-market; and (3), through this and through new divisions which
can for this reason be applied to single operations, to still farther
advances in the division of labor itself.

By this series of actions and reactions there had accordingly appeared
a complete transformation in the manufacturing institutions of the
community and hence in all its relations of life. The best way to
state this briefly is to reduce it to the following contrast:

In the early Middle Ages, since only a small number of very valuable
products could stand the expense of transportation, production was
calculated for the need of the immediate locality and a very limited
neighboring market whose demand was, just for this reason, a
well-known, steady, and unchanging one. The need or the demand
preceded production and formed a well-known criterion for it; in other
words, the production of the community had been chiefly artisan
production. Now, in distinction from factory or wholesale production,
the character of small or artisan production is this: Either the need
is awaited before production--as, for example, a tailor waits for my
order before he makes me a coat, a locksmith before he makes me a
lock; or even if some goods are manufactured to be sold ready-made, on
the whole this ready-made business is limited to a minimum of what is
definitely known from experience to be the needs of the immediate
locality and its nearest neighborhood--as, for instance, a tinsmith
makes up a certain number of lamps, knowing that the local demand will
soon dispose of them.

The characteristics of a community producing chiefly in this manner
are poverty, or at least only a moderate prosperity, but, to offset
this, a certain definiteness and steadiness of all relations.

Now, on the other hand, through the incessant and complete action and
reaction which I have been describing to you, there had appeared in
the community a totally different kind of work, and therefore of all
relations of life. There had already appeared the germ of the same
characteristic which today marks, in a differently developed but
enormously extended manner, the production of the community. In the
tremendous development which it has today this characteristic, in
contrast to that previously described, can be indicated as follows:
Whereas, formerly, need preceded production, made it a consequence of
itself, determined it, and formed a criterion and well-known standard
for it--production and suppl