The Significance of the Division of Labour The significance of the division of labour was first found by Adam Smith in the 1770s. He explained part of its advantages. He gives as an example the process (19) which pins were made in England. 'One man draws (20) the wire another strengthens it a third cuts it a fourth points it a fifth grinds it at the top to prepare it to receive the head. To make the head (21) two or three operations. To put it on is a (22) operation, to polish the pins is another. And the important business of making pins is, (23) this manner, (24) into about eighteen operations, which in some factories are all performed by different people, (25) in others the same man will sometimes perform. two or three of them. ' Ten men, Smith said, in this way, turned (26) twelve pounds of pins a day or about 4,800 pins per worker. But if all of them had worked separately and (27) without division of labour, none of them could have made twenty pins in a day and perhaps not even one. There can be no doubt that division of labour is a/an (28) way of (29) work. Fewer people can make more pins. Adam Smith saw this but he also took it for granted that division of labour is in itself responsible for economic (30) and development and that it (31) for the difference between (32) economies and those that (33) still but division of labour adds nothing new it only enables people to produce more of what they already have. (19)