with the finished product. The jobber who buys large quantities of
shoes from the wholesaler and sells them to the retailer in small lots
is a middleman. The advertising man whose description and pictorial
representation of the shoe causes the consumer to buy it of the
retailer is also a middleman.

78. NOT ALL MIDDLEMEN ARE SOCIALLY NECESSARY.--By coördinating the
work of these various individuals, many of whom are themselves
middlemen, the middlemen whom we have been describing allow the
community to secure the full benefit of the division of labor and of
exchange. Where there exist just enough middlemen to coördinate with
maximum efficiency the various industrial agents of a community, the
community gains. When, on the other hand, there are more middlemen at
work than are really needed to perform the work of industrial
coördination, the community loses. This loss is a double one: first,
the working energy of the superfluous middlemen is wasted, or at least
is applied uneconomically; second, middlemen are paid, directly or
indirectly, out of the product which they handle, so that the handling
of a commodity by an unnecessarily large number of middlemen means
higher prices for the ultimate consumers of that commodity. [Footnote:
The existence of superfluous middlemen constitutes a grave problem, to
which more and more attention is being given. Various aspects of this
problem are discussed in Chapters XII and XXV.]

79. BARTER.--We have seen _what_ the middleman does; it remains to
point out _how,_ or by means of what mechanism, he performs his
functions. When savages, and civilized peoples living under primitive
conditions, wish to exchange their surplus goods, they generally
resort to barter, _i.e.,_ they exchange one commodity directly for
another. Where the division of labor has been so little developed that