This bifurcation is by no means only a matter of rich and
poor customers, but a natural division of function 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 technological know-how, which in some
cases 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 diseconomies of large scale: The problems
of organisation, arising from the complexity of lines of
communication and interrelation of decisions which beset the
large firm and lead to rigid cumbersome bureaucratic rule -
these problems can indeed to some extent be solved by a suitable
application of the computer.