Individual Tastes:
When production has to suit individual tastes, it is not possible to set up machinery.
Machinery can produce only standardized goods. The village shoe-maker can embroider shoes in a different pattern every time to suit the liking of each customer.
The handloom weaver can make cloth varying in width, and turbans and ‘dhotis’ with different borders. In such cases, the handloom has an advantage over the power loom. Hence, where each customer has his own whim, only a handworker can satisfy all of them. A machine, for instance, can never replace a tailor.
Costly Materials:
Machines cannot be used where the material used is exceptionally costly. The making of jewellery, where gold, silver, pearls and diamonds have to be used, cannot be entrusted to machines. Machinery involves the employment of a large number of workers. They cannot be trusted in trades where materials are weighed out in grains.
Nature of Industry:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
There are certain industries where the operations cannot be reduced to a few simple mechanical movements, e.g., in agriculture and horticulture. In such cases, machinery can have only a limited use. Man plays a much more important part here than machines. Although machines are being more extensively used in agriculture now, it will have to be admitted that there is not the same scope for the use of machinery in agriculture as in the manufacturing industries.
Nature of Demand:
Where demand is small and fluctuating, it is obviously not worthwhile to install a machine. A machine is a costly thing, and no manufacturer will install it unless he hopes to have large sales and the demand is steady.
Artistic Work:
Works of art must always remain the peculiar domain of the hand-workers. Painting can never be done by machines. Machinery must keep itself out from the field of art.
Cheap Labour:
Where labour is cheap and machinery dear, the producer will be reluctant to spend money on machinery. India is such a country. Here mechanization cannot be adopted on the same scale as it has been done in the west. The use of labour is more economical than the use of machinery.