There exist as yet few comprehensive studies of the global division of labour (an intellectual challenge for researchers), although the ILO and national statistical offices can provide plenty data on request for those game to try. In one study, Deon Filmer estimated that 2,474 million people participated in the global non-domestic labour force in the mid-1990s. Of these around a fifth, 379 million people, worked in industry, 800 million in services, and 1,074 million in agriculture. The majority of workers in industry and services wer ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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Xenophon, writing in the fourth century BC makes a passing reference to division of labour in in his ' Cyropaedia' or Education Of Cyrus] "Just as the various trades are most highly developed in large cities, in the same way food at the palace is prepared in a far superior manner. In small towns the same man makes couches, doors, ploughs and tables, and often he even builds houses, and still he is thankful if only he can find enough work to support himself. And it is impossible for a man of many trades to do all of them well. In large cities ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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On the other hand, Marx's theories, including the negative claims regarding the division of labour have been criticized by the Austrian economists, such as Ludwig von Mises. The main argument here is that the gains accruing from the division of labour by far outweigh the costs; that it is fully possible to achieve balanced human development within capitalism, and that alienation is more a romantic fiction ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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The underlying principle in caste system or Varna Dharma, is division of labour. Rishis studied human nature carefully. They came to the conclusion that all men were not equally fit for all kinds of work. Hence, they found it necessary to allocate different kinds of duties to different classes of people, according to their aptitude, capacity or quality.

Excerpt from All About Hinduism by Sri Swami Sivananda

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Statistics may help to reveal some of the dimensions of the division of labour. This example concerns the USA. First, we can derive the basic employment categories in the USA in 2002 in approximate figures from BLS data, as follows (working our way down from the total population): American total resident population 288 million population (16+) 224 million economically active population 218 million total civilian non-institutional population (16+) 215 million population 16-65 year ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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In the modern world, those specialists most preoccupied in their work with theorising about the division of labour are those involved in management and organisation. In view of the global extremities of the division of labour, the question is often raised about what division of labour would be most ideal, beautiful, efficient and just. Labour hierarchy is to a great extent inevitable, simply because no one can do all tasks at once; but of course the way these hierarchies are structured can be influenced by a variety of different factors. The que ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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In the first sentence of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), Adam Smith foresaw the essence of industrialism by determining that division of labour represents a qualitative increase in productivity. His original example was the making of pins. Unlike Plato, Smith did not regard the division of labour as a consequence of human inequality but famously argued that the difference between a street porter and a philosopher was as much a consequence of the division of labour as its cause. Therefore, while f ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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An artisan, also called a craftsman, is a skilled manual worker who uses tools and machinery in a particular craft. Artisans were the dominant producers of goods before the Industrial Revolution. The term craftswoman is also used and a craftman's work exhibits craftsmanship) Artisan - Artisan origins. According to standard economic theory, the division of labour occurs with internal market development (Adam Smith). However, according to economist John Hicks, merchants and artisans origi ...

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Artisan - Artisan origins Artisan - Artisan guilds Artisan - Artisan Jewelry

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Increasing specialization may also lead to workers with poorer overall skills and a lack of enthusiasm for their work. This viewpoint was extended and refined by Karl Marx. He described the process as alienation; workers become more and more specialized and work repetitious which eventually leads to complete alienation. Marx wrote that "with this division of labour", the worker is "depressed spiritually and physically to the condition of a machine". He believed that the fullness of production is essential to human liberation and accepted the idea of a strict division of l ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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Sir William Petty was the first modern writer to take note of division of labour, showing its existence and usefulness in Dutch shipyards. Classically the workers in a shipyard would build ships as units, finishing one before starting another. But the Dutch had it organised with several teams each doing the same tasks for successive ships. People with a particular task to do must have discovered new methods that were only later ...

