That technology displaces and exploits labor rather than liberates it has been a cruel constant of capitalism since weavers lost their wheels to the mill, and before. Here, Justus Ebert, in his element, looks at the effect of the vending machine–particularly the cigarette machine–on the sales clerk.

‘Man vs. Machine—Enter the Mechanical Salesman’ by Justus Ebert from Labor Age. Vol. 17 No. 11. November, 1928.

THE New York Times, in a recent issue, observed that the old problem of man vs. the machine is coming to the fore again in modern society.

This observation was made in connection with a report, according to which locomotive engineers are endeavoring to secure some benefit from the introduction of motive power mechanisms that tend to restrict their employment, despite their increasing efficiency and profit-making abilities as a whole. It is an attempt of a skilled, entrenched craft to save its members from complete submergence by the wave of invention now sweeping over the working class.

The white collar workers, the retail salesmen, seem less fortunate. They do not appear to have any hold whatever on their positions, and are, therefore, apparently to be more ruthlessly separated from them. These possibilities are indicated in recent newspaper reports which announce the installation of “mechanical salesmen” and “cigarette robots” in chain stores.

A recent issue of the New York Evening World, for instance, told of heavy buying of the stock of the Consolidated Automatic Merchandising Corporation, called Camco, on the curb Exchange. “This heavy buying,” declares the Evening World, “calls attention to the work that is going on to put mechanical men into business. Wall Street was told that Camco had closed a contract with the Schulte-United chain for the installation of more than 50,000 mechanical men in the stores of that company.

“In these days of endeavoring to cut expenses so that net income will improve the possibilities of robot salesmen is being given attention. Just how far these mechanical men will go in business and industry it is too early to hazard a guess, but from the work they have been made to do so far they will certainly release many workers to other fields of endeavor.”

The report goes on to say, “The complaint will be made that the invention will throw men and women out of jobs, but new inventions have always done that, and yet there was always more work to be found by those replaced by new inventions.

“In fact, new farming inventions have not only increased the farmer’s yield but have also relieved him of the fear of not being able to get sufficient help,” says the report further.

The “Camco” itself, in printed propaganda, feels the necessity for justifying the introduction of the robot. It is on the defensive. Consequently, unlike the Evening World, with its “release to other fields of endeavor” argument, it claims that the robot will not eliminate but supplement human labor. It also implies that the robot’s sales will increase merchandising enormously, with a consequent enormous increase in production.

“Some well-known men are backing the Robot salesmen. The Board of Directors of this corporation includes Franklin D. Roosevelt, F. J. Lisman, A. Granat, Albert C. Allen, Robert E. Allen, Albert M. Chambers, Saunders Novell, A. J. Sack, Joseph J. Schermack, Nathan A. Smyth, Robert P. Sniffin,” concludes the Evening World report.

Another report in the New York Times of October. 10th, 1928, is as follows: “Cigarette Robots for Liggett Stores.

“The Louis K. Liggett Drug Company has signed a contract with the Consolidated Automatic Merchandising Corporation covering the installation of talking automatic merchandising machines to sell cigarettes and cigars in all stores of the Liggett chain. The latter owns approximately 450 drug stores, and it is estimated that this contract will mean the installation of approximately 2,500 robots.”

More reports like the above may be confidently expected. In fact, there are other kinds of automatic merchandising machines, like those exhibited at the recent New York Candy Show, still-to be heard from.

Scant Comfort

It may comfort the salesmen to know that these machines “will certainly release many workers to other fields of endeavor.” knowing how closely workingmen generally hug a job.

But we have our doubts about it nowadays and how difficult it is for many of them to secure employment once they are discharged. Evidently this “release” has no attraction for them.

It may also delight the salesmen to know that work has been found for men replaced by machines before, but never before has labor displacement by machinery been on such a wholesale scale as now; in fact, technological unemployment has been invented as the phrase best expressing the new conditions now confronting the workers as a result of the machine ouster.

As for the “new farming inventions increasing the farmers’ yield, but also relieving him of the fear of not being able to get sufficient help,” that’s the grimmest joke of all in the New York World’s report, considering the way millions of farmers are drifting to the city, the large number of them rendered idle and bankrupt, and the fact that farming inventions tend to create a farm-owning class of big capitalists, who alone can install and operate them most profitably. In brief, it would have been more impressive had the World report given the facts without any editorializing; the bald facts as given in the Times report are less sophistical and more to be preferred.

The World report is true only in one important respect; namely, that part of it which declares that machines are being given attention because of the urge for greater profits.

Yea, more attention than is given to the human salesmen that will be displaced as a result of this robot attention—all for the improvement in the net income of chain store corporations; only that and nothing more!

Regarding the claims of the Camco itself that automatic machinery will supplement rather than eliminate, this is not the tendency of automatic machinery, as a whole. The latter, as in electric power plant control, for example, tends to reduce human labor to the lowest number of employes possible; in fact, to displace them almost entirely and completely.

As for increasing production by increasing sales, the latter is dependent on purchasing power rather than merchandising facilities; and with increasing numbers of workers deprived of purchasing power by machinery, the Camco is adding to a condition of affairs that is, apparently, not as optimistic in its prospects as Camco believes. And this takes no account of the small shopkeepers forced out of retail merchandising because of the chain stores with their “mechanical salesmen.”

What is to be done about this problem of the man vs. the machine? Seek refuge in editorial and Camco platitudes such as those analyzed above: Or shall the workers organize to demand reduced hours and increased wages proportionate to the increased labor displacement and productivity of the new inventions?

Organization will be a new thing for chain store salesmen. They fear its effect in a loss of jobs, though their jobs, despite their cringing servility, are anyway now lost to them. They will still hug their fond delusion that some day in some miraculous way they, too, will become chain store magnates. The terrible reality now confronting them most likely will cause them to change their mental attitude, thereby disposing them to act more favorably to labor organizations in general and their own organization in particular.

Only by labor organization—economically, politically, socially—can the problem of the machine vs. man be solved favorably to the man most concerned, namely, the working man.

It is time our white-collar workers realized this and did their share of organizing, too; ere it is too late for all concerned. It is “also time that the workers in general realized the gravity of the machine problem and banded themselves together in the many ways open to them to effect a united solution before it is too late.

Labor Age was a left-labor monthly magazine with origins in Socialist Review, journal of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Published by the Labor Publication Society from 1921-1933 aligned with the League for Industrial Democracy of left-wing trade unionists across industries. During 1929-33 the magazine was affiliated with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) led by A. J. Muste. James Maurer, Harry W. Laidler, and Louis Budenz were also writers. The orientation of the magazine was industrial unionism, planning, nationalization, and was illustrated with photos and cartoons. With its stress on worker education, social unionism and rank and file activism, it is one of the essential journals of the radical US labor socialist movement of its time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v17n09-sep-1928-LA.pdf