ant
organ. If the stoppage is significant enough, as for example, a stoppage
of the economic machinery like that experienced by central Europe since
1919, the social organism "dies,"--that is, it is resolved into its
constituent elements, some of which may disappear.

Those who object to the comparison between society and a living organism
like the body, find more satisfaction in likening the social machine to
an automobile, with its self-starter, its ignition system, its lighting
system, its steering gear, its driving mechanism. Each of the systems is
in turn composed of parts. Each part is made of wood, iron, copper,
rubber, and these materials are, in turn, composed of molecules and
atoms in certain combination. The automobile is not self-acting, like
the body or like society, but the failure of one of its essential parts
like the ignition system, means the failure of the whole machine.

Society, like the human being, or like the engine, is a highly complex
mechanism, and like them it cannot function successfully unless its
various parts function in harmony. The major problem before a society is
therefore the working out of a system of inter-relations between its
parts, that will make harmonious functioning possible and easy. Just as
the mechanical engineer who builds the automobile puts into it the
results of his wisdom in an effort to make it effective, so the social
engineer devotes himself to the problem of making society function in
the way that will yield the largest results to the individuals composing
it.

2. _Specialization, Association, Co-operation_

Every social group except the horde, which is an aggregation of
unspecialized and non-co-operating individuals, is constructed on the
principle of:

1. Specialization

2. Association

3. Co-operation

The social group--the family, the school, the factory--takes upon itself
the performance of a particular social function--it specializes itself.
Each group associates itself with other groups--families with families,
schools with schools, factories with mines and stores. Finally, these
associated groups work together or co-operate, exchanging the products
which their specializations have created, and uniting their efforts in
the furtherance of their common interests. These developments take time,
and some communities are more highly specialized than others, but all
societies which enter intimately into the life of the modern world are
thu