. To say that one is a teacher does not complete the picture. Roger is a head of science at a nearby senior high school but spends far more time raising his cattle, sheep and pigs. Priscilla is the headteacher of a local junior high school but spends more time running her bar and restaurant.There are times when I’m frustrated and disappointed with this lack of specialisation amongst science teachers here, including Roger. They are often more interested in their second jobs – perhaps farming, running a shop, driving a taxi, working in a government office or a political placement. Despite my best efforts,Adam Smith’s model of division of labour still has many efficiency savings to be made in the field of science education as well as carpentry.Efficient division of labour does not just occur in the workplace. At a recent VSO conference, we were taking part in an‘ice-breaking’ activity and I asked a Ghanaian member of the VSO staff what her favourite electrical device is. After some thought she replied: the washing machine. This labour saving device, along with the dishwasher and the vacuum cleaner, was sold to western families on the promise that it will allow more time to relax. In reality, it facilitated the efficiency of our society – dividing the labour between man (or, more likely, woman) and machine. The machine does the work of the house while the human being is expected to work harder in paid employment – thereby increasing the wealthof the British nation. These devices are yet to penetrate the Ghanaian market – most households, even well off households, must hand wash clothes, dishes and floors. Similarly, there are no ready meals, microwaves and fast food. This is inefficient. These devices are needed to increase efficiencyand the wealth of this nation.Yet it is the chaotic inefficiency that makes living here enjoyable. People aren’t pigeon holed into careers that can feel like life sentences. Time is divided amongst a range of tasks, both in the home and the workplace(s). Individuals are exposed to a range of tasks. People are generalists, not specialists. They are human beings, not machines.Adam Smith himself asked questions about the division of labour. He said that it led to a“mental mutilation” in workers. A single repetitive task, he wrote, leads to someone becoming “ignorant” and “insular”. People need variety. They should not just be efficient cogs in the wealth creating machine of nations. It makes people bored and it makes people boring.By working in development, I am working for wealth creation and the drive towards efficient division of labour. Am I ultimately working to mentally mutilate the population of Ghana? Am I, by working to increase the efficiency of the education sector, ultimately leading towards the ignorance and insularity of the nation as well as its wealth?I imagine a well meaning Roman volunteer coming to Galilee two thousand years ago and trying to develop the carpentry industry in that poverty stricken outpost of the empire. He might have recommended similar efficiency savings– thereby turning the profession into a production line. Jesus Christ might have been made unemployed as a carpenter and be expected to retrain as a sales assistant. I wonder what he might have to say about that.