ld's economic
problem is a simple matter, but at the same time, each one who is
striving toward a better world may rest with the assurance that there
are certain simple and fundamental principles that underlie world
economic organization.

Society is structural, and as a structure it must function; the economic
world is built up of working units that are compelled, by the nature of
modern industry to work co-operatively, but the very nature of the
political structure of modern society hampers this co-operative work in
many essential directions; federation seems to be the logical answer to
the enigma of effective social organization, and it only remains to
organize a workable series of economic units and to build them into a
world structure--a world structure in terms of production rather than of
politics.

The world is sadly muddled. Millions pay for this muddling with their
lives; tens of millions pay with bitter suffering. The owners have had
their day. The opportunity for the producers has well-nigh come.

The men and women who are responsible for the work that is involved in
the economic reorganization of the world must see the whole plan as
well as the multiplicity of detail, and must work with the whole plan
vividly before their eyes if they are not to be blinded and led astray
by the multitude of will-o'-the-wisps that flit across the path.

IV. ECONOMIC SELF-GOVERNMENT

1. _Maximum Advantage_

Economic society consists of unit groups or organs which are established
for the performance of certain functions. Mines and other extractive
units take nature's stores from their age-old resting place and prepare
them for the railroad, the factory or the home; the transport units
convey goods and people; the merchandising units bring together many
varieties of goods, and act as a distributing agency for those who will
consume the products of mine and factory. The existence of a unit of
economic organization is therefore a proof of the presence of some
economic function. The whole structure of economic society has developed
in response to the economic needs and in accordance with the economic
activities of the community in which it exists.

When a part of the economic structure is built, it is expected to
function. Mines, when opened, must produce coal; railroads, when
completed, must provide transportation. Side by side with the problems
involved in the kind of groupings that make up economic society, t