18 
e ■ , 
small scale; on the other hand, special shops with expert 
and personal service are established on a fairly small 
scale in certain goods (’.'boutiques" for women's dresses 
etc.). This bifurcation is by no means only a matter of 
rich and poor customers, but a natural division of 
functions which is likely to stay. In the same way the 
experimenting small firms in manufacturing can exist in 
cooperation with big concerns and even retain a large degree 
of autonomy if they are able to develop and offer techno 
in some cases 
logical know-how, which/,they are able to do better than 
big laboratories. For this reason the small establishment 
combined with expert and highly trained personal has a role 
to play in a reasonable organisation of the economy. 
While there is no doubt that in these special fields the 
small firms continue to have considerable room for con 
tinued existence, the rest of the economy exhibits the 
domination of the large scale business today more than 
ever. Several factors have come to the fore as favouring 
the large concerns even more than formerly! One is 
automation* The other is the increasing importance of 
research and development, much (although not all) of which 
is carried on most easily by large firms. Finally there .is 
the computer which can be used to offset some of the dis 
economies of large scale: The problems of organisation, 
arising from the complexity of lines of communication and