_Simple association._—While the absolute equality of individuals referred
to in the preceding chapter is practically impossible, the community of
interests as civilization advances becomes much closer through various
plans of association of individuals in common work. Indeed, the community
is a community because a multitude of individuals work together. The
simplest form of association is seen where men work in gangs, all acting
alike, as in lifting a log or a rock, hoeing the field, or in building an
embankment by shoveling. Among farmers the habit of exchanging work, so
common in pioneer settlements, illustrates the advantage of combination.
This may be called simple association, by which many hands make light
work.
_Complex association._—A more complex association is found in even the
rudest settlement when one man undertakes a particular kind of labor for
all his neighbors, they in turn doing a different kind of work for him. A
farmer in a new settlement found the children of himself and neighbors
without a school, and agreed for several winters to teach a school as many
days as his neighbors would chop in his clearing. This association cleared
the land and supplied the school. Such exchanges of labor develop rapidly
in every growing community and form the basis of a most extensive
commerce. When “Adam delved and Eve span” the family was far better
provided for than if both had undertaken to delve and spin. The fair
exchange of products makes each man’s product more useful to both himself
and his neighborhood. Such association is less noticeable in a community
of farmers, where all are seeking essentially the same products, than in
almost any other community. Yet the presence of the blacksmith, the
shoemaker, the wagonmaker and the tailor contribute very largely to the
comfort of all concerned.
One chief disadvantage of farms remote from villages is the want of ready
exchange, or association by different employments. The part which such
exchange plays in the accumulation and distribution of the wealth of the
world is so great that several chapters will be needed to present its
importance. The study of exchanges is sometimes thought to cover the whole
question of wealth. It is often treated as separate from production. But
its advantages and disadvantages are most easily seen by considering all
its bearings upon the increased product of a multitude of workers.
_Compound association._—A still closer association, sometimes called
compound association, is found where several workers combine efforts of
different kinds in a single finished product. It is easily illustrated in
an ordinary dairy, where one of the family drives up the cows, another
does the milking, another sets the milk and cares for the purity of all
utensils, another perhaps skims the milk and churns the butter, and still
another works and packs it. All this labor of many hands has its
importance represented in the butter packed for use. The particular
advantages of this division of labor will be treated in a future chapter.
_Aggregation of forces._—A still further advance in association appears
when many laborers in many ways, with multitudes of tools and machinery,
are combined in a huge establishment in such a way as to employ all
efficiently. This is illustrated in the so-called bonanza farms of the
west, but more distinctly appears in the great manufactories, or in any
extensive coöperation or great enterprise. A study of these will also
require a future chapter.
While all these methods of association blend with and into each other in
every kind of community, a careful analysis of each is necessary to a full
understanding of their relation to welfare. For this reason it is best to
analyze and illustrate each by itself. The succeeding chapters will take
up all the intricacies of exchange before presenting the special
advantages and disadvantages of technical division of labor and of great
corporations.