''' B''' C'''
A'' B'' C''
A' B' C'
A B C

The series of A's, which we have already studied, represents one kind
of raw material ripening into a finished product. B represents a
second kind of raw material, which, like the A, is produced by its own
set of workers and is then passed on to a second, who transform it
into B'--a partly finished product. These then pass it on, as the
corresponding set of men passed on the A'. They hand it over to a set
of workmen who change it into B'', a nearly completed product, and
these hand it over to men at B''', who, by giving the final
fashioning, bring it into the form of a finished consumers' good. The
C's represent another general group of workers who transform the raw
material, C, into the finished product, C'''.

_Industrial Groups and Subgroups._--Each of these more general bodies
of workmen and employers, such as the entire series of A's, we may
call an industrial group, and the divisions within each of them, such
as A' or A'', we may term subgroups. The product of a group is a
complete article, while that of a subgroup is not a complete article
nor any part of an article that can be taken bodily from it. Yet it is
a distinguishable element in the article. The product of the shoe
factory is certainly not complete shoes, for the owners of the factory
buy leather which has already passed through the hands of tanners; and
the tanners themselves bought it in the shape of raw hides, which were
furnished by still earlier producers. What the shoe factory has done
is to impart a new utility to dressed leather by transforming it into
shoes. It would be impossible ever to get that utility out again, or
to point to any one part of the shoe as the only part that contains
it. What the factory has really made is therefore a utility--a
distinguishable quality which pervades a concrete thing. It makes the
difference between the leather and the shoes. What the tanner has
created is, in like manner, another utility, which makes the
difference between raw hides and leather. Groups, then, in their
entirety produce whole articles for direct use, while subgroups
produce distinguishable utilities which are embodied in such articles.
The sum total of all the different utilities constitutes the article.
It is a complex of useful qualities held together by the fact that
they are attached to the same original matter.

_Proportionate Production._--All the sub