The final principle which need be enumerated among the features of the social environment, is that of social organization. From the sim plest gathering for informal to the elaborate organization of municipal enterprise, foreign missions, or fraternal orders, the capa city of society for effective organization appears constantly as a condition of its economic prog ress. The most important movements for defi nite organization often lie entirely outside the field marked out by the state for its own activ ity, and they are thus dependent upon the vol untary cooperation of their adherents. Such movements as that for the organization of char ity illustrate the importance of the general prin ciple, while the disposition in some places to entrust the entire supervision of public and pri vate charity to public officials is an instance of the easy transition from individual to collective action.
All the various social conditions of economic activity, like the various features of the physical world, are interdependent, and they constitute not a series of conditions to be reckoned with individually, but a definite environment, within which society must carry on its economic life, to 1 Invariably resulting, it is said, in America, in the election of a presiding officer and a secretary.
which that life must be made to conform, from which it will draw materials for the changes, whether moderate or radical, of the future. Many features of this environment will vanish, one by one, as newer and more adequate condi tions appear. Organization is dependent upon association and credit. The state is dependent upon property and taxation. Education rests upon the family, the church, and the state. In dustry is influenced by all social agencies. Tc the economic man the social environment is as real and as significant as his physical surround ings. The two are never sharply distinguished, but blend into an economic environment with both physical and social features.