Mutual Aid a Multiplication of Power 311 



beings, than it is among non-associable beings, 

 where struggle is the dominant factor, and evolu- 

 tion only an accidental by-product of the process. 



Association derives its importance from the ^ 

 fact that it leads not only to an addition of vital r 

 power but to a multiplication of this power. Ten^ 

 men associated together do not produce ten times 

 as much as the ten men separately, but produce 

 a hundred or more times as much. The example 

 given by the economist, Jean Baptiste Say, in 

 regard to the manufacture of playing cards, is well 

 known. He found that if every workman made 

 the entire card himself, he could produce two cards 

 a day, but thirty workmen, organized and divid- 

 ing the labour, manufacture 15,000 a day, or 500 

 cards each. Association, therefore, increased the 

 productive power of each workman 250 times. 



In more complex processes of production the 

 ratio is even greater. If one man had to manufac- 

 ture an entire automobile alone, it would take him 

 many years, possibly it might require a lifetime, 

 yet 20,000 men in the Ford factory at Detroit, 

 practising division of labour and specializing on 

 the different processes of production, can produce 

 more than 1,000 automobiles per day, or at the 

 rate of one automobile every twenty days for 

 each workman. This marvellous multiplication of 

 productive power can be obtained only by associa- 

 tion, because association although taking place 

 under a thousand different aspects, is always a 

 multiplication of vital power. 



