The Division of Labor: Marx and Smith - Aara
Both Marx and Smith recognized the historical accounts of the division of labor. To Smith, human’s natural inclination to exchange goods led to specialization in the labor force due to the ability to barter goods based on surpluses of produce. However, to Marx, the division of labor played a critical role in what he saw as inequality and exploitation of the proletariat at the hands of the bourgeois. Both Smith and Marx have very different accounts of the respective positive and negative effects of the division of labor.
Smith sets the stage of the industrial revolution: a time when machines and specialization created the “...greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor” (5). An increase in productivity and the quantity of work produced from this went hand in hand with the ability to work efficiently in an area that one has spent time increasing their skill in. By specifying the type of labor one spends time in, they are able to produce a surplus of goods. This time is also used to improve their skills in this area, perhaps now being able to bake 30 loaves of bread in a day instead of 10. The surplus of goods then is used to trade for other goods that others have a surplus in as well.
The realities of the workforce, without cars and remote jobs, also made it difficult to switch between various jobs during this time. Smith uses agriculture and manufacturing to pinpoint the factors of an “improved” society. However, the productivity of agriculture to a certain extent remains necessarily the same in rich and poor countries. He claims that the “degree of goodness” in food produce is relatively consistent across the globe. The differences, however, come from manufacturing. The power of productivity comes from the efficiency and quantity that a richer country is able to produce.
These improvements and increases, as a consequence of the division of labor, come from three circumstances:
To increase the dexterity in every particular workman
To the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another
To the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many
First, an increase in capabilities in a particular area of work allows a worker to become more efficient in that area. That labor alone is then able to produce a larger quantity of goods than they would have before or compared to unspecialized laborer. Next, and this is more related to the realities back then than in the modern world, it was physically hard to switch between types of labor. Transportation and having to pick one’s tools up and move took time - valuable time that Smith thinks was lost. If one was new to a type of work, they may also create a habit of “indolent careless application” (10), not being keen to start a new job all over again. Lastly, the person who is specialized in a certain area will be more acute in catching improvements in using technology to their advantage. Their minds are on a particular object, their attention on a specific task. Thus, they are more likely to pay attention to methods that in turn will make it easier to perform their duties.
Smith sees this natural division of labor as something that will benefit society as a whole, like a trickle-down effect. Even the lowest ranks of people can benefit from using the surplus of their labor to financially support themselves, living a “comfortable habitation” (14). Lower costs and an increased number of goods benefitted the economic growth of a society. To him, the positive effect of growth and productivity of a capitalist society was ideal, and the best alternative to economic systems in the past.
However, Marx might see Smith’s analysis of the laborer and his labor as extremely reductive to an individual’s life. To Marx, the capitalist society has created individuals that are seen as just laborers, and not much else. In addition, he would critique the combining of an individual with their labor, as in reality (to him), the laborer really did not own their means of production. Labor thus alienates the worker from their work, goods of production, and thus from humanity as a whole.
While efficiency and productivity might increase the quantity of goods produced, they might not increase the quality of one’s life. The expansion of trade and manufacturing that Smith lays out in The Wealth of Nations created moveable capital. Private property and capital are two tools used by the upper classes to exploit the lower classes. The division of labor created a division in society in all areas. In The German Ideology, Marx writes that “Labour is here again the chief thing, power over individuals…”(176). Anything that divides us, Marx notes, goes against the idea of humans as social beings. The social man is now an “egoistic man” who is solely concerned with his own self-interest, and with private property, the protection of it against others.
Individuals also have a fallacious view of how much control they actually have over their means of production. While Smith continuously points to a laborer’s ability to exchange their surplus of goods, Marx argues that laborers do not own their own means of production. He writes, “the division of labor offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society… as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man’s own deed...enslaves him instead of being controlled by him” (12). Capitalists are able to pay laborers less and extract more profit from the goods that their labor produces (although Smith does not necessarily support exploitation and does argue for liveable wages). While to Smith, people are able to move up through hierarchies, allowing lower-class individuals to escape certain fates, Marx sees this as a false sense of control awarded to the proletariat. Smith sees a sense of freedom granted to individuals, out of control by feudal lords. Marx views this as a guise of freedom; the proletariat will always be stuck in their perspective class, under the control of the bourgeois.
