Marx and the Abolition of the Division of Labour: Two Views or One?

Abstract

Adam Smith’s ‘two’ views on the division of labour have been the subject of a long-standing scholarly controversy; Marx’s own views on the division of labour, no less than Smith’s, abound in ambiguity and require careful interpretation. To some extent, at least, this is not surprising; indeed, part of the purpose of my earlier discussion of the concept of division of labour was to underline the variability of its usage before Marx and the complexity of its interrelation with a variety of social and political theories, ranging from those of Plato to the early socialists. In other words, it was perhaps to be expected that his own discourse would register some of the conceptual difficulties and incommensurabilities that had already become apparent in analyses of the division of labour. The problems of meaning and interpretation, partly generated by historical transformations in the concept of division of labour and, in turn, reflected in Marx’s work, are in addition considerably exacerbated in his texts by the rapidity and complexity of his intellectual development, even after he had fashioned a doctrine that may be broadly recognised as ‘Marxist’.