A laborer no longer makes whole articles. He receives raw materials, puts his touch on them, and passes them to another worker in the series. When the articles are quite finished they are carried out of sight by currents of commercial exchange. These currents are untraceable.

In the brief preface is expressed the hope that 'it may be found that these principles settle questions of agrarian socialism. … Though the process was savage the outlook which it afforded was not wholly evil.

John Bates Clark (January 26 1847 – March 21 1938) was an American neoclassical economist.