Men live. They support themselves by agriculture, as is natural to
all men. One man has set up a blacksmith's forge, and repaired his
plough; his neighbor comes to him, and asks him to mend his also,
and promises him in return either work or money. A third comes, and
a fourth; and in the community formed by these men, there arises the
following division of labor,--a blacksmith is created. Another man
has instructed his children well; his neighbor brings his children
to him, and requests him to teach them also, and a teacher is
created. But both blacksmith and teacher have been created, and
continue to be such, merely because they have been asked; and they
remain such as long as they are requested to be blacksmith and
teacher. If it should come to pass that many blacksmiths and
teachers should set themselves up, or that their work is not
requited, they will immediately, as commonsense demands and as
always happens when there is no occasion for disturbing the regular
course of division of labor,--they will immediately abandon their
trade, and betake themselves once more to agriculture.

Men who behave thus are guided by their sense, their conscience; and
hence we, the men endowed with sense and conscience, all assert that
such a division of labor is right. But if it should chance that the
blacksmiths were able to compel other people to work for them, and
should continue to make horse-shoes when they were not wanted, and
if the teachers should go on teaching when there was no one to
teach, then it is obvious to every sane man, as a man, i.e., as a
being endowed with reason and conscience, that this would not be
division, but appropriation, of labor. And yet precisely that sort
of activity is what is called division of labor by scientific
science. People do that which others do not think of requiring, and
demand that they shall be supported for so doing, and say that this