POSTLUDE 155 



living. More and more Production Units will be established 

 in the city and at the same time the movement will be 

 extended into the country. 



"Superficially the Production Units are much like other 

 groups in which the unemployed are organized for self- 

 help, though the Dayton groups are smaller than most. The 

 unit secures an empty house or store for headquarters, ac- 

 quires sewing machines, shoe-making machinery, aban- 

 doned bakery ovens, and begins to make dresses and shirts, 

 to bake bread, to repair shoes, to cut wood. What the 

 members of the group cannot consume they trade to the 

 city relief stores, to the farmers of the surrounding coun- 

 try, and among themselves for foodstuffs, cloth, raw ma- 

 terials, and other products. The Dayton plan is unlike 

 most self-help schemes in that barter is merely incidental. 

 Within each unit, distribution to the membership is made 

 according to need, each member being required to put in 

 a certain amount of work. Usually the time which the 

 members devote to the unit is greatly in excess of the mini- 

 mum required. Volunteer work is common and a spirit of 

 comradeship and mutual helpfulness prevails. 



"The limitations within which the Production Units op- 

 erate are obvious. In the city no raw materials can be pro- 

 duced. In order to obtain cloth, raw wool, and groceries 

 which they do not produce, surpluses of clothing and bread 

 and other products must be manufactured. This requires 

 large-scale operations and is dependent upon the unit's 

 ability to secure factory machinery. These large-scale op- 

 erations thrust upon each organization problems of man- 

 agement actually much more difficult than those in an 

 average factory, because the management has to be demo- 

 cratic. Politics, of course, arise. Revolutions within each 



