CHAPTER I. 



THE DECENTRALISATION OF INDUSTRIES. 



Division of labour and integration The spread of industrial skill Each 

 nation its own producer of manufactured goods The United King- 

 dom France Germany Russia " German competition ". 



WHO does not remember the remarkable chapter by 

 which Adam Smith opens his inquiry into the nature 

 and causes of the wealth of nations ? Even those of 

 our contemporary economists who seldom revert to 

 the works of the father of political economy, and 

 often forget the ideas which inspired them, know 

 that chapter almost by heart, so often has it been 

 copied and recopied since. It has become an article 

 of faith ; and the economical history of the century 

 which has elapsed since Adam Smith wrote has been, 

 so to speak, an actual commentary upon it 



" Division of labour " was its watchword. And 

 the division and subdivision the permanent subdivision 

 of functions has been pushed so far as to divide 

 humanity into castes which are almost as firmly estab- 

 lished as those of old India. We have, first, the 

 broad division into producers and consumers : little- 

 consuming producers on the one hand, little-producing 

 consumers on the other hand. Then, amidst the 

 former, a series of further subdivisions: the manual 

 worker and the intellectual worker, sharply separated 

 from one another to the detriment of both ; the agri- 

 cultural labourers and the workers in the manufacture ; 

 and, amidst the mass of the latter, numberless sub- 



I 



