Collectivism And Industrial Evolution

division of labor goes in always increasing. While in a rural community scarcely half a dozen separate trades can be found, the industrial census of :he German Empire for 1895 shows the existence of .0,397 professional callings, of which 5,506 are related o the manufacturing industries. And naturally, most of these trades are decompos- ng, in their turn, into fractional operations accom- )lished by separate workers. Thus Levasseur, comparing the modern manufac- ;ure of shoes with the shoemaking of primitive times, eports that in the factories of Lynn, Massachusetts, ifty-two workmen and workwomen participate in the jompletion of a lady's boot, each of these processes asting barely a few seconds and being repeated thou- lands of times a day. But, precisely because of this infinite division and subdivision of social labor, the mutual dependence of :he workers increases greatly. Farmers, merchants, factory -workers, those who pass their whole lives Jewing on the same buttons or piercing the same but- :onholes,?all are bound more and more closely toother producers in proportion as their social functis is more specialized. The processes of division of 1 bor meet an instant response in the processes of tec nical and of social co-ordination, which re-establis on an enlarged base, the unity of trades and the so darity of the different branches of production. Journal Ge la Soclete de Statistlque ile Paris, Jan., 1UOO. From the technical point of view, th...