Social Division of Labor

Social division of various kinds of labor mankind is engaged in a unified system of social production in accordance with the development needs of social production, as well as their interconnected and interactive operation and process. It embodies the social and co-operative nature of production. There are different types and levels of social division of labor, such as the division of productive and unproductive labor, and the division of material and mental productive labor within productive labor. Material productive labor of society once again includes division of labor in general fields and in particular branches, and mental productive labor includes the division of labor in different fields such as politics and culture, as well as domestic social division of labor and social division of labor abroad. In addition, in the production of products, there is also a distinction between the division of labor interior of a society and the division of labor interior of an enterprise. Marx held that the two “differ not only in degree, but also in kind.” That is, the division of labor interior of a society presupposes that the means of production are scattered among many commodity producers who are not dependent on each other; the division of labor interior of an enterprise presupposes that the means of production are concentrated in the hands of one capitalist. The different types and levels of division of labor influence each other, interact with each other, and mutually condition each other. The social division of labor is one of the hallmarks of human civilization. The nature, form, and level of social division of labor are determined by the development of the productive forces of society, and at the same time, it is a lever of the development of the productive forces of society.

Social division of labor has a historical nature, is a product of the development of human society to a certain stage, and arose and developed with the development of the productive forces of society. Unlike the natural division of labor of mankind, the social division of labor of mankind in the proper sense first appeared in the later period of the primitive society. With the gradual development of the productive forces and the dissolution of primitive society, different social divisions of labor such as agriculture, handicraft and simple commodity trade appeared, as did private property, classes and estates, the distinction between town and country, and the separation of mental and physical labor. In his book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels proposed three major social divisions of labor that took place in the later period of primitive society, i.e., the separation of pastoral tribes from the mass of the rest of the barbarians, the separation of handicraft from agriculture, and the appearance of the merchant class. The social division of labor is not a simple isolated phenomenon, it is always connected with certain socio-historical conditions and is a manifestation and result of the development of the productive forces of society. Therefore, different social divisions of labor are formed under different socio-historical conditions. The appearance and development of the social division of labor was both a result of and a great contribution to the development of the productive forces, thus enabling human society to develop from the initial cattle-raising and agriculture and then to the industrial age and the age of modern mechanical industry.

The social division of labor has a double nature as well as a double role. On the one hand, due to the social division of labor, social production is divided into different spheres, industries, sectors and jobs, and social labor is decomposed into private labors independent from each other, not only labors with differences are formed among the people, but also subjects of interests in opposition to each other. On the other hand, however, the social division of labor must place men in a relation of interconnection and interdependence, making it impossible for each person to survive independent from others. These two aspects supplement and presuppose each other. Thus, social division of labor and social association are conditioned by each other, and social division of labor is closely bound up with the social intercourse. In the historical process of social intercourse, the social division of labor is a very important factor that cannot be ignored.

Social division of labor is closely connected with the relations of production. In class society, social division of labor has an obvious nature of class antagonism. Marx and Engels criticized the phenomenon of coercive social division of labor in class society, which is linked to private property. In The German Ideology, they pointed out that division of labor and private property are identical expressions: in the one the same thing is affirmed with reference to activity as is affirmed in the other with reference to the product of the activity. As long as man remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. Especially under capitalist conditions, the individual is governed by the coercive division of labor, which turns the individual into an isolated, one-sided person. Consequently, this division of labor also has serious consequences in that it confines one portion of the population to a certain field specializing in a certain profession and subjecting it to the enslavement and domination of such professional activities and tools, which are physically and mentally stunting. In Anti-Dühring, Engels specifically addressed the enslavement and one-sided development of workers caused by the division of labor in the capitalist manufacture. He pointed out that in the division of labor, man is also divided. All other physical and mental faculties are sacrificed to the development of one single activity. This stunting of man grows in the same measure as the division of labor, which attains its highest development in manufacture. Manufacture splits up each trade into its separate partial operations, allots each of these to an individual laborer as his life calling, and thus chains him for life to a particular detail function and a particular tool. Therefore, Marx and Engels called the specialization in the division of labor, in which workers are compelled to perform a certain kind of labor and were fixed in a certain labor activity, the “old division of labor”.

History has proved that the social division of labor is an inevitable requirement and a necessary result of the development of the productive forces of society and a condition for promoting the further development of the productive forces of society. The division of labor helped to improve labor proficiency and increase the productivity of labor, and the division of labor makes production increasingly specialized and professional, and the finer the division of labor, the greater the need for close collaboration. Therefore, in a certain sense, the division of labor is a hallmark of social progress. However, the coercive old division of labor is connected with private property and class antagonism, and it has become a means for the exploitation of man by man. Therefore, only in a communist society, with the high development of the productive forces, the abolition of private property and the establishment of public property can the old division of labor be abolished. Of course, in general labor, due to technical reasons, the specialized division of labor will never be abolished, but will attain new development with the development of the productive forces of society and science and technology.