But it is not our duty here to balance the rights of laborers conventionally associated: we have to prove that, whether associated or not, our three workers are obliged to act as if they were; that, whether they will or no, they are associated by the force of things, by mathematical necessity.
Three processes are required in the manufacture of shoes,--the rearing of cattle, the preparation of their hides, and the cutting and sewing.
If the hide, on leaving the farmer's stable, is worth one, it is worth two on leaving the tanner's pit, and three on leaving the shoemaker's shop.

Each laborer has produced a portion of the utility; so that, by adding all these portions together, we get the value of the article.

To obtain any quantity whatever of this article, each producer must pay, then, first for his own labor, and second for the labor of the other producers.

Thus, to obtain as many shoes as can be made from ten hides, the farmer will give thirty raw hides, and the tanner twenty tanned hides.

For, the shoes that are made from ten hides are worth thirty raw hides, in consequence of the extra labor bestowed upon them; just as twenty tanned hides are worth thirty raw hides, on account of the tanner's labor.