To a greater extent than not, I agree with this statement.
I say this based on the differences between hand-made and mass-produced things.
In my house, there is a set of furniture handed down by my great-grandparents. Though more than a hundred years old, the one table and four chairs of this set are in immaculate condition. it is obvious a lot of care had been taken in making these beautiful pieces. I cannot detect a single nail in them. The wood used is teak and the table and chairs are still sturdy. In fact, I would say that they are more sturdy than some new ones. They are products of real craftsmanship.
In my house too are some tables and chairs made by mass production. Most of these plastic chairs break after a few months. The wooden ones show signs of slip-shod workmanship and judging by the rate of wear and tear, they will be useless long before the hand-made ones.
The craftsmen of yesteryears made things of high quality. Also, they made them last a long time. Mass-produced things cannot have such high quality and they do not last long. I suspect that manufacturers of mass-produced things purposely make things not to last so that the consumers will be forced to keep buying new ones. it is good business for them, not so for the consumers though.
Another thing about mass production is that the workers are generally not skilled “craftsmen. They are merely employed to operate machines Or do some routine work. No creativity is necessary nor encouraged. They just do as they are told, and that is to produce as much as possible and as cheaply as possible. On the other hard a craftsman is usually not very much concerned about how much profit he will make. He is more concerned about how well he makes something. He has to be creative and skillful. Thus the product of his work is what we admire as craftsmanship. He may not get much for his work, but for him, satisfaction is not so much in money but for a job well done.
However, as we progress more and more in this modern world, we also begin to care more for money than for the quality of our work, Money becomes the main and for some the only motivation. Mass production means more money. So craftsmen disappear to be replaced by powerful manufacturers who dominate the market with mass-produced goods that are designed to last only a while.
Modern radios, tape recorders, cars, furniture, computers, and other goods are made only to attract buyers. They last only until the manufacturers come out with newer ones with more gimmicks and features. It is an on-going game played by manufacturers on gullible consumers. Their advertisements are basically: “Buy, buy, keep buying our products”. So the consumers keep buying and buying. The craftsmen and their laboriously slow ways are forgotten.