Division of Labor
Division of labour or specialization is
the specialization of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed
tasks and roles, intended to increase the productivity of labour.
Historically the growth of a more and more complex division of labour is
closely associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise
of capitalism, and of the complexity of industrialization processes.
Later, the division of labour reached the level of a
scientifically-based management practice with the time and motion
studies associated with Taylorism. Basically, it's a working society
that does many different jobs. Example: A few people do farming, a few
people do pottery, and a few people are blacksmiths. The society workes
together to make the city wealthier.
Xenophon records the
first known description of the advantages of the division of labor when
he describes an ancient Greek Shoe Factory.
Adam Smith's The
Wealth of Nations discusses the optimal organization of a pin
factory; this becomes the most famous and influential statement of the
economic rationale of the factory system and the division of labor.
The greatest improvement in the productive
powers of labor, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and
judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have
been the effects of the division of labor.
The effects of the division of labor, in the general business of
society, will be more easily understood by considering in what manner it
operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly supposed to be
carried furthest in some very trifling ones; not perhaps that it really
is carried further in them than in others of more importance: but in
those trifling manufactures which are destined to supply the small wants
of but a small number of people, the whole number of workmen must
necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branch of
the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at
once under the view of the spectator. In those great manufactures, on
the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great
body of the people, every different branch of the work employs so great
a number of workmen, that it is impossible to collect them all into the
same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one time, than those employed
in one single branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work
may really be divided into a much greater number of parts, than those of
a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious, and has
accordingly been much less observed.
To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture�but one
in which the division of labor has been very often taken notice of, the
trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which
the division of labor has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted
with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which
the same division of labor has probably given occasion), could scarce,
perhaps, with his utmost industry make one pin in a day, and certainly
could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now
carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is
divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are
likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another
straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it
at the top for receiving the head: to make the head requires two or
three distinct operations to put it on, is a peculiar business, to
whiten the pins another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into
paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner,
divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some
manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the
same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a
small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and
where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct
operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but
indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could,
when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of
pins in a day. There are in a pound upward of four thousand pins of a
middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them
upward of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore,
making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as
making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all
wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having
been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each
of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is,
certainly not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four
thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of
performing, in consequence of proper division and combination of their
different operations.
In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labor
are similar to what they are in this very trifling one; though in many
of them the labor can neither be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so
great a simplicity of operation. The division of labor, however, so far
as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable
increase of the productive powers of labor. The separation of different
trades and employments from one another, seems to have taken place, in
consequence of this advantage. This separation too is generally carried
furthest in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry
and improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude state of society,
being generally that of several in an improved one. In every improved
society, the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer
nothing but a manufacturer. The labor too which is necessary to produce
any one complete manufacture, is almost always divided among a great
number of hands. How many different trades are employed in each branch
of the linen and woollen manufactures, from the growers of the flax and
the wool, to the bleachers and smoothers of the linen, or to the dyers
and dressers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed, does not
admit of so many subdivisions of labor, nor of so complete a separation
of one business from another, as manufactures. It is impossible to
separate so entirely the business of the grazier from that of the
corn-farmer, as the trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from
that of the smith. The spinner is almost always a distinct person from
the weaver; but the plowman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and
the reaper of the corn, are often the same. The occasions for those
different sorts of labor returning with the different seasons of the
year, it is impossible that one man should be constantly employed in any
one of them. This impossibility of making so complete and entire a
separation of all the different branches of labor employed in
agriculture, is perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productive
powers of labor in this art, does not always keep pace with their
improvement in manufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed, generally
excel all their neighbors in agriculture as well as in manufactures; but
they are commonly more distinguished by their superiority in the latter
than in the former. Their lands are in general better cultivated, and,
having more labor and expense bestowed upon them, produce more in
proportion to the extent and natural fertility of the ground. But this
superiority of produce is seldom much more than in proportion to the
superiority of labor and expense. In agriculture, the labor of the rich
country is not always much more productive than that of the poor; or, at
least, it is never so much more productive, as it commonly is in
manufactures. The corn of the rich country, therefore, will not always,
in the same degree of goodness, come cheaper to market than that of the
poor. The corn of Poland, in the same degree of goodness, is as cheap as
that of France, notwithstanding the superior opulence and improvement of
the latter country. The corn of France is, in the corn provinces, fully
as good, and in most years nearly about the same price with the corn in
England, though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior
to England. The cornlands of England, however, are better cultivated
than those of France, and the corn-lands of France are said to be much
better cultivated than those of Poland. But though the poor country,
notwithstanding the inferiority of its cultivation, can, in some
measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness of its corn, it
can pretend to no such competition in its manufactures; at least if
those manufactures suit the soil, climate and situation of the rich
country. The silks of France are better and cheaper than those of
England, because the silk manufacture, at least under the present high
duties for the transportation of raw silk, does not so well suit the
climate of England as that of France. But the hardware and the coarse
woollens of England are beyond all comparison superior to those of
France, and much cheaper too in the same degree of goodness. In Poland
there are said to be scarcely any manufactures of any kind, a few of
those coarser household manufactures excepted, without which no country
can well subsist.
