HOW ADAM SMITH CAN HELP US BECOME MORE PRODUCTIVE WRITERS… some Socratic Scribbling on how to divide the labors of writing
Adam Smith has always offered us a stellar model of clear and vivid writing, especially when he is explaining complicated matters… like the components of money. Indeed, before he begins his discussion, he apologizes for the necessity of proceeding with his analysis in step by miserable step fashion. Still, if you bear with him, you would be ready to debate the Bitcon phenomena with the best of them, perhaps even with Smith’s understated wit and charm.
Smith’s lessons in writing go beyond his almost magical ability to combine ruthless logic with vivid illustration and precise choice of words. In his discussion of the division of labor, Smith gives us hints about how we can organize our time more productively when we write. Adam Smith opens his Wealth of Nations by telling us that civilized wealth (Wealth not exclusively gotten via rape and pillage) is made possible primarily by two activities: division of labor and commerce with money.
Smith brings this idea to life with his famous pin factory illustration. If you were to try to make pins on your own, by the time you bought the materials and tools you needed and then started to make your pins, you would be lucky to make a few in a day. And once you finally had crafted your pins, you would have to find someone to buy the pins you do not want to keep for yourself. You would expend much money and labor for not much, if any, profit.
Smith then observes that in a factory, you have the benefit of the division of labor, with some people responsible for getting the materials; other people focusing on different stages in the manufacturing process; and, still others in distributing the pins to potential buyers. The power of this division of labor is exponential in terms of the output and potential profits…your pin factory could make and sell thousands if not millions of pins..as long as there were people to buy them.
Smith explains that the benefits of labor division derive from three factors: 1. The spearation all the work into simple, easy to learn, and focused tasks 2. The improvement of the skill and dexterity at doing those tasks through repetition and the probability that workers will invent ways to improve the time and effort spent. 3. The reduction of any time wasted in the intervals from one task to the next, by reducing any time or space between them. Through specialization people discover what they are good at doing, so the best people gravitate to the best jobs in the process.
As you proceed from production to distribution and sales, Smith notes that this commerce involves not only the ability to connect with lots of potential buyers but also to have the capacity to deliver the goods. Hence, commerce is driven by ready transportation and broad communication networks. This simple but elegant analysis allowed Smith to account for the dominance of Western Civilization in the world, not based on some triumphal theory of tribal or racial superiority but rather on the plain presence of rivers, lakes, and seas…the water ways that provided easy transportation in many parts of Europe, North Africa, West Asia via the Mediterranean and key rivers. He notes that it is no accident that Egypt represents the first major civilization because of the Nile and the Mediterranean, permitting easy commerce of goods, services, and ideas from town to country and town to town.
These insights by Smith have accounted for the differences among developed and undeveloped countries throughout history. Lower Africa, for instance, was less lucky in its river networks or presence of well placed lakes or seas. When transportation is difficult, people are tribal and isolated. Little commerce happens and commerce tends towards barter.
Smith also predicted that machines would free even more labor to create kinds of work yet uninvented, which digital technology surely amplifies.
How does all this relate to writing? While it is easy to imagine how Smith’s division of labor and commerce principles explain much about the publishing business and many of the media businesses from television to streaming, what does it have to do with the productivity of the writer?
Well, it seems like we writers haven’t advanced much beyond the original pin maker. Yes, we have digital ways of recording our words and sending them out to others easily enough. But the process of finding the words and putting them together still falls on the Writer, the one or small group of people, who actually come up with the ideas and words that make the show or the novel. At some point, each writer has to go to his office or cubby hole and make his own pins.
No wonder Google is full of quotes like “Writing is easy. I just sit down at the type writer and bleed!” (Attribution uncertain; some say Hemmingway). And you can find lots of books and articles detailing the eccentric and peculiar habits and rituals of writers, which are not only entertaining but actually provide some exemplars of best practice. You begin to understand how difficult it can be for writers just to organize their day, much less their thoughts.
So let’s go back to our pin maker for guidance. Despite the victory of pin factories, a few gifted people figured out a way to keep making pins all by themselves and selling them for lots of money. This is now called hand crafted jewelry. We no longer have just a pin. We now have art. And here lies the connection to writing.
Now, how does a hand crafting jeweler work effectively and efficiently? Actually, they apply Smith’s principles of labor and commerce — but focused on their own work habits. First, they specialize — in a look or design, in a kind of metal, in a kind of stone, in a kind of bodily ornament — -in all of Aristotle’s four causes — -form, materials, tools, and intended use or benefit. They may even employ laborers, but keep control over each item in the causal chain. They find their niche.
In terms of commerce, they need to network into the groups of people most likely attracted to their kind of jewelry. They must also become experts at the occasions on which jewelry is purchased and worn in order to schedule their communications directly. For instance, my wife and I, married almost 40 years, are lucky enough to have hand crafted wedding rings by the late Bill Fredericks, who taught gold smithing at the Art Institute of Chicago. Bill argued that hand crafted jewelry has little to do with pricey prestige like “designer” rings and everything to do with signifying the importance and meaning of relationships.
In effect, specialty jewelers apply Smith’s principles of the division of labor to their own work habits. Dividing and conquering doesn’t always have to involve more people but it does have to involve dividing and leveraging similarities and differences. Bill Fredericks focused his jewel and metal work on the rituals of special occasions, from wedding rings to mass chalices to anniversary mementos…items expected to delight and signify for generations.
What lessons can writers learn from Adam Smith? Like Bill Fredericks, we must make some decisions. We must determine the kind of writing business we want to do. What kind of writing or genre do you want to create and for whom? What innovations will your writing bring to the writing that already is being provided in your chosen genre and audience. Do you work better alone or in a team? Do you need to work with art directors and musicians? Aristotle’s four causes again provide a handy way to begin to think this through.
Once you get past the big questions, you must now find ways to use Smith’s principle of division to your own writing process. Now, the steps in the writing process were pretty well outlined in by Plato in the Phaedrus, noted in Aristotle’s Rhetoric, and formalized by Cicero and Quintillian. The Five Steps of Classical Rhetoric: Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery.
The more efficient writers tend to follow the guide of Nabakov and Hollywood storyboard writers by using sortable index cards (or some digital equivalent) to generate focused thoughts and ideas that will go into their writing project. Most of their time is spent generating lots of bits of the puzzle…the Invention Stage on their cards or slips of paper. The writer or team will then shuffle all these bits and cards in an order that they believe will be both comprehensible and entertaining to their audience. The advantage of this method is that it combines the loose and random capacity of creative connection with focus on one bit at a time, gradually letting the structure emerge.
Here we see the genius of Smith’s insight about the powerful impact the division and arrangement of our labor can make on the productivity of a factory or an individual. Lots of people report about how the simple Pomodoro method of scheduling their day has dramatically increased the volume and quality of their writing. The Pomodoro method merely asks you to divide your day into manageable bits of work and planned breaks, all with the help of a kitchen tick tock timer shaped like a tomato.
Like all great principles, the principle of labor division has a kind of irony to it. We divide a task into parts in order to simplify it. Yet, when we have turned our one task into many, we have somehow complicated it. Fortunately this is a complication of creative opportunity rather than a multiplication of obstacles.
In his Sophist, Plato tells us that the Philosopher’s power rests in his ability to divide and sort ideas. Then by engaging in the intellectual commerce of dialogue, we increase our understanding of the world and ourselves. No wonder, as children, we loved pulling things apart to see what makes them work. Now, as adults all we have to figure out is how to put all the parts together again to live the life we desire.
And so the Socratic Scribbler will continue to search for advice on writing and life from the Great Books…
