Chapter II, The Metaphysics of Political Economy, 2. The Division of Labour and Machinery - Part 7 of 10

In past societies, there was a social division of labour operated under fixed rules. The most obvious example of that is the caste system. However, the medieval guilds also established such rules, and monopolies with entry into each trade regulated, and requiring lengthy and costly apprenticeships and indenture. These rules and regulation arose out of the material conditions of the time, and only later became embodied in laws, and powerful social taboos etc., again most clearly seen in caste based societies.

“In this way, these different forms of the division of labour became so many bases of social organization. As for the division in the workshop, it was very little developed in all these forms of society.” (p 125-6)

As a general rule, Marx says, the less authority determines a social division of labour, the more a division of labour develops in the workshop, and becomes subjected to the authority of a single person. Marx, then, sets out the actual history of how the capitalist workshop, with this division of labour, comes into existence. This workshop, he explains, is not the modern factory, based on machine production, “but which is already no longer the industry of the artisans of the Middle Ages, nor domestic industry.” (p 126)

Before this workshop could arise, a primary accumulation of capital is required. Marx sets out several sources of this accumulation.

1. Discovery of America and import of cheaper precious metals, reducing the value of the money commodity, and standard of prices, resulting in inflation of industrial commodity prices and profits.

“In other words: to the extent that the propertied class and the working class, the feudal lords and the people, sank, to that extent the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie, rose.” (p 126)

2. The development of trade, and establishment of colonies, created larger markets, and so capacity for large-scale production, which is a requirement for capitalist production

3. Availability of day labourers coming into towns from rural areas, as feudal retinues are disbanded and lands are cleared for sheep rearing, to meet the needs of increased textile production, in the towns.

“The growth of the market, the accumulation of capital, the modification in the social position of the classes, a large number of persons being deprived of their sources of income, all these are historical preconditions for the formation of manufacture. It was not, as M. Proudhon says, friendly agreements between equals that brought men into the workshop. It was not even in the bosom of the old guilds that manufacture was born. It was the merchant that became head of the modern workshop, and not the old guildmaster. Almost everywhere there was a desperate struggle between manufacture and crafts.” (p 127)

Back To Part 6

Forward To Part 8