Whether plans are being made for the rebuilding of existing economic institutions or for the establishment of new ones, these general rules hold good. They have as their objective, a workable social system that will turn the wealth of nature's storehouse into usable forms, and that will procure the distribution of the good things of life, in an equitable manner, among the groups that have assisted in their production.
Those who are concerned with the establishment of a working basis for economic society must bear constantly in mind the purpose of economic organization—to provide livelihood on the most effective possible terms. The economic system is not called on to perform any other function.
Economic function would seem to be most effectively aided by some organization of the economic units that would provide a structurally sound skeleton for the whole economic mechanism. The needs of particular localities, the requirements of larger groups within one industry, the economic relations of continental areas, and finally the world organization of industries must be provided for. In order to meet this situation, it would seem desirable to think in terms of several different grades or classes of economic units. As a working basis, four are suggested:
1. The local unit, which would be some particular phase of the economic process that normally functions as a whole.
This unit is now a working part of the present economic order, and whether it is a colliery in Wales, a division of the P.L.M. Railroad in France, a mill in Bombay, or a farming community in Saskatchewan, it would continue the process of turning out goods and services under the new economic régime as it does under the present one.
2. District units composed of a number of neighboring local units in the same industry or in closely related and co-operative industries.
The district is an aggregation of conveniently situated local units, and is organized as a ready means of increasing the efficiency of the groups concerned. It might cover the tobacco factories of Havana, the coal mining industry of the Pennsylvania anthracite fields or the dock working activities of Belfast.
3. The divisional units which would be designed to cover a convenient geographic area, and to include all of the economic activities in a particular major industry within that area.