In
either case the same amount of trade, which it once took hundreds of
separate small shopkeepers to handle, is now handled by the one firm,
under the one management. Such welding together makes for the economy
in running expenses which is its first aim. But it also makes for
simplicity in organization. It is evidently far easier for the heads
of a few immense businesses to come together than it was for the
proprietors of the vast agglomeration of tiny factories, stores
and offices which once covered the same trade area, or to be quite
accurate, a much smaller trade area, to do so.
But if, at the one end of the modern process of production and
distribution, we find this tendency towards a magnificent simplicity,
at the other, the workers' end, we have the very same aim of economy
of effort and the cheapening of production resulting in an enormously
increased complexity. The actual work performed by each worker is
simplified. But the variety of processes and the consequent allotting
of the workers into unrelated groups make for social complexity;
render it not easier, but much harder for the workers to come together
and to see and make others see through and in spite of all this
apparent unlikeness of occupation, common interests and a common need
for cooeperative action.
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