What Is Economics? What Role Does the Division of Labour Play in Defining This Subject Matter?

The division of labor is a complex phenomenon that is characterized by varying aspects of an individual’s social connection to the society in which they reside. The Division of labor is a broad process that affects and influences many aspects of life such as political, judicial, and administrative functions (Bratton & Denham, 2014). Two of the main sociological theorists, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim, had different understandings of the notion about the division of labor. This topic has been contested and debated by many theorists but this paper is going to focus on how Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx views this topic. Karl Marx views the division of labor as a process that alienates the individual from their work (Llorente, 2006). Marx also views the division of labor as a way for the capitalist bourgeoisie to take advantage of the wage labor of the proletariat. Emile Durkheim identifies with Marx in the economic sense that the division of labor furthers the rationalization and bureaucratization of labor, but differs in that the division of labor provides individuals in society with social solidarity and ensures their connection to society. This paper is going to reflect on some of the aspects in which Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx view the division of labor, while showing some of the similarities and differences between the two theorists conception of the topic.

Division of labour is also credited with the rise of trade between different areas, the rise of capitalism, and increasingly complex manufacturing and industrialization. For Karl Marx, the production portion of Capitalism signalled great trouble. He believed production in Capitalist society worked in a way that the rich factory owner benefited and the poor factory workers lost. In his manner of reasoning, the Capitalist system was inherently meant to benefit the rich and exploit the poor: “All the bourgeois economists are aware of is that production can be carried on better under the modern police than on the principle of might makes right. They forget only that this principle is also a legal relation, and that the right of the stronger prevails in their ‘constitutional republics’ as well, only in another form.”[ii] Marx’s view of society and the world lead him to believe that humans create change in their lives and in their environment through practical activity in the practical world.

In order to fully understand what economics is, t. For example, economics is about the money that we make and what we choose to do with it s, and it’s not an economist’s job to tell people what stocks and bonds they should be investing in. “ The Economist deal with politics and current events and are not specifically economic-related, despite the title of the publication. But there is a subfield of economics known as political economy”

As the famous rap group Mobb Deep once said, “Cash rules everything around me cream, get the money. Dollar dollar bill yalllll”, they weren’t lying. If one that gets things done is money, and in order to get money these corporation use the strategic ideology of division of labor to get their products going. Division of labor is a practice that every corporation does with its workers. It narrows specialization of tasks within a production process so that each worker can become a specialist in doing one thing. Especially on an assembly line. In traditional industries, division of labor is a major motive force for economic-growth. With this practice products get finished quicker and sold quicker as well, which brings in the money flowing hence why it’s an important practice and its everywhere. At restaurants, we have waiters/servers, host, cooks, managers, food runners, and busser, this gets people seated faster, attended to quicker, and food cooked in a timely manner (most times). I believe without this a lot of places would in fact be a mess without, just like Emile Durkheim. She believes that division of labor is beneficial to our society and I mostly agree with her statement. Karl Marx also finds Division of Labor necessary to have multiple number of workers under one capitalist. As for Adam Smith, his main focus is growth. Smith believes that growth is rooted in the practice of division of labor. Each of these people agree that division of labor is a necessity in our

This week I will be focusing on David Harvey’s work, Capitalism: The Factory of Fragmentation, and how it classifies stratification within society. Throughout the readings, it was more than evident that Harvey believed that new-age Capitalism works to separate the workforce and creates individuals with an inadequate sense of purpose as implied on pages 217 and 218. This information, thus indicates that those who reign on top of the Capitalist hierarchy control the process of which workers confront daily life. Those who have already ascended to power, maintain it by diverting the attention of those individuals still climbing the rungs of modern Capitalism effectively creating a dissonance within them that serves to keep them from asserting any

In this essay, Richard Wolff discusses the importance of changing the “who and why of key economic decision making” (3). In our current system, large corporations’ major shareholders and the boards of directors they elect typically make key decisions in a business. These decision makers make up a few small portion of the population, which often leads to the marginalization of certain groups of people. Instead of this top-down approach that has created inequality, this system proposes worker self-directed enterprises (WSDEs). WSDEs reorganize enterprises and allow “workers to become their own bosses” (3). In this system, employees of enterprises would be responsible to divide all the labors to be performed, determine what is to be produced, and decide on the use and

