One of the most traditional ideas known to humankind concerns the social division of labor. This idea, attributed by many to gender differences, is that 'some people' are 'by nature' better suited to perform some activities, and other people are better suited 'by nature' to others. Time-honored examples of this tenet would be that 'smart' people gravitate towards skilled work and 'not-so-smart' people gravitate towards unskilled, and that women gravitate towards 'women's work' and men towards 'men's work,' and so forth.It is considered a necessity of modern industrialized life that there is a strict division of labor. Division of labor is both the ultra-productivity of the assembly-line as well as the specialization of the brain surgeon. The assembly-line exemplifies the detail work that is known as division of labor in the workshop ('simple cooperation'); the specialization of the brain surgeon exemplifies the social division of labor ('complex cooperation'). The former division is a relatively new phenomenon, associated with the advent of manufacture; the latter division, however, goes back millennia into human history. The detail work of division of labor in the workshop is, of course, predicated upon the original social division of labor. Social stratification, as demonstrated by 'representative' government, is also predicated upon the social division of labor.
Utopia 2000 opposes the social division of labor and asserts that it has provided the historic basis for all hierarchy, authority, and exploitation.
Plato's Argument for the Social Division of Labor
The argument for 'natural' classifications of labor go back as far as Plato, who stated:
[W]e must infer that all things are produced more plentifully and easily and of a better quality when one man does one thing which is natural to him and does it at the right time, and leaves other things.(1)
Upon this 'first principle' the ideal republic was formed:
[T]he shoemaker was not allowed by us to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder---in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker was assigned one work for which he was by nature fitted, and at that he was to continue working all his life long and at no other; he was not to let opportunities slip, and then he would become a good workman. Now nothing can be more important than that the work of a soldier should be well done. But is war an art so easily acquired that a man may be a warrior who is also a husbandman, or shoemaker, or other artisan; although no one in the world would be a good dice or draught player who merely took up the game as a recreation, and had not from his earliest years devoted himself to this and nothing else?(2)
Thus the social division of labor became the initiating condition of Plato's ideal society, a society characterized by dictatorship,(3) eugenics,(4) and thought control.(5) This reasoning---that some should farm for the nation and others should fight for the nation---has been easily adopted into the precept that specialists are also required to run the nation. Plato's military analogy was followed closely by Stalin who once asserted: 'No army at war can dispense with an experienced General Staff if it does not want to court certain defeat. Is it not clear that the proletariat can still less dispense with such a General Staff if it does not want to give itself up to be devoured by its mortal enemies?'(6)
Returning to Plato, it is clear that this reasoning has been adduced from the social division of labor:
There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders.(7)
Different Assessments of the Social Division of Labor
There have been significant differences of opinion regarding the social division of labor in political economy. Marx, as earlier noted, was a fierce opponent of detail work in the factory, but at times accepted the social division as possessing the countenance of nature. A significant statement of his:
Those small and extremely ancient Indian communities, some of which have continued down to this day, are based on possession in common of the land, on the blending of agriculture and handicrafts, and an unalterable division of labor, which serves, whenever a new community is started, as a plan and scheme ready cut and dried...The law that regulates the division of labor in the community acts with the irresistible authority of a law of Nature, at the same time that each individual artificer, the smith, the carpenter, and so on, conducts in his workshop all the operations of his handicraft in the traditional way, but independently, and without recognizing any authority over him. The simplicity of the organization for production in these self-sufficing communities that constantly reproduce themselves in the same form, and when accidentally destroyed, spring up again on the spot and with the same name---this simplicity supplies the key to the secret of the unchangeableness of Asiatic societies, an unchangeableness in such striking contrast with the constant dissolution and refounding of Asiatic States, and the never-ceasing changes of dynasty. The structure of the economic elements of society remains untouched by the storm clouds of the political sky.(8)
On the other hand, Adam Smith, who is often portrayed as the quintessential defender of capitalism, questioned the seeming immutability of the social division of labor with an observation worthy of behaviorist J.B. Watson:
The difference of natural talents in different men is, in reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the cause as the effect of the division of labor. The difference between most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much from nature as from habit, custom, and education. When they came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence, they were perhaps very much alike, and neither their parents nor play-fellows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to employed in very different occupations. The difference of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any resemblance.(9)*
A Proposal to Integrate Labor
Following Owen, Utopia 2000 advocates a classification of labor according to age or, more specifically, according to educational development paired with the needs of the community as decided upon by the community. Such a classification may be as follows:
- Ages K-18. Education.
- Ages 18-26. Entry-level labor pool.
- Ages 26-30. Education.
- Ages 30-36. Mid-management labor pool (placement predicated by educational aptitude).
- Ages 36-40. Continued education (predicated by displayed aptitude in § 4).
- . Ages 40-65. Highly specialized fields.**
Benefits of such a system include (a) the assurance that all early (unskilled) endeavors would, in fact (and not merely 'in theory'), be rewarded later in life with the assignment of skilled endeavors and increased responsibility, (b) the rational self-interest of each individual to insure that all jobs, from humblest to most sophisticated, would be dignified and safe because all members (and family members) would be subject to similar work conditions, and (c) the identification of all members with all manners of labor, thus preventing the debasing or aggrandizing of either unskilled or skilled labor.
