Substitution of Inputs in Production

Abstract

Firms in the real world use a number of different inputs to generate a desired output. Even a process as simple as making some handmade wooden toy requires labor, wood, some kind of knife, and knowledge as its fund-mental inputs. Of course, some of these inputs can be substituted for each other, at least within some range. For example, if you have a lot of experience in producing wooden toys, you may be able to cut down on the time you spend per toy. Similarly, if everything else remains equal and you work more slowly, and thus more carefully, you will take longer to produce a product but you may be able to cut down on waste of the wood. You trade off, or substitute, labor for the input material.

Division of labor may have gone so far that many people—men especially—feel disconnected and alienated from the ultimate goals of their work. And that may partly be what leads individuals to seek satisfaction in exaggerated expressions of virtuosity . . . Much professional culture may be a disguise for this sense of emptiness, devoted as so much of it is to building up a notion of the professional importance of the profession.

Arnold Pacey, Culture of Technology, 1983