Hans-Florian Hoyer, Franz Nahrada, Andrius Kulikauskas, Marcus Petz are investigating
Why division of labor?
- Praise Hans-Florian championed division of labor as a game-changer
- Critique Franz Nahrada condemns division of labor (hfh:bringing in a text from a non-economic context as support.)
- Investigate Marcus Petz and Andrius Kulikauskas overview the ways that economists figured things out about division of labor
Praise for division of labor
2024.12.11 Hans-Florian: division of labour is one of the major game-changers in evolution of the status quo. Nobody invented it. In the essence it is (IMHO) being active on economic level for the needs of other ppl and having the own needs covered by the activities of a different set of other ppl. We all have the burden, to maintain our gifted life. Galater 6.2: 2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. which can be read: Cooperate in division of labour to maintain your lives.
My study of the historically "old" literature on economics and money has given me a picture of the division of labor, in the context of which there are also points that need to be critically evaluated, because of inconsistent realization of the idea.
The keyword here is the division of labor brought into the extreme of Taylorism. Even Adam Smith had concerns about such extreme forms.
Fundamentally, I agree with Johann Karl Rodbertus, who noted that a distinction should be made between social, economic and technological/operational division of labor.
If every adult had to live only on what their abilities could provide, the world would look different. Some things we don't like to see wouldn't be there, but also many things we like to see.
This IMHO cannot be attributed to the division of labor itself, but to those who organized the cooperation.
That would be one point of criticism of Franz's criticism. Abusus non tollit usum - abuse does not eliminate proper use.
Developing individual abilities is a deeply human process on the path to individualization.
This is evident in the concept of ikigai: I am good at it, I enjoy doing it, someone needs it, I get paid for it. Those who have this get up in the morning with a smile and say: Where is my work?
"Someone needs it": Work in the economic sense is related to the needs of others. There are few activities more satisfying than helping someone else with their needs in life. If one calls activities to still one's own needs also "work", this ist fine. Using the same word for different things will bring problems in the dicourse.
Some use the micro perspective: "activity" in relation to future needs. With or without price-tag, for ppl. one knows or not. There also is the macro perspective of mutuality, reciprocity in a society. I think we need on the bilateral level more reciprocity withiout a "re" - i.e. comming directly back to me. Helping someone could result in him helping someone else, which can be fine.
Division of labour seems to be more than a human thing. Adam Ferguson, who studied the division of labor before his friend Adam Smith, wrote:
Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design. Adam Ferguson. Essay on...
The development of the division of labor is the result of human action, but not the execution of a plan. Emile Durkheim begins his dissertation as follows:
The division of labor is not of recent origin, but it was only at the end of the eighteenth century that social cognizance was taken of the principle, though, until then, unwitting submission had been rendered to it. To be sure, several thinkers from earliest times saw its importance; but Adam Smith was the first to attempt a theory of it. Moreover, he adopted this phrase that social science later lent to biology.
Nowadays, the phenomenon has developed so generally it is obvious to all. We need have no further illusions about the tendencies of modern industry ; it advances steadily towards powerful machines, towards great concentrations of forces and capital, and consequently to the extreme division of labor. Durkheim
The fact that production and consumption take place under different roofs requires an organization of distribution and sharing of the proceeds. When housekeeping still meant that production and consumption took place under the same roof, there was no need for trade or money.
The division of labor has been effective for a long time. For me, the question is how to organize it so that the best in the individual can come out and that its results are made available to all. You can call this something else if you like - or not.
Consequences of the economic division of labor in the context of the social division of labor are IMHO:
- Enabling and organizing the cooperation of different skills for the needs of all, which are not necessarily known anymore
- Enabling participation in the cooperation by releasing people from their own needs in time
- Distributing the products (and services) to the households at the right time in the right quantity
- Enabling participation for all members of society according to their affiliation and contribution
- Dividing the proceeds of the cooperation among those who have contributed directly and indirectly. Meanwhile, indirect contributions outweigh direct ones.
The social gesture of sharing according to need and contributing according to ability does not require ownership, but only a common as shared ownership.
With individual ownership, exchanging, lending, giving, and sharing come into play. Robbery and theft are already possible with the common.
In the public transport of the balance of resources for the preservation of life, exchanging - selling and buying with the debit-credit money - prevailed and replaced the aspect of the division of labor outlined above. The means of distribution became the purpose of production. Thus, labor was separated from its cause: the satisfaction of foreseeable future needs.
