Specialization, we are told, is the order of the day. Whereas, in earlier times the individual artisan or craftsman carried through from beginning to end the manufacture of any given kind of useful thing, today, in most lines, the process is divided into a large number of constituent parts, each of which becomes the task or trade of whole groups of individuals. A suit of clothes may still be made from beginning to end by a "custom tailor," but, in a modern clothing factory, the manufacture of a coat alone is divided among forty or fifty different groups of workmen, and each of such groups is known by a special designation. Indeed, it is now difficult to find any line of production in which such "division of labor" has not entered as one of the characteristic features.

The significant fact about this specialization is that it involves an increasing dependence of each member of the social group upon the group as a whole. When the individual can perform for himself all the tasks the performance of which is essential to his happiness and well-being, he may rightfully, perhaps, consider himself independent of his fellows. But few today can boast of such independence, and, considering the meager possibilities that even under the best conditions such an isolated existence can afford, there are few who would welcome it. Today we supply goods to, or render services for, others, and for the satisfaction of our own wants we expect to obtain from others, through exchange, the goods or services which we consider essential or desirable. Such production is said to be for the "market,"- a system, namely, where practically everyone is a seller of his own goods and services, and, at the same time, a buyer within the limits of his income as well as of his needs or desires of the goods and services of others.

Modern production characterized by division of labor

Division of labor and specialization intensify mutual dependence

The scope of the mutuality of interest and dependence arising from the division of labor is itself broadening out because of the extension of the market. Before the development of modern means of transportation markets were narrowly restricted, and only those people living along the sea shore or on the banks of navigable streams could expect to obtain goods coming from any considerable distance. Hence in the early days most communities were perforce self-sufficing, and in such communities variety in consumption was largely restricted by the narrow possibilities of local production. But today in most communities, certainly in the large centers, the products of the whole world are offered in a variety to suit the taste of the most discriminating and fastidious purchasers. Indeed, for most imperishable goods the market nowadays is as wide as the world itself.

Production for a widely extended market, however, is possible only with production on a large scale. Small-scale production obviously offers but slender possibilities in the field of marketing. Under large-scale production whole communities may give themselves over to the production of a relatively small number of articles, marketing them throughout the entire world, and getting from other communities the products that are desired but which are not locally produced. Thus the collar and shirt makers in Troy, N. Y.; the shoe manufacturers in Brockton, Mass., and the furniture workers in Grand Rapids, Mich., have to produce large quantities of their several specialties in order to sustain, through extensive exchange, the high degree of specialization which characterizes their several towns.

As a necessary accompaniment of large scale production is the lengthening of the period of production. Under the older and simpler methods of production the artisan would take a given quantity of raw material and would work this up, in a comparatively short period of time, into finished product. But when a given process is divided into a whole series of processes, each of which is in the hands of a separate body of workmen, the raw material must pass from one body to another until in the fullness of time it emerges from the hands of the last as a finished and usable good. Under such division of labor the time involved in the transformation of a given amount of raw material into finished product is longer than that required under the simpler method.

This dependence is now almost world-wide.

It is made possible by large scale production.

Of special significance, however, is the lengthening of the period of production when social production as a whole rather than when particular processes are considered. The ultimate aim of all productive effort is the increase of what we call "consumers' goods," namely, goods that will satisfy human wants. These goods may be directly produced without the preliminary production of tools, machinery, etc., with the aid of which more of such consumers' goods may be produced in the long run; or they may be indirectly produced by first devoting time and energy to the production of tools and machinery and then by utilizing these implements as aids in the enlarged production of the immediately enjoyable consumption goods. In the indirect production enjoyable consumption is, of course, deferred, but in the end there is made available a larger supply of enjoyable goods. All large-scale production is today of this "roundabout" character. Large numbers of individuals give their whole working time to the production of what we term "capital goods" in contradistinction with "consumers' goods." These capital goods will, of course, ultimately contribute to human enjoyment through the aid that they render in producing consumers' goods, but the greater the division of labor and the more such capital goods become necessary as aids in producing consumers' goods, the longer is the period of time that intervenes between the first steps of production and the final "ripening," as we say, of consumers' goods. The great justification for the lengthened time involved is course, the resultant quantitative increase in enjoyment.