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DIVISION OF LABOR.   Term Paper ID:30480 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Compares and contrasts social theorists viewpoints on specialization of functions.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Compares and contrasts social theorists viewpoints on specialization of functions. Social and economic philosophies of Karl Marx, Adam Smith & Max Weber. Their agreement regarding the standardization of production. Disagreement regarding economic and social purposes and outcomes of the division of labor. Concepts of Capitalism, self-interest, alienation of labor, free trade, social justice. Paper Introduction: Division of labor is an economic concept involving the specialization of the functions and roles of production. To social theorists, such as Karl Marx, Adam Smith and Max Weber, the division of labor is more than economics; it is rooted in their own individual philosophy of life and society. This paper will compare and contrast Marx, Smith and Weber with respect to their analysis of "the division of labor." All three men agree that the division of labor is tied to the standardization of production. To Adam Smith, the division of labor is the underlying principle of free trade, a concept he strongly advocated. To Marx, the division of labor is the underlying cause of the ills of society because it creates class differences, planting dissension among the individual workers. To Weber, the division of labor is the means by which one group in a Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Marx maintained that economic structure is the basis of history, andwas influenced by Smith's theory on the alienation of labor. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. To Weber, the division of labor is the means by whichone group in a society achieves unequal control over another. Man is assigned a place in thecosmos in the divine scheme of things. The introductionof new production machinery and the division of labor had made factoriesmore efficient. Smith arguedthat it is only through the accumulation of capital that the state ofcommerce, real independence of labor and economic well-being can beachieved. "The differentiation of men into theclasses and occupations established through historical development becamefor Luther...a direct result of the divine will" (16 ). Division of labor is an economic concept involving the specializationof the functions and roles of production. The Wealth of Nations. It belongs to another; it is the loss of his self (74). In describing the dehumanizing effect of the forces of productionincluding the division of labor, Marx (and Engels) were referring primarilyto technological innovations which enabled capital to squeeze moreefficiency or surplus value out of people and machines. To Smith, this was an improvementover the less efficient older system in which each person produced many ofthese goods for his/her own use, or at most, for the use of a very fewothers. The Marx-Engels Reader, Second edition. He did not see, as Marx did,that the division of labor had serious implications for labor, the greatestof which was the distance between the laborer and the object he produced.To Marx, the alienation of labor was one of the greatest sins of society,making work essentially forced labor. To social theorists, such as KarlMarx, Adam Smith and Max Weber, the division of labor is more thaneconomics; it is rooted in their own individual philosophy of life andsociety. Like Smith and Marx, Weber believed in the rational organization ofsociety and social justice. Smith recognized that the accumulation of capital results inproperty inequalities and that labor freedom and well-being, therefore, canonly be accomplished in the context of that inequality. All three, especially Marx and Weber, wereconcerned with the entire society and sympathetic to the individual who isacknowledged as inexorably tied to society. The Protestantview, according to Weber, places a different emphasis on the division oflabor. Smith also believedthat this propensity to barter and exchange was unique to humans. Works CitedSmith, Adam. Hewent on to explain that despite the many economic advantages gained fromthe division of labor, it was not in itself based on human insight andwisdom, but rather the necessary and gradual result of "the propensity (inhuman nature) to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another" (17).The consequence of this, according to Smith, was that it encouragedindividual self-interest, and led to differences among men that weregreater and more useful than their natural endowments. Of course, in the new, economic and political order he proposedthe individual would be swallowed up in a vast collective order. Although Max Weber, as Marx, viewed politics and life as a strugglefor power between nations, classes and individuals, in most respects Weberdisagreed with Marx. To Weber, the "asceticimportance of a fixed calling provided an ethical justification of themodern specialized division of labour" (163). In The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,Weber contended that "the spirit of capitalism...had to fights its way tosupremacy against a whole host of hostile forces" (56). ToMarx, the division of labor is the underlying cause of the ills of societybecause it creates class differences, planting dissension among theindividual workers. Norton & Company, 1978.Weber, Max. They also chained people to the machine and made themcommodities, whose wages, the average cost of labor, were always equal tothe marginal cost of production which would be established by market forcesat a bare subsistence level. Weber wrote that"wealth...as a performance of duty in a calling...is not only morallypermissible, but actually enjoined" (163). The virtues of these new Protestant religious were thrift, self-discipline and the avoidance of wasting time. First, the fact that labour is external to the worker i.e., it does not belong to his essential being....The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself...the worker's activity is not his Spontaneous activity. According toWeber, the single most important factor which liberated the capitalist orentrepreneurial spirit from the bonds of feudal society was the Protestantethic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.Tucker, Robert C., Editor. In 1776, Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations that "the greatestimprovements in the productive powers of labour, and the greatest part ofthe skill, dexterity, and judgement with which it is anywhere directed, orapplied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour" (7). Cooperativeproduction increased productivity (as he showed in his example of theproduction of pins) as did the division of labor into separate trades-bootmakers, carpenters, wheelwrights. To Adam Smith, the division of labor is theunderlying principle of free trade, a concept he strongly advocated. By creating an underclass or proletariatwhich was the victim of the division of labor and other forms ofexploitation, Marx believed the capitalist class had planted the seeds ofits own destruction. New York: W.W. Weber favored a rational ordering of society but never lost sight ofthe fact that its ultimate legitimacy depending on freeing, not confiningthe human spirit. New York: Routledge, 1992. Marx, in the name of humanism, decries the exploitationand dehumanization of the mass of humanity caught up in the factory system.He did more than identify the loss of human spirit; he proposed a newsocial order that would displace capitalism and the evils of the divisionof labor. Weber uses the writings of religious leaders such as Luther andAquinas, to justify the division of labor. To have a "well-marked calling" is best, as a "man wihtout acalling...lacks the systematic, methodical character...." (161).Specialization leads to "a quantitative and qualitative improvement inproduction and thus services the common good" (161). Smith wrote before the dominance of the capitalist mode of productionthat came with the Industrial Revolution. According to Weber, Lutheranismintroduced the radical concept that "fulfillment of duty in worldly affairs(was) the highest form which the moral activity of the individual couldassume" (8 ). This paper will compare and contrast Marx, Smith and Weber withrespect to their analysis of "the division of labor." All three men agree that the division of labor is tied to thestandardization of production. In Adam Smith's conception, economic growth, necessary to the increasein a country's wealth, is based on increasing division of labor and laborspecialization, the discovery of new kinds of technology, and an increasein the amount of raw materials available to producers. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.