Wartime states seized control of the supply of labor to tackle the problem of manpower shortages. A basic step in this direction was to expand the pool of available workers through the process of dilution: i.e., the introduction of unskilled labor, including women, in jobs formerly reserved for skilled men. As mentioned, dilution is integral to capitalist production where the competition among capitalists and the pressure from workers induces the capitalist constantly to cut costs by technological innovation and more effi cient reorganization of the labor process. During the war, countries greatly boosted this tendency through increased mechanization of production, which broke the work process into simple stages that less skilled workers could manage.

Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, loc. 168