Social division of labour and detail division of labour are both unique as they have their differences. Detail division of labour is primarily focused on high class workers and occupations. Social division of labour is focused on individuals and communities within the society. In society capitalist play a major role because they are focused on division of labour and means of production. The position that Harry Braverman takes is that both social and detail division of labour have their positives and negatives, sometimes it is about the results at the end that matter and other times it’s about focusing on individuals. I claim that there is a major difference between social and detail division of labour as both are significant. There are issues

This concept spoke to owners having complete “control of production processes, enforcing specialization on the workers and refusing to share organizational control with them” (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2017, p. 173). The factory owner denied the laborers of “a common shared interest in their work” (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2017, p. 173). To relate this to women in domestic work, the larger society exploited women to their “domestic help so long as the needs of their family and immediate circle of friends are addressed” (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2017, p. 173). Adamms further argued that in order to overcome this division of labor, society needed an “industrial democracy that allows workers to participate in organization of production” (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2017, p. 173). This would include allowing the laborers to be included in the organization of production which is usually executed by factory owners. (Ritzer & Stepnisky, 2017, p.

In social terms, Marx views division of labor to be something negative. Marx argues that division of labor alienates the worker not only from other people, but also from the good they are producing. Marx also argues that since a worker is no longer completing the whole task, but instead just one, small, specialized task, that the worker is actually becoming less skilled because he can no longer create the whole good, and has now become dependent on the other workers, and is also dependent on the employer, and takes away the autonomy of the worker. Marx believed that through the division of labor, that workers would become estranged from the products they were producing. The more commodities a worker created, the cheaper a commodity he would become to his employer.

In regards to the labour-capital relation within a traditional capitalist corporation Marx & Engels (2007) refer to the dialectic between the capitalists (or bourgeoisie) who own the property and the means of production and the laborers (or proletariat) who own no property and are obligated to sell their labour to the bourgeoisie to gain substance. For Marx & Engels, this labour market is inherently fraught with tension, since the interests of the capitalist and labourers are diametrically opposed, and the balance of power between capitalists and labourers tips further in the favour of the capitalists. Because workers have nothing to sell but their labour, the bourgeoisie are able to exploit them by paying them less than the true value created by their labour. Furthermore, because of the unequal positions of capitalist and labourer, labourers must work for someone else- they must do work imposed on them as a means of satisfying the needs of others. As a result, labourers inevitably experience alienation which Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) summarizes as the separation of individuals from the objects they create, which in turn results in one’s separation from other people, from oneself, and ultimately from one’s human nature.

The phrase “division of labor” has many different definitions that can be used in different contexts. The Encyclopedia of Sociology helps explore the many different ways division of labor can be defined, and recognizes that all major sociologists considered this topic to be fundamental in understanding modern society, and how it has came to be. (Borgatta Montgomery and Rhonda 2000). Some of these classical sociological thinkers expressed their own ideas of division of labor, such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Emile Durkheim. The ideas of these three great thinkers had some similarities, but also differed in many ways. Adam Smith felt division of labor was necessary and vital for economic prosperity, while

The division of labour ensures that each worker only does one job, and the labour market decides which job any particular worker will do. During labour, the worker uses capital not under his own control. The capital available determines the nature of the work. On top of all this, the worker has no choice but to work, as wages are needed to provide the worker's means to life. Work is seen to be 'not voluntary, but forced' (3). This shows that in a capitalist society, the worker is separated from the decisions of whether or not to work, what the work will be, and what form the work will take. This alienation of labour is the separation of man from his life-activity.

“Economics is the branch of social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of

Many people think that economics is about money. Well, to some extent this is true. Economics has a lot to do with money: with how much money people are paid; how much they spend: what it costs to buy various items; how much money firms earn; how much money there is in total in the economy. But despite the large number of areas in which our lives are concerned with money, economics is more than just the study of money.

Karl Marx believes that division of labour means a way in which workers of an organization were given a job at which they were good at or at which they had their specialty in. Max Weber viewed division of labour as an important element or characteristic of any bureaucratic organization that is functioning in the modern society. Emile Durkheim believed that division of labour was the outcome of a societal procedure that takes place within the structure of the society than the result of choices that have been made by individuals.