Division of labor

Division of labor is the specialization of cooperative labor in specific, circumscribed tasks and roles, intended to increase efficiency of output. Historically the growth of a more and more complex division of labor is closely associated with the growth of trade, the rise of capitalism, and of the complexity of industrialization processes.

Overview

The division of labor can apply to any field. Studies have applied the division of labor to the differences in work done by different genders, the work of an industrial assembly line workers, to the work done by different social classes or professions within a society. The division of labor can also be abstracted to a global level and seen through the lens of globalization as countries have followed the mold of David Ricardo's comparative advantage and attempted to specializing in producing those goods or services they are best placed to produce.

Theories

The concept of dividing labor for increased efficiency has existed for a long time in human history. The theory has been refined over time.

Plato

In Plato's Republic we are instructed that the origin of the state lies in that "natural" inequality of humanity that is embodied in the division of labor. In the book, Socrates speaks of an ideal city in which there were three narrowly defined castes of workers, warriors, and philosopher-kings.

Xenophon

Xenophon, writing in the fourth century B.C.E. makes a passing reference to division of labor in his 'Cyropaedia' (aka Education of Cyrus).

"Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities, in the same way food at the palace is prepared in a far superior manner. In small towns the same man makes couches, doors, plows and tables, and often he even builds houses, and still he is thankful if only he can find enough work to support himself. And it is impossible for a man of many trades to do all of them well. In large cities, however, because many make demands on each trade, one alone is enough to support a man, and often less than one: for instance one man makes shoes for men, another for women, there are places even where one man earns a living just by mending shoes, another by cutting them out, another just by sewing the uppers together, while there is another who performs none of these operations but assembles the parts, Of necessity, he who pursues a very specialzed task will do it best."

William Petty

Sir William Petty was the first modern writer to take note of division of labor, showing its existence and usefulness in Dutch shipyards. Classically the workers in a shipyard would build ships as units, finishing one before starting another. But the Dutch had it organised with several teams each doing the same tasks for successive ships. People with a particular task to do must have discovered new methods that were only later observed and justified by writers on political economy.

Petty also applied the principle to his survey of Ireland. His breakthrough was to divide up the work so that large parts of it could be done by people with no extensive training.

Bernard de Mandeville

Bernard de Mandeville discusses the matter in the second volume of The Fable of the Bees. This elaborates many matters raised by the original poem about a 'Grumbling Hive'. He says:

But if one will wholly apply himself to the making of Bows and Arrows, whilst another provides Food, a third builds Huts, a fourth makes Garments, and a fifth Utensils, they not only become useful to one another, but the Callings and Employments themselves will in the same Number of Years receive much greater Improvements, than if all had been promiscuously follow’d by every one of the Five.

David Hume

David Hume talks about "partition of employments" in "A Treatise of Human Nature" (1739):

When every individual person labors a-part, and only for himself, his force is too small to execute any considerable work; his labor being employ’d in supplying all his different necessities, he never attains a perfection in any particular art; and as his force and success are not at all times equal, the least failure in either of these particulars must be attended with inevitable ruin and misery. Society provides a remedy for these three inconveniences. By the conjunction of forces, our power is augmented: By the partition of employments, our ability encreases: And by mutual succour we are less expos’d to fortune and accidents. ’Tis by this additional force, ability, and security, that society becomes advantageous.

Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau

In his additions to l’”Art de l’Épinglier” - The Art of the Pin-Maker - (1761), Henri Louis Duhamel du Monceau writes about the "division of labor":

There is nobody who is not surprised of the small price of pins; but we shall be even more surprised, when we know how many different operations, most of them very delicate, are mandatory to make a good pin. We are going to go through these operations in a few words to stimulate the curiosity to know their detail; this enumeration will supply as many articles which will make the division of this labor. [...] The first operation is to have brass go through the drawing plate to calibrate it. [...]