This great increase in the quantity of work, which, in consequence of
the division of labor, the same number of people are capable of
performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the
increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the
saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of
work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of
machines which facilitate and abridge labor, and enable one man to do
the work of many.
First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workman necessarily
increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of
labor, by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation,
and by making this operation the sole employment of his life,
necessarily increases very much the dexterity of the workman. A common
smith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used
to make nails, if upon some particular occasion he is obliged to attempt
it, will scarcely, I am assured, be able to make above two or three
hundred nails in a day, and those, too, very bad ones. A smith who has
been accustomed to make nails, but whose sole or principal business has
not been that of a nailer, can seldom with his utmost diligence make
more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. I have seen
several boys under twenty years of age who had never exercised any other
trade but that of making nails, and who, when they exerted themselves,
could make each of them upward of two thousand three hundred nails in a
day. The making of a nail, however, is by no means one of the simplest
operations. The same person blows the bellows, stirs or mends the fire
as there is occasion, heats the iron, and forges every part of the nail:
in forging the head, too, he is obliged to change his tools. The
different operations into which the making of a pin or of a metal
button, is subdivided, are all of them much more simple, and the
dexterity of the person whose whole life it has been the sole business
to perform them, is usually much greater. The rapidity with which some
of the operations of those manufactures are performed, exceed what the
human hand could, by those who had never seen them, be supposed capable
of acquiring.
Secondly, the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost
in passing from one sort of work to another, is much greater than we
should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very
quickly from one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a
different place, and with quite different tools. A country weaver, who
cultivates a small farm, must lose a good deal of time in passing from
his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom. When the two
trades can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss of time is no
doubt much less. It is even in this case, however, very considerable. A
man commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of
employment to another. When he first begins the new work he is seldom
very keen and hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and for
some time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose. The habit of
sauntering and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or
rather necessarily, acquired by every country workman who is obliged to
change his work and his tools every half hour and to apply his hand in
twenty different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost
always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application even
on the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his
deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce
considerably the quantity of work which he is capable of performing.
Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labor is
facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is
unnecessary to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore, that
the invention of all those machines by which labor is so much
facilitated and abridged, seems to have been originally owing to the
division of labor. Men are much more likely to discover easier and
readier methods of attaining any object, when the whole attention of
their minds is directed toward that; single object, than when it is
dissipated among a great variety of things. But in consequence of the
division of labor, the whole of every man's attention comes naturally to
be directed toward some one very simple object. It is naturally to be
expected, therefore, that some one or other of those who are employed in
each particular branch of labor should soon find out easier and readier
methods of performing their own particular work, wherever the nature of
it admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines made use of
in those manufactures in which labor is most subdivided, were originally
the inventions of common workmen, who, being each of them employed in
some very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts toward
finding out easier and readier methods of performing it. Whoever has
been much accustomed to visit such manufactures, must frequently have
been shown very pretty machines, which were the inventions of such
workmen, in order to facilitate and quicken their own particular part of
the work. In the first fire-engines, a boy was constantly employed to
open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the
cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or descended. One of
those boys, who loved to play with his companions, observed that, by
tying a string from the handle of the valve which opened this
communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and
shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to divert himself
with his playfellows. One of the greatest improvements that has been
made upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this manner
the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labor.
All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the
inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many
improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the
machines, when to make them became the business of a peculiar trade; and
some by that of those who are called philosophers or men of speculation,
whose trade it is not to do anything, but to observe everything; and
who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the
powers of the most distant and dissimilar objects. In the progress of
society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other employment,
the principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of
citizens. Like every other employment, too, it is subdivided into a
great number of different branches, each of which affords occupation to
a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers; and this subdivision of
employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business, improves
dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes more expert in his
own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity
of science is considerably increased by it.
It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different
arts, in consequence of the division of labor, which occasions, in a
well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to
the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of
his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and
every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled
to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or,
what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of
theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for,
and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a
general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of the
society.
Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-laborer in
a civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number
of people of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been
employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation.
