The Following Is an Excerpt from Adam Smith's Description of the Pin

question 42

Multiple Choice

The following is an excerpt from Adam Smith's description of the pin industry (Evaluating the Evidence 17.2) : "I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upward of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upward of forty-eight thousand pins in a day."
In this passage, Adam Smith suggested that

• A)the division of labor did not yield the production improvements its supporters promised.
• B)the division of labor was really a way to divide laborers and prevent the formation of unions.
• C)the division of labor facilitated the use of unskilled labor.
• D)the division of labor did little for manufacturers and much for workers.