Section XXXVIII.. Of Labor.—Divisions of Labor.

Of Labor.—Divisions Of Labor.

Man’s capacity for most economic labor is so closely connected with the exquisite articulation of the human hand, that Buffon could say without exaggeration that reason and the hand made man man.(234) But it is true of economic labor, as of all other labor, that it is more efficient in proportion as mind predominates over matter.

The best division of economic labor is the following:(235)

A. Discoveries and inventions.(236)

B. Occupation of the spontaneous gifts of nature, as, for instance, of wild plants, wild animals, and of minerals.(237) Where this is the only kind of economic labor, man is necessarily dependent on nature in a high degree.

C. The production of raw materials; that is, a direction given to nature in order to the production of raw materials, by stock-raising, agriculture, forest-culture etc., but not by mining.

D. The transformation (Verarbeitung) of raw material by means of manufactories, factories, the trades etc.

E. The distribution of stores of goods among those who are to use them directly, whether from people to people or from place to place (wholesale), or among the individuals of the same place (retail).(238) To this class also belong leasing, renting, loaning, etc.

F. Services, in the more limited sense of the term, which embraces personal as well as incorporeal goods; as, for instance, the labors of the doctor, teacher; virtuoso, of the statesman, judge, and of preachers, whose office it is, by way of eminence, to produce and preserve the immaterial wealth, known as the State and the Church.(239)

The order followed in the above classification is that in which the different classes of labor are wont to be historically developed.