There are no self-sufficient people. We depend on the gifts of the cosmos and the earth. To the extent that we no longer provide for ourselves from nature, more and more labor-sharing activity from others, even strangers, comes into play. In reality, we live as strangers who provide for strangers with their work. Mentally, we live in an illusionary bubble of self-sufficiency with money.
If we imagine ourselves in a supermarket with empty shelves, this bubble quickly bursts.
I prefer to cast doubt on this bubble. This includes the imperfect implementation of the division of labor and the associated falsities. This includes the "money" that is used not only in the service of distribution.
I cannont blame the idea of money, but to those who handle it. If money, the division of labor, democracies... are sick, we are the virus.
A German source on division of labour is Gustav Schmoller.
- The facts of the division of labor in: Yearbook of Legislation, Administration and Economics in the German Reich / Journal Volume (1889)/ Journal Issue] / Article / 1003 - 1074
- The essence of the division of labor and the formation of social classes in: Yearbook of Legislation, Administration and Economics in the German Reich [3] / Journal volume (1890)/ Journal issue / Article / 45 - 106 ;
2024.12.15 Hans-Florian counters Franz: Division of labor becomes productively relevant through collaboration. The organization of collaboration can also have undesirable results in addition to the desired ones. The organization can also be used with the intention of domination. This intention and also the undesirable side effects are not caused by the idea of the division of labor, but by the intention or the lack of care in the planning. I disagree with the statement that the idea of the division of labor could be the root of evil. The evil does not come from the division of labor, because it can be the cause of goods, services and infrastructures that give users a better quality of life than without it. The fact that not everyone belongs to the users is due to the inconsistent realization of the division of labor and the failure to observe values such as freedom, solidarity and equality. The text is not enlightening in this context and IMHO from a completely different context. Even if I can agree with some of the statements in it, there are statements that I have to disagree with. The concept of freedom is too one-sided for me. I also can't see what benefit it brings me to use new words for the same basics. The text wipes the accumulated scientific discourse off the table (clean slate) in order to create something new on it. This claim is too ambitious and is not fulfilled, even if it contains criticism of the status quo that is worthy of agreement. Personally, I am not willing to ignore the positive results of the economists' discussions because of this text.
Critique of division of labor
- could it be that division of labor is also the root of evil?
- could it be that all these mutual dependencies (that division of labor creates) lead to calculating and manipulating human relations ?
- That they destroy freedom and dignity from the very roots?
- That they are the deepest root of human dominance and inequality ?
- And last but not least: ? is there another way to a peaceful, self-organizing world that understands division of labor is NOT "innocent" and "good" - including the understanding that self-accumulating "exchange value" and money as the biggest evil in human history can be avoided?
I have a very interesting German text Oikonomia (machine translation into English) that describes an economy that avoids the negative consequences of division of labor. It is a bit difficult to read because it was part of a larger treatise on languages. Yet I think it can stand alone. It goes way beyond Marxism, so I had to understand and transgress the limits of Marxism to fully conceive it. There is no working class socialism, no nation state, and not ONE MODEL we seek to impose on "society". Rather it is a model that can only grow on the soil of free and equal collaboration. Free collaboration means there is no "binding" quality, we must alsway be able to fork (like in Open Source) only then can we build a free and just society that we are longing for. Yes, we must go through that paradox!
Here we go:
- historically and evolutionarily, the adequate perspective is self-work organized in a free, non-binding form. The concept of value and thus any usefulness or meaning of money is in principle invalid within society, which is actually becoming increasingly real in the course of the accumulation of knowledge
- or in other words, the solely power-strategic function of value is becoming increasingly difficult to conceal
2024.12.12 Franz Nahrada The main problem of todays world is the culmination of dependencies, the elimination of any form of autonomy - down to biopolitics and immune system. It is in deeper perspective outright ridiculous to call this "division of labor". We need to talk about autonomy as absolute condition to freedom before we can talk abuot sharing of labor. and autonomy begets some degree of autarcy. But the current economic system cripples us, then sells us protheses. They do it on purpose. It is their own ways of predatory survival. And the comfyness of their "solutions" is the opium of the masses. They destroyed the conditions of self-work - all described in chapters of the oikonomia paper.
Sharing Marcus indicates we can think of sharing rather than division. Franz suggests sharing is a later stage after division. There is something about sharing https://mutualaidnetwork.org/fr/about in this pyramid of abundance run by HUMANSInMadisonUSA.
Identifying the related ways that economists figure things out
Andrius: Consider the ways that abovementioned economists figured things out.
- Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith, Taylor, Johann Karl Rodbertus, Gustav Schmoller