The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day laborer, as coarse
and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labor of a great
multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the
wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver,
the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different
arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many
merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting
the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a
very distant part of the country! How much commerce and navigation in
particular, how many shipbuilders, sailors, sailmakers, ropemakers, must
have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made
use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the
world! What a variety of labor, too, is necessary in order to produce
the tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of such
complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller,
or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of
labor is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears
with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the
furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of
the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker,
the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the
forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order
to produce them. Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the
different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen
shirt which he wears nest his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the
bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the
kitchen grate at which be prepares his victuals, the coals which he
makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and
brought to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage, all the
other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the
knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he serves up
and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his
bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the
light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and
art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without
which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a
very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the
different workmen employed in producing those different conveniences; if
we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of
labor is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that without
the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest
person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to
what we may falsely imagine the easy and simple manner in which he is
commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant
luxury of the great, his accommodation must, no doubt, appear extremely
simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation
of a European prince does not always so such exceed that of an
industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter
exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives
and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.
Early Theorists of Division of Labor
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 labour.
"Well then, how will our state supply these needs? It will need a
farmer, a builder, and a weaver, and also, I think, a shoemaker and one
or two others to provide for our bodily needs. So that the minimum state
would consist of four or five men...." (The Republic, Page 103, Penguin
Classics edition.)
Xenophon
Xenophon, writing in the
fourth century BC makes a passing reference to division of labour 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, ploughs 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 specialised task will do it best."
(Cited in The Ancient Economy by M. I. Finley. Penguin books 1992, p
135.)
William Petty
Sir William Petty was the first modern
writer to take note of division of labour, 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 followed 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 labours
a-part, and only for himself, his force is too small to execute any
considerable work; his labour 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 introduction to l��Art de
l��pinglier�[2] - The Art of the Pin-Maker - (1761), Henri-Louis Duhamel
du Monceau writes about the "division of this work"[3]:
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 work. [...]
The first operation is to have brass go through the drawing plate to
calibrate it. [...]
By "division of this work", Duhamel du Monceau is referring to the
subdivisions of the text describing the various trades involved in the
pin making activity. Adam Smith has most likely misunderstood the text
in French, and thought that Duhamel du Monceau was talking about the
"division of labour"[4].
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 famously argued that the difference
between a street porter and a philosopher was as much a consequence of
the division of labour as its cause. Therefore, while for Plato the
level of specialization 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 labour 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 labour.
The specialization 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 organisation. For example, pin makers were organised with one making
the head, another the body, each using different equipment. Similarly he
emphasised 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 organisation. See also a short discussion of Adam Smith's
theory in the context of business processes.
Karl Marx
Increasing the 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
specialised and work repetitious which eventually leads to complete
alienation. Karl 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 labour
only as a temporary necessary evil.
Marx's most important theoretical
contribution is his sharp distinction between the social division and
the technical or economic division of labour. 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 labour 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 labour will evolve over time such that the maximum amount of
labour is productive labor, where productive labour is defined as labour
which creates surplus value.
In Marx's imagined communist society, the
division of labour is transcended, meaning that balanced human
development occurs where people fully express their nature in the
variety of creative work that they do.
Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau has criticised the division of
labour in his Walden (published in 1854), on the basis that it removes
people from a sense of connectedness with society and with the world at
large, including nature. He claims that the average man in a civilized
society is less wealthy, in practice, than one in a "savage" society.
The answer he gives is self-sufficiency, which he finds is enough to
cover one's basic needs. as quoted by Harry Tobin 2nd. Thoreau's friend
and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson criticizes the division of labor in "The
American Scholar"; a widely-informed, holistic citizenry is vital for
the spiritual and physical health of the country.
�mile Durkheim
�mile Durkheim
wrote about a fractionated, unequal world by dividing it along the lines
of "human solidarity," its essential moral value is division of labour.
In 1893 he published "The Division of Labour in Society", his
fundamental statement of the nature of human society and its social
development. According to Franz Borkenau it was a great increase in
division of labour occurring in the 1800s after the Industrial
Revolution that introduced the abstract category of work, which may be
said to underlie, in turn, the whole modern, Cartesian notion that our
bodily existence is merely an object of our (abstract) consciousness.
Ludwig von Mises
On the other hand, Marx's theories,
including the negative claims regarding the division of labor have been
criticized by the Austrian economists, such as Ludwig von Mises.
The main argument here is the gains
accruing from the division of labor far outweigh the costs; it is fully
possible to achieve balanced human development within capitalism, and
alienation is more a romantic fiction. After all, work is not all there
is; there is also leisure time.
References:
Classics of Organization Theory, Shafritz,
J.M. and Ott J.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour
http://wsu.edu/~dee/ENLIGHT/WEALTH1.HTM
http://www.outhousemuseum.com/wall_chic.html
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