Both Smith and Marx agree that this economic model is an improvement from others in the past. However, they have different views about whether this is beneficial or detrimental to human beings. Who do you think we should listen to? Can there be a balance by extracting certain aspects of both?
Great blog post. I think the fundamental difference between Marx's and Smith's views on the division of labor stems from what they are trying to address. For Smith, the division of labor is all about economic progress and prosperity. This is best embodied in Book I Chapter I (paragraph 10), where he states:
ReplyDelete"Hence the universal opulence of a well-governed society,It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, 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."
Hence, for Smith, it is clear that the division of labor will benefit society as a whole, even those at the bottom (as you note). However, I think the distinction here is that Smith seems to be looking to the material conditions of one's life, hence his focus on "opulence," while Marx is concerned with something more abstract and intangible.
For Marx, as you point out, this is a reductive view of the division of labor. As he says on page 239 of Das Kapital, "constant labour of one uniform kind disturbs the intensity and flow of a man's animal spirits." Marx is more concerned with the "human emancipation" that he talks about in On The Jewish Question. He believes that capitalism is a tool of the liberal state to suppress the freedom and social inclinations that naturally reside in all of us. While he does see this as an improvement from a feudal society, it is not enough because it still falls shy of the true extent of freedom and variety that we naturally crave and deserve.
As to the question of who we should listen to: it depends on what state of affairs we are looking to improve. There is plenty of evidence to support Smith's claims that a free market division of labor improves the economic state of affairs of societies and their respective citizens. Therefore, if the goal is to improve material conditions, then Smith's words likely bear more weight. On the other hand, if we accept Marx's argument that the liberal state is not the highest form of freedom we can (and should) strive for, or if we are seeking to address the oppression of marginalized economic groups, then it is perhaps his perspective that we should adopt.
Hi Aara and Umer, great posts. You both outlined Smith’s and Marx’s competing conceptions of the division of labor. I think one can perhaps defend Smith’s conception and criticize Marx’s in two ways.
ReplyDeleteFirst, as you both noted, Smith makes it quite clear that the division of labor increases efficiency in society. Smith’s pin example—which reminds me the Milton Friedman’s pencil example—perfectly illustrates how the division of labor makes possible the production of new goods. The default example I keep returning to this semester is Big Pharma—a perfect example of the product of the division of labor. The pharmaceutical industry in the U.S. appears deeply flawed—Big Pharma brings drugs to market that are based on research that is subsidized by taxpayers or developed by a small biotech company that gets gobbled up through M&A. They also produce gross inequities—the poor and middle class often cannot afford their medication and have to ration. Seems unfair and wrong—Marx would lambaste everything about the industry. And yet of course, without Big Pharma, the world would unequivocally be a much worse place. Taking drugs to market is an incredibly costly and risky task—it takes over a decade on average, costs over $1 billion per drug, and over 90% of drugs don’t make it out of clinical trials. Without behemoths to assume this risk, we would never have the life-saving drugs that have been responsible for nearly all the extensions in life expectancy over the past 50 years. The world would also almost certainly not be able to manufacture vaccines for diseases like Covid nearly as fast. That means that the division of labor, which allows individuals to specialize, and then to enter into contracts to jointly assume risk in pursuit of a profit incentive, singlehandedly is responsible for greatly increasing to one of the best markers of human wellbeing.
This example leads me into the second way I think one can defend Smith against Marx. Pharma is one example—architecture, engineering, agriculture—are all necessary to sustain society and benefit substantially from the division of labor. It is hard to imagine, that if the division of labor never existed, that we would even develop the technology and reach the efficiency needed to emerge from agrarian society. Rather, I think one can make the argument that the division of labor—through increased efficiency—opens up a whole range of careers to individuals and allows them to better pursue their talents. Furthermore, I think a really interesting pathway could be to combine Smith’s argument with the benign version of the Puritan work ethic that Anderson wrote about (as its clear that Smith has sympathy for laborers, as evidenced through his support of a living wage). If every laborer is considered as advancing human society through their work—contributing to the great human project—how could we continue to defend extreme esteem hierarchies. If adopted that mindset, would we not be forced to dignify even those workers that are at the bottom of the wage hierarchy?
I should also add, in hindsight, that Smith also argues that the efficiency derived from the division of labor in manufacturing is even more pronounced than in agriculture, so even if a society can advance beyond a baseline agrarian economy without a division of labor, that's when the difficulties begin.
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