inst the impositions and invasions of feudal
barons and their retainers. Division of labor first appears in its
simplest form, the association of independent individual workers for
mutual advantage, sharing their products upon a basis of equality. This
simple cooeperation involved no fundamental, revolutionary change in
society. That came later with the development of the workshop system,
and the division of labor upon a definite, predetermined plan. Men
specialized now in the making of _parts_ of things; no man could say of
a finished product, "This is _mine_, for I made it." Production had
become a social function.

VII

At first, in its simple beginnings, the cooeperation of many producers in
one great workshop did not involve any general or far-reaching changes
in the system of exchange. But as the new methods spread, and it became
the custom for one or two wealthy individuals to provide the workshop
and necessary tools and materials for production, the product of the
combined laborers being appropriated in its entirety by the owners of
the agencies of production, who paid the workers a money wage
representing less than the actual value of their product, and based upon
the cost of their subsistence, the whole economic system was once more
revolutionized. The custom of working for wages, hitherto rare and
exceptional, became general and customary; individual production for
use, either directly or through the medium of personal exchange, was
superseded by social production for private profit. The wholesale
exchange of social products for private gain took the place of the
personal exchange of commodities. The difference between the total cost
of the production of commodities, including the wages of the producers,
and their exchange value--determined at this stage by the cost of
producing similar commodities by individual labor--constituted the share
of the capitalist, his profit, and the objective of his investment.

The new system did not spring up spontaneously and full-fledged. Like
feudalism, it was a growth, a development of existing forms. And just as
chattel slavery lingered on after the rise of the feudal regime, so the
old methods of individual production and direct exchange of commodities
for personal use lingered on in places and isolated industries long
after the rise of the system of wage-paid labor and production for
profit. But the old methods of production and exchange gradually became
rare and al