Page:Theory of Business Enterprise, The (Veblen).djvu/26

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE MACHINE PROCESS
13

relatively few, industrial establishments whose work belongs earlier in the process of elaboration. And it ma similarly depend on certain other, closely defined, industrial establishments for a vent of its own specialization and standardization product.[1] It may likewise depend in a strict manner on special means of transportation.[2]

Machine production leads to a standardization of services as well as of goods. So, for instance, the modern means of communication and the system into which these means are organized are also of the nature of a mechanical process, and in this mechanical process of service and intercourse the life of all civilized men is more or less intimately involved. To make effective use of the modern system of communication in any way or all of its ramifications (streets, railways, steamship lines, telephone, telegraph, postal service, etc.), men are required to adapt their needs and their motions to the exigencies of the process whereby this civilized method of intercourse is carried into effect. The service is standardized, and therefore the use of it is standardized also. Schedules of time, place, and circumstance rule throughout. The scheme of everyday life must be arranged with a strict

  1. Well illustrated by the interdependence of the various branches of iron and steel production.
  2. As seen, e.g., in the dependence of oil production or oil refining on the pipe lines and their management, or in the dependence of the prairie farmers on the railway lines, etc.