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CHAPTER I
Of the Division of Labour
...The effect of the division of labour, in the general
business of the Fellowship, will be more easily understood
by considering in what manner it operates in more specific
instances. This is to say, within the context of the
Fellowship, there exist several different classes, each
ofwhich performs a task to satisfy but a small number
of people; but, taken together, it can be seen with
certainty that their combined efforts produce a product
which would have been unachievable, or impracticable,
were only one person to have contributed to its execution.
To take, therefore, an example from a seemingly trifling
business; but a business in which the division of labour
has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the
ring-bearer. A workman not educated to this business,
nor acquainted with the customs, or traditions, employed
in it, could scarce acquire a ring of power, let alone
bear it to its destruction. However, in the way in which
this business is now carried on, each member of the
Fellowship exerts his own peculiar efforts toward the
ring-bearing; so that one procures the ring, another
transfers it to the bearer, another bears it, another
defends the bearer, and so on; so that the business
of bearing a ring is actually divided into about nine
distinct operations. Though only one workman bears the
ring itself, it would not practicable for him to bear
it, nor to have begun to bear it, without the support,
or assistance, of the other workmen of the Fellowship...