ABSTRACT
While our perception of the particular knowledge of single individuals will forever remain incomplete, and the sum total of all human capability, learning, and skill eludes us, its result — the product of human labor — manifests itself as a perpetually rising stream of concrete values that can be evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively. Even if we follow this stream to its source, our attention will be captured by the machines from which it flows rather than by the activity, let alone the knowledge, of the men who ultimately determine its volume. Even here, at the source, labor embodied in the means of production occupies the foreground, while living labor — primarily due to the division of labor — appears to subordinate itself to the machine. Since the tool has long passed from the artisan’s hand to the steel grip of the machine, and with it the artisan’s skill, and since today even electronic brains instead of human brains frequently supervise and direct the work of the machine, it is not surprising if a nation’s wealth appears to depend upon the machinery at its disposal.
