increasing the supply of all three types of consumers' goods
represented in the table. They will give us more of _A'''_, _B'''_,
and _C'''_ in quantities adjusted by the laws of value. The outcome of
this is that an economy in making _A'''_ actually gives us more of
_A'''_, _B'''_, and _C'''_. We become larger consumers of everything
because of the cheapening of anything which enters into our list of
articles for personal use. This presents a further aspect of the
process of moving labor and capital from group to group, in which the
possibility of hardship for particular persons inheres. The conclusion
to which a fair weighing of the effects of mechanical progress has
already led us is that there are very few, even of the workers who
suffer displacements of this kind, who do not during their lives gain
far more than they lose by general progress; and the effects of
cheapening capital goods at one point, and so liberating capital for
use at other points, increases this beneficent effect. The special
costs of making the new kinds of machinery have been large in the
earlier stages of the process, but have afterward grown smaller; and
as machinery has come into general use the liberating of capital by
the cheapening of the machines has become a more and more important
factor. Some of the capital liberated at _A_ goes to assist labor in
furnishing the additional amount of _B'''_ and _C'''_ which enlarged
consumption requires.

_Hardships entailed on Capitalists by Progress._--As the old
handicrafts have now been largely supplanted by machinery, and the
hardship that continuing progress entails on laborers is greatly
reduced, there is involved in progress a new burden which falls
altogether on the capitalist employer. The machine itself is often a
hopeless specialist. It can do one minute thing and that only, and
when a new and better device appears for doing that one thing, the
machine has to go, and not to some new employment, but to the junk
heap. There is thus taking place a considerable waste of capital in
consequence of mechanical and other progress. As there have come into
use marine boilers made of steel and capable of standing a very high
pressure, the low-pressure boilers of former days have become useless.
With the advent of triple expansion cylinders, twin screws, and better
and larger hulls, ships of the old type lost their value; and similar
things are occurring in every line of production. A new mill is built