Adam Smith

In the first sentence of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith foresaw the essence of industrialism by determining that division of labor represents a qualitative increase in productivity. His example was the making of pins. Unlike Plato, Smith did not regard the division of labor as a consequence of human inequality but famously argued that the difference between a street porter and a philosopher was as much a consequence of the division of labor as its cause. Therefore, while for Plato the level of specialzation determined by the division of labor was externally determined, for Smith it was the dynamic engine of economic progress. However, in a further chapter of the same book Smith criticises the division of labor saying it leads to a 'mental mutilation' in workers; they become ignorant and insular as their working lives are confined to a single repetitive task. The contradiction has led to some debate over Smith's opinion of the division of labor.

The specialzation and concentration of the workers on their single subtasks often leads to greater skill and greater productivity on their particular subtasks than would be achieved by the same number of workers each carrying out the original broad task.

Smith saw the importance of matching skills with equipment - usually in the context of an organization. For example, pin makers were organised with one making the head, another the body, each using different equipment. Similarly he emphasised that a large number of skills, used in cooperation and with suitable equipment, were required to build a ship.

In modern economic discussion the term human capital would be used. Smith's insight suggests that the huge increases in productivity obtainable from technology or technological progress are possible because human and physical capital are matched, usually in an organization. See also a short discussion of Adam Smith's theory in the context of business processes.

Karl Marx

Increasing specialization may also lead to workers with poorer overall skills and a lack of enthusiasm for their work. This viewpoint was extended and refined by Karl Marx. He described the process as alienation; workers become more and more specialzed and work repetitious which eventually leads to complete alienation. Marx wrote that "with this division of labor," the worker is "depressed spiritually and physically to the condition of a machine." He believed that the fullness of production is essential to human liberation and accepted the idea of a strict division of labor only as a temporary necessary evil.

Marx's most important theoretical contribution was his sharp distinction between the social division and the technical or economic division of labor. That is, some forms of labor co-operation are due purely to technical necessity, but others are purely a result of a social control function related to a class and status hierarchy. If these two divisions are conflated, it might appear as though the existing division of labor is technically inevitable and immutable, rather than (in good part) socially constructed and influenced by power relationships.

It may be, for example, that it is technically necessary that both pleasant and unpleasant jobs must be done by a group of people. But from that fact alone, it does not follow that any particular person must do any particular (pleasant or unpleasant) job. If particular people get to do the unpleasant jobs and others the pleasant jobs, this cannot be explained by technical necessity; it is a socially made decision, which could be made using a variety of different criteria. The tasks could be rotated, or a person could be assigned to a task permanently, and so on.

Marx also suggests that the capitalist division of labor will evolve over time such that the maximum amount of labor is productive labor, where productive labor is defined as labor which creates surplus value.

However, time use surveys suggest that commercially performed labor always depends on, and goes together with, the performance of a very large amount of voluntary labor. To the extent that state subsidies are cut and privatisation increases, more work often devolves on people who must do that work without pay.

In Marx's imagined communist society, the division of labor is transcended, meaning that balanced human development occurs where people fully express their nature in the variety of creative work that they do.

Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim wrote that as societies advanced they came to resemble complex machines and naturally adopted principles of the division of labor. In early societies, people have a common consciousness as they all perform identical labor so they can identify strongly with one another. As society grows more complex and people begin to specialize in their lines of work, they become alienated from one another.

Ludwig von Mises

Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises criticized Karl Marx's work. He argued that the gains accruing from the division of labor by far outweigh the costs; that it is fully possible to achieve balanced human development within capitalism, and that alienation is more a romantic fiction. After all, work is not all there is; there is also leisure time.

Frederick Winslow Taylor

The division of labour reached the level of a scientifically-based management practice with the time and motion studies associated with Taylorism, which originated in Frederick Winslow Taylor's work The Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual at work. Taylor thought that by analysing work, the "One Best Way" to do it would be found. He is most remembered for developing the time and motion study. He would break a job into its component parts and measure each to the hundredth of a minute. One of his most famous studies involved shovels. He noticed that workers used the same shovel for all materials. He determined that the most effective load was 21½ lb, and found or designed shovels that for each material would scoop up that amount. He was generally unsuccessful in getting his concepts applied and was dismissed from Bethlehem Steel. It was largely through the efforts of his disciples (most notably H.L. Gantt) that industry came to implement his ideas. Nevertheless, the book he wrote after parting company with Bethlehem Steel, Shop Management, sold well.

