Simple Co-operation

Marx divided the development of capitalist production into division of labor and simple co-operation, manufacture and mechanical industry, whereas the simple co-operation was the basic form of labor in common adopted at a low level of productive forces and in the absence of social division of labor, highlighting the collective and social nature of the labor-process, thus creating the new productive power of social labor.

When numerous laborers work next to and with each other in accordance with a plan, whether in one and the same process, or in different but connected processes, they are said to co-operate, or to work in co-operation. Co-operation, as distinguished from isolated labor or individual labor, can be divided into simple co-operation and complex co-operation which is based on the division of labor. Simple co-operation was the basic form of socialization of labor in the early capitalist period, co-operation without the division of labor. In the capitalist handicraft workshop, multiple workers could each separately complete a certain product, and the workers performed labor in common, i.e., socialized labor, in the same shop under the command of capital. This was the point of departure capitalist production both historically and logically. The simple co-operation was the mode of production corresponding to the level of development of capitalist productive forces at the very outset, suited to in those branches of production in which capital operated on a large scale, and division of labor and machinery played but a subordinate part. With the further development of the capitalist productive forces, the simple co-operation gradually transitioned to complex co-operation, i.e., division of labor and manufacture.

Compared with the individual labor of the handicraft trades of the feudal guilds, the progress of simple co-operation was that, although there was no deepening of division of labor or technological progress, it created a collective productive power that exceeded individual productive powers and endowed the individual labor with the character of average social quality, i.e., “labor of average social quality, i.e., the expression of average labor-power”. It also obliterated the differences in technical skill between workers, and was simultaneously capable of exciting the competitive spirits and increasing the efficiency of individuals, the law of valorization was thus only fully unfolded under such labor. Secondly, the simultaneous employment of a larger number of laborers effected a revolution in the material conditions of the labor-process, i.e., the economy in the use of the means of production, the fall in the total value of the commodity, which ultimately led to a fall in the value of labor-power, and ultimately allowed the capitalist workshop owner to appropriate and extract more of the surplus-value produced by workers without compensation.