To this system it would be advisable to institute, within the circumscriptions of education and skill mastery necessitated by different jobs, another less formalized system wherein various professions 'rotate' with others in the effort to prevent occupational hierarchies from forming (such as members of 'representational government.') Following Rawls' 'original position,' the aim would be to create a society where it would be in every member's interest to prevent any one job from having harsh conditions because all members would eventually 'confront' the conditions of each job. (As Skinner put it, '[i]t is reasonable to suppose that [the designer of a culture] will not use aversive techniques if he himself will be affected by them or positive techniques which lead to exploitation if he himself will be exploited.'(10)) Likewise, any endeavors to create special privileges for particular professions would be resisted by the fact that such professions (with attached privileges) would soon enough become 'turned over' to other community members and thus made inaccessible to those who instituted said privileges---unless all jobs gained privileges, which would be a gain to all. Hierarchy would be thus eliminated, not by appeals to 'fairness,' but by a common consensus based on rational self-interest.***
A Society of Integrated Labor
It has been asserted for over two thousand years that some people are 'fit' for certain jobs while other people are 'fit' for other jobs. While this claim may be attractive to those who perform status-enhanced skilled jobs, it is less credible to those who 'specialize' in society's devalued unskilled tasks simply because such labor assignments feed the requirements of a level of productivity sustained by unskilled work. To insist that 'nature'---like some 'invisible hand' that possesses supernatural impartiality and power---decides work assignments throughout society when the 'market' restriction of education fails to put such an assertion to the test is disingenuous at best, career eugenics at worst.**** More importantly, the asseveration that some people are qualified to run the affairs of state while others are only qualified to follow orders---pronouncements made by various political and religious agencies throughout history---has certainly required the widespread observance of a strict social division of labor.
Abolishing the social division of labor has been a traditional theme in utopian writing. Fourier decreed that '[w]ork sessions must be varied about eight times a day because a man cannot remain enthusiastic about his job for more than an hour and a half or two when he is performing an agricultural or manufacturing task.'(11) Morris insisted that '[t]o compel a man to do day after day the same task, without any hope of escape or change, means nothing short of turning his life into a prison-torment.'(12) And John Humphrey Noyes (founder of the Oneida Community) anticipated feminism with this statement:
Loving companionship in labor, and especially the mingling of the sexes, makes labor attractive. The present division of labor between the sexes separates them entirely. The woman keeps house, and the man labors abroad. Instead of this, in vital society men and women will mingle in both of their peculiar departments of work.(13)
Utopia 2000 does not attempt to claim that the abolition of the social division of labor would not result in some measure of decreased industrial productivity (although it may be found acceptable to retain the 'simple cooperation' of detail work provided that it is evenly rotated among community members). Utopia 2000 nonetheless can find no better means of guaranteeing that individuals will value all social and labor positions and, if not so, will then strive to make all positions desirable (through either hour reduction or technology) unless all individuals participate evenly in the various jobs that comprise the work of a community. Such 'rotation' will insure that all members shall influence and be 'invested' in the democratic maintenance of their social order.
* To Smith's observation may be added this by John Stuart Mill, addressing the traditional claim that work variety would be inefficient because of the time lost in changing tasks : 'The habit of passing rapidly from one occupation to another may be acquired, like other habits, by early cultivation...Women are usually (at least in their present social circumstances) of far greater versatility than men; and the present topic is an instance among multitudes, how little the ideas and experience of women have yet counted for, in forming the opinions of mankind. There are few women who would not reject the idea that work is made vigorous by being protracted, and is inefficient for some time after changing to a new thing. Even in this case, habit, I believe, much more than nature, is the cause of the difference.' (Principles of Political Economy ((Longmans, Green and co., 1926)), book I, chapter VIII, § 5, pp. 127-28.)** Education to be concurrent with the performance of some work duties.
*** Such a system has been implemented informally at Los Horcones: 'Along with making it possible for more members to become [specialized task] coordinators, this training insures that the community never becomes too dependent upon any one individual...[T]his arrangement prevents any member from using his or her special expertise to coerce the rest of the group.' (Horcones, 'Personalized Government: A Government System Based on Behavior Analysis,' Behavior Analysis and Social Action, 7: 1 & 2, 1989, p. 45.)
**** As noted earlier, only 25% of American jobs require any skills above a high school level (Business Week, 1 September 1997, p. 67). Market supply and demand (as expressed in education assessability) sees to it that only 25% of the American population receive degrees above a high school level (Statistical Abstract of the United States 1996, table 243, p. 160). Thus the challenge to the veracity of popular notions of equal opportunity as expressed by the question 'if everyone was educated, would all the unskilled work become obviated?' has never been confronted.
Notes:
1. Plato's Republic (Jowett Translation, Modern Library Edition), p. 61.
2. Ibid., pp. 67-68.
3. Ibid., p. 203.
4. Ibid., pp. 182-83.
5. Ibid., p. 73 and 86-87.
6. Joseph Stalin, Foundations of Leninism (International, 1939), p. 110.
7. Plato's Republic (Modern Library Edition), p. 204.
8. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I (International, 1967), chapter XIV, sec. 4, p. 357-58.
9. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Everyman Edition), p. 14.
10. B.F. Skinner, 'Utopia as an Experimental Culture,' Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1969), p. 43.
11. Charles Fourier, The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier (Beacon Press, 1971), translated & edited by Jonathan Beecher and Richard Bienvenu, pp. 274-75.
12. William Morris, 'Useful Work Versus Useless Toil,' News From Nowhere and other writings (Penguin Classics Edition), pp. 299-300.
13. John Humphrey Noyes, History of American Socialisms (Hillary House Edition), p. 636.
