Production without the aid of capital, which in this connection we will call direct production, is primitive in its very nature. The early pioneer, in Iowa let us suppose, quenched his thirst for the first few weeks by lying prone to drink from a natural spring. Obviously, under these conditions, he found it necessary to visit the spring each time he felt the need of a drink. This was direct production in its simplest form. Suppose, to continue the illustration, he spent an hour fashioning some sort of vessel from bark or clay that would contain enough water for the day, and that thereby he saved ten of the twenty minutes which he had formerly consumed daily in walking to and from the spring. Suppose further that by the expenditure of one day's labor he contrived a system of pipes made from wild cane which would carry a continuous flow of water to his cabin door, and which would relieve him of any further labor in getting water from the capital as a factor in production 133 spring. Each step shows the advantage of indirect production. In the first, the hour's labor was made good in six days; in the second, in a few months at most. So it is throughout all the productive processes. The time spent in fashioning tools and machines ordinarily yields an amount of goods in excess of the amount which would have been produced had it been spent in direct production.

It is necessary to qualify our conclusions with the word "ordinarily," for it is easily conceivable that there are limits to the advantages of indirect production. If our Iowa pioneer had spent days in embellishing his water pipe with shells and beads, there is no reason to believe that it would have served its purpose any better. Furthermore, whether or not the indirect method of production of any particular good holds an advantage over more direct methods, depends in part on the availability of labor. In the oriental countries, where labor is plentiful and cheap, it is often more advantageous in transporting merchandise to employ men than automobile trucks.