Labour Productivity Quotes

Every man must admit that by means of instruments and machines the labourer can execute tasks he could not possibly perform without them; that he can perform a greater quantity of work in a given time, and that he can perform the work with greater nicety and accuracy than he could possibly do had he no instruments and machines.

Britain is one of the world's most open economies. More dependent on trade than any other major country. Our success depends on our competitiveness and our competitiveness depends on raising our productivity, as our competitors are raising theirs.

There is no person in the least acquainted with political economy, but must be aware that the advantages resulting from the division of labour, as applicable to nations as well as individuals, depend solely and entirely on the power of exchanging subsequently the products of labour. And no one can hesitate to allow, that it is completely in the power of others to prevent such exchanges, and to destroy entirely the advantages which would otherwise result from the application of individual or national industry, to peculiar and appropriate products.

With every increase in the power of production, consumption grew, and the labourer received larger returns for his labour, producing a tendency to immigration.

Every non-Marxist economic theory that treats human and non-human productive inputs as interchangeable assumes that the dehumanisation of human labour is complete. But if it could ever be completed, the result would be the end of capitalism as a system capable of creating and distributing value.

An increase in the productivity of labour means nothing more than that the same capital creates the same value with less labour, or that less labour creates the same product with more capital.

GDP is a function of capital, labour and how productively you use both.

In my view, the key aim of economic policy in many countries, and particularly in Russia, should be the sort of policy that stimulates productivity growth because only on the basis of growth of labour productivity can we enjoy healthy growth.

The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed.

Paying good wages is not in opposition to good productivity.

In the last analysis, productivity of labour is the most important, the principal thing for the victory of the new social system.

Whether an instrument shall be regarded as productive capital or not depends entirely on its being used, or not, by some productive labourer…

There are many issues in the global economy in general and in the western economy as well: population ageing, drop in labour productivity growth rates. This is obvious. The overall demographic situation is very complicated.

Think how modern economics presents work. Only labour that contributes to growth counts.

Good wages are pro business, since they reduce turnover, increase morale, produce better-skilled employees, and improve productivity.

Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

We want to get full value out of labour so that we may be able to pay it full value. It is use - not conservation - that interests us.

That the powers of labour, and of the other instruments which produce wealth, may be indefinitely increased by using their products as the means of further production.

Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.

The larger the return to labour, the greater will be the power to accumulate capital. The larger the proportion which capital seeking to be employed bears to the labourers who are to employ it, the larger will be the wages of labour, the greater the power of the labourer to accumulate for himself, and the more perfect will be his control over the disposition of his labour and the application of its proceeds, whether to private or public purposes....

Where there are millions upon millions of units of idle labour, it is no use thinking of labour-saving devices.

One day, when the world market is more or less fully developed and can no longer be suddenly enlarged, and if labour productivity continues to advance, then sooner or later the periodic clashes between productive forces and market barriers will begin, and because of their recurrence, these will naturally become increasingly rough and stormy.

Upon this subject, the habits of our whole species fall into three great classes--useful labour, useless labour and idleness. Of these the first only is meritorious; and to it all the products of labour rightfully belong; but the two latter, while they exist, are heavy pensioners upon the first, robbing it of a large portion of it's just rights. The only remedy for this is to, as far as possible, drive useless labour and idleness out of existence.

When a Nation exports more or less Labour, than is imported into it, that difference between Exports and Imports of Labour, is called Ballance of Trade

The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.