4) Division of Labour in Manufacture and Division of Labour in Society
The social
division of labour is the foundation of all commodity production.
“If we
keep labour alone in view, we may designate the separation of social
production into its main divisions or genera —
viz., agriculture, industries, &c., as division of labour in
general, and the splitting up of these families into species and
sub-species, as division of labour in particular, and the division of
labour within the workshop as division of labour in singular or in
detail.” (p 331-2)
The division
of labour arises in primitive societies because within the tribe or
clan, and later, when the family arises within the tribe, within the family too, different individuals have
different abilities based on physiological differences. But,
similarly, different communities, in different environments, develop
different means of production and subsistence so that when these
tribes and clans meet, they have different products, which they can
exchange.
“Exchange
does not create the differences between the spheres of production,
but brings what are already different into relation, and thus
converts them into more or less inter-dependent branches of the
collective production of an enlarged society. In the latter case, the
social division of labour arises from the exchange between spheres of
production, that are originally distinct and independent of one
another. In the former, where the physiological division of labour is
the starting-point, the particular organs of a compact whole grow
loose, and break off, principally owing to the exchange of
commodities with foreign communities, and then isolate themselves so
far, that the sole bond, still connecting the various kinds of work,
is the exchange of the products as commodities. In the one case, it
is the making dependent what was before independent; in the other
case, the making independent what was before dependent.” (p 332-3)
The basis of
a developed social division of labour is the separation of town and
country. The social division of labour can only proceed on the basis
of a certain minimum level and density of population. There must be
enough people to provide a market for specific goods that makes it
worthwhile developing production of them as a separate activity.
“Just
as a certain number of simultaneously employed labourers are the
material pre-requisites for division of labour in manufacture, so are
the number and density of the population, which here correspond to
the agglomeration in one workshop, a necessary condition for the
division of labour in society. Nevertheless, this density is more or
less relative. A relatively thinly populated country, with
well-developed means of communication, has a denser population than a
more numerously populated country, with badly-developed means of
communication; and in this sense the Northern States of the American
Union, for instance, are more thickly populated than India.” (p
333)
A
dialectical interaction exists between the division of labour in
manufacture and in society.
“Since
the production and the circulation of commodities are the general
pre-requisites of the capitalist mode of production, division of
labour in manufacture demands, that division of labour in society at
large should previously have attained a certain degree of
development. Inversely, the former division reacts upon and develops
and multiplies the latter. Simultaneously, with the differentiation
of the instruments of labour, the industries that produce these
instruments, become more and more differentiated. If the
manufacturing system seize upon an industry, which, previously, was
carried on in connexion with others, either as a chief or as a
subordinate industry, and by one producer, these industries
immediately separate their connexion, and become independent. If it
seize upon a particular stage in the production of a commodity, the
other stages of its production become converted into so many
independent industries.2 (p 333-4)
Where
manufacture consists of a number of separate parts that are
assembled, this can lead to the production of the parts themselves by
other outside producers, including handicraft producers. Something
similar to this was identified in the 1980's and 90's by theorists of
flexible specialisation, in regard to “The Third Italy”. But,
from the 1980's onwards, there was a move by many large companies to
focus on their core activity, and to delegate production, and
provision of services, for non-core activities to external suppliers.
The social
division of labour and the division of labour in manufacturing appear
to be the same, but they are not. Under the former, a cattle breeder
might provide hides, that the tanner turns into leather, that the
cobbler turns into shoes. Each provides the next with the material
required for their own production. But, each is produced and sold as
a commodity. Within manufacture, the output of each worker is not
immediately a commodity. It is merely a component, or the completion
of a stage in a process in the production of a commodity.
“The
division of labour in the workshop implies concentration of the means
of production in the hands of one capitalist; the division of labour
in society implies their dispersion among many independent producers
of commodities. While within the workshop, the iron law of
proportionality subjects definite numbers of workmen to definite
functions, in the society outside the workshop, chance and caprice
have full play in distributing the producers and their means of
production among the various branches of industry. The different
spheres of production, it is true, constantly tend to an equilibrium:
for, on the one hand, while each producer of a commodity is bound to
produce a use-value, to satisfy a particular social want, and while
the extent of these wants differs quantitatively, still there exists
an inner relation which settles their proportions into a regular
system, and that system one of spontaneous growth; and, on the other
hand, the law of the value of commodities ultimately determines how
much of its disposable working-time society can expend on each
particular class of commodities.” (p 336)
But, it is
precisely within this difference that the real nature and
contradictions of Capitalism as a system are exposed. Within the
factory, within the process of manufacture, everything proceeds in an
orderly fashion, based on a preconceived plan, which is itself based
on a scientific understanding of the necessary proportions in which
each component is to be produced and so on. Within capitalism as a
whole, no such rationality exists.
“But
this constant tendency to equilibrium, of the various spheres of
production, is exercised, only in the shape of a reaction against the
constant upsetting of this equilibrium. The a priori
system on which the division of labour, within the workshop, is
regularly carried out, becomes in the division of labour within the
society, an a posteriori, nature-imposed
necessity, controlling the lawless caprice of the producers, and
perceptible in the barometrical fluctuations of the market-prices.
Division of labour within the workshop implies the undisputed
authority of the capitalist over men, that are but parts of a
mechanism that belongs to him. The division of labour within the
society brings into contact independent commodity-producers, who
acknowledge no other authority but that of competition, of the
coercion exerted by the pressure of their mutual interests; just as
in the animal kingdom, the bellum omnium contra omnes
[war of all against all – Hobbes] more or less preserves the
conditions of existence of every species. The same bourgeois mind
which praises division of labour in the workshop, life-long
annexation of the labourer to a partial operation, and his complete
subjection to capital, as being an organisation of labour that
increases its productiveness that same bourgeois mind denounces with
equal vigour every conscious attempt to socially control and regulate
the process of production, as an inroad upon such sacred things as
the rights of property, freedom and unrestricted play for the bent of
the individual capitalist. It is very characteristic that the
enthusiastic apologists of the factory system have nothing more
damning to urge against a general organisation of the labour of
society, than that it would turn all society into one immense
factory.” (p 336-7)
The social
division of labour can be witnessed in all kinds of society. Under
the Asiatic Mode of Production, it assumes fixed legal forms. The
Guilds too ensured their own monopolies by preventing capital from
employing labour and was consistent with handicraft production.
“While
division of labour in society at large, whether such division be
brought about or not by exchange of commodities, is common to
economic formations of society the most diverse, division of labour
in the workshop, as practised by manufacture, is a special creation
of the capitalist mode of production alone.” (p 339)
No comments:
Post a Comment