Industrialization

The division of labor allowed for greater industrialization as the theories became manifest in assembly lines being used for mass production. Mass production is the production of large amounts of standardized products on production lines. It was popularized by Henry Ford as a tool for manufacturing his Model T cars. Mass production typically uses moving tracks or conveyor belts to move partially complete products to workers, who perform simple repetitive tasks to permit very high rates of production per worker, allowing the high-volume manufacture of inexpensive finished goods.

In a factory for a complex product, rather than one assembly line, there may be many auxiliary assembly lines feeding sub-assemblies (i.e. car engines or seats) to a backbone "main" assembly line. A diagram of a typical mass-production factory looks more like the skeleton of a fish than a single line.

Modern debates

In the modern world, those specialzts most preoccupied in their work with theorising about the division of labor are those involved in management and organization. In view of the global extremities of the division of labor, the question is often raised about what division of labor would be most ideal, beautiful, efficient and just.

Labor hierarchy is to a great extent inevitable, simply because no one can do all tasks at once; but of course the way these hierarchies are structured can be influenced by a variety of different factors. The question to ask is what the hierarchy is a hierarchy of.

It is often agreed that the most equitable principle in allocating people within hierarchies is that of true (or proven) competency or ability. This important Western concept of meritocracy could be read as an explanation or as a justification of why a division of labor is the way it is.

In general, in capitalist economies, such things are not decided consciously. Different people try different things, and that which is most effective (produces the most and best output with the least input) will generally be adopted. Often techniques that work in one place or time do not work as well in another. This does not present a problem, as the only requirement of a capitalist system is that the value of your outputs exceed the value of your inputs.

Advantages

1. More efficient in terms of time.
2. Reduces the time needed for training because the task is simplified.
3. Increases productivity because training time is reduced and the worker is productive in a short amount of time.
4. Concentration on one repetitive task makes workers more skilled at performing that task.
5. Little time is spent moving between tasks so overall time wasted is reduced.
6. The overall quality of the product will increase bringing welfare gains to the consumer

Disadvantages

1. Lack of motivation: the quality of labor decreases while absenteeism may rise.
2. Growing dependency: a break in production may cause problems to the entire process.
3. Loss of flexibility: workers have limited knowledge while not many jobs opportunities are available.
4. Higher start-up costs: high initial costs necessary to buy the specialzt machinery lead to a higher break-even point.

Division According to Gender

The clearest exposition of the principles of sexual division of labor across the full range of human societies can be summarized by a large number of logically complementary implicational constraints of the following form: if women of childbearing ages in a given community tend to do X (e.g., preparing soil for planting) they will also do Y (e.g., the planting) while for men the logical reversal in this example would be that if men plant they will prepare the soil. The 'Cross Cultural Analysis of the Sexual Division of Labor ' by White, Brudner and Burton (1977, public domain), using statistical entailment analysis, shows that tasks more frequently chosen by women in these order relations are those more convenient in relation to childrearing. This type of finding has been replicated in a variety of studies, including modern industrial economies. These entailments do not restrict how much work for any given task could be done by men (e.g., in cooking) or by women (e.g., in clearing forests) but are only least-effort or role-consistent tendencies. To the extent that women clear forests for agriculture, for example, they tend to do the entire agricultural sequence of tasks on those clearings. In theory, these types of constraints could be removed by provisions of child care, but ethnographic examples are lacking.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Stephanie Coontz & Peta Henderson, Women's Work, Men's Property: The Origins of Gender and Class. Verso Books (1986). ISBN 0805272550
• Ali Rattansi, Marx and the Division of Labor. MacMillan (1982). ISBN 0333285565
• Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital; The Degradation of Labor in the 20th Century Monthly Review Press (1998). ISBN 0853459401
• André Gorz, The Division of Labor: The Labor Process and Class Struggle in Modern Capitalism. Harvester Press (1976). ISBN 0855271248
• Murray Rothbard, Freedom, Inequality, Primitivism and the Division of Labor [1]
• James Heartfield, "The Economy of Time" [2]

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