ange the principle of distribution, by which the product is
virtually analyzed into its component elements and the value of each
element is assigned to those who create it. This principle can be
clearly represented by assuming that each subgroup has one distinct
utility to create and that it takes only four of these to make an
A''', a B''' or a C'''.

_A Synthesis within Each Subgroup._--There is within each subgroup a
synthesis going on, and this also may be complex. Labor and capital
dig ore from the ground--an unusually simple process; and yet there
are several distinct operations to be performed before the ore is
ready for smelting. When it comes to fashioning the metal into useful
shapes, the operations become very numerous and require many
subordinate trades even for the making of one product. How many
mechanical operations go to the making of a bicycle, an automobile, or
a steam yacht? Too many to be represented in any table, but not
enough to change at all the principle according to which those who
help to make one of these composite products are paid according to
their contributions to it. We may consider that all the work that is
done in one kind of mill creates one utility. Though there are many
subtrades in making a shoe and many more in making a watch, we may
proceed as though there were only one transformation of the raw
material required in each case. We may let the division between the
contiguous subgroups be made commercially rather than merely
mechanically, and regard the establishments that buy material and sell
it in a more highly wrought condition as moving it forward by one
stage on the road to completion, however many changes they may have
made in it in the different departments of their several mills. The
difference between shoes, on the one hand, and the leather and
findings of which they are made, on the other, thus passes for one
utility. A manufacturer of shoes puts his leather and findings through
many operations before he has shoes for sale; but it is convenient to
call all that the manufacturer imparts to these raw elements before he
makes them over in their new form to the merchant, one subproduct.

_Further Complexities which may be Disregarded._--One man may be in
several of the general groups. It is possible, for example, that he
may furnish raw materials which enter into more than one finished
article. Iron is so extensively used that it goes into more products
than can easily be co