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Division of labour, Division of labour - Plato, Division of labour - Xenophon, Division of labour - Sir William Petty, Division of labour - Adam Smith, Division of labour - Karl Marx, Division of labour - Durkheim, Division of labour - Von Mises and globalisation, Division of labour - Modern debates, Division of labour - US 2002 estimates for the division of labour, Division of labour - The global division of labour, Division of labour - Some useful sociological references

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Constant capital can be measured as a stock magnitude, i.e., the total value of means of production in use at a specific point in time. It can also be measured as a flow magnitude, i.e., the total value of raw materials and fixed means of production used up in an accounting period. Which measure is used depends on the purposes and assumptions of one's analysis, for example whether one is interested in the unit-costs of outp ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

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Marx calls the constant part of the capital outlay "constant" because according to his labour theory of value, constant capital inputs - once purchased, withdrawn from the market and used to create new products - do not by themselves add new value to output, or increase in value in the production process. Instead, the value of equipment and materials being used in production is conserved and t ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

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Critics of Marxian value theory object that this attribution of the source of value-added to labour only is arbitrary and political, not scientific. In various ingenious thought experiments, cases are presented in which constant capital appears as the only possible source of the variability of an entrepreneur's capital. Examples would be devaluations or revaluations of types of assets in response to changing demand conditions, which are influenced by price inflation. In national accounts and business accounts, for example, the change in the value of inventories held is adjusted for changes in their current market ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

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According to some Marxists, this type of objection cuts to the heart of the main dispute between Marx and mainstream economic theory -- their different conceptions of value. For Marx's critics, value, if it exists at all, is a technical feature of economic calculus or is simply another word for the price of a product. For Marx, however, economic value is a social attribution, which expresses a social relation between people specific to certain historical conditions. Inanimate objects can only feature in value relations as token ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

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Other Marxian economists note that, at any time, most of the stock of objects of value in a society has no actual market price, because those objects are not being traded (i.e. they are withdrawn from the market); they are either being used in production or consumption activities, or else stored for later use. This can be easily verified by striking a ratio between gross product and the estimated total asset wealth of a country in money units. In other words, this stock of owned objects has, at best, an ideal price which is estimated or hypothesized (the price it ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

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Karl Marx regarded land and labour as the source of all wealth, and distinguished between material wealth and human wealth. Human wealth was a wealth in social relations, and the expansion of market trade created ever more of those. However, wealth and economic value were not the same thing in his view; value was a purely social category, a social attribution. Both in Das Kapital and in Theories of Surplus-Value, Marx devoted a considerable amount of attention to the concept of "productive and unprod ...

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Productive and unproductive labour, Productive and unproductive labour - Classical political economy, Productive and unproductive labour - A quote from Adam Smith, Productive and unproductive labour - Neoclassical economics, Productive and unproductive labour - National accounts, Productive and unproductive labour - Marx's critique, Productive and unproductive labour - Productive labour as misfortune?, Productive and unproductive labour - Ecological critique, Productive and unproductive labour - Material product accounts in Soviet-type societies, Productive and unproductive labour - New mysteries of wealth creation and the modern mercantilism

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The fact that the productive force of labour appears within capitalism as the productive force of capital was for Marx an example of reification of the relations of production or of commodity fetishism. In other words, property (a "thing") is given human powers and characteristics which it does not truly have. The fetish of capital is broken as soon as all human labour is withdrawn; then it becomes clear that the constant part of capital produces nothing and declines in value, ultimatel ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

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The ratio, c/v is one measure of the organic composition of capital. As noted above, the distinction between constant and variable capital overlaps with the distinction between fixed capital and circulating capital. Constant capital has both fixed and circulating components: for example, the fixed constant capital would include a factory and the machinery in it, while the circulating constant capital would include the raw m ...

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Constant capital, Constant capital - Measurement, Constant capital - Why constant?, Constant capital - Variable capital, Constant capital - Criticism, Constant capital - Marxist response, Constant capital - Value and price, Constant capital - The fetish of capital, Constant capital - Different capital compositions

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The category of surplus product is a transhistorical economic category, meaning it applies to any society with a stable division of labour, and a significant labour productivity, regardless of how exactly that surplus product is produced, what it consists of, and how it is distributed. That depends on the social relations and relations of production specific to a society, within the framework of which surplus labour is performed. Thus, the exact forms taken by ...

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Surplus product, Surplus product - Marxian interpretation of the historical origin of the surplus product, Surplus product - Surplus product and socio-economic inequality between people, Surplus product - Surplus product in capitalist society, Surplus product - Measurement of the surplus product, Surplus product - Surplus product and the social valuation of labor, Surplus product - Surplus product and decadence, Surplus product - Criticism

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