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I believe (and I am certainly not the first to think so), that division of labor was adopted not so much to increase efficiency, as to make labor more malleable
by rossdavidh 7y ago
I believe (and I am certainly not the first to think so), that division of labor was adopted not so much to increase efficiency, as to make labor more malleable. If each step is very simple, then it takes little time to train a new worker to it, and so if the one you used to have quits or becomes too expensive, it's easy to replace them.
Division of labor is, not entirely coincidentally, also often disliked by the laborer.
- astine 7y agoConsidering that concept of the division of labor was brought up millennia ago by Plato, before modern employee/management relationships were common, this is unlikely to be true. It's also worth noting that each of Adam Smiths pin workers were each highly skilled. They each had to be trained, not just in their particular task, but in how to work with the other pin makers.
- sp332 7y agoI think that's more a property of assembly line work in particular, and not the deeper idea of division of labor.
- rossdavidh 7y agoYou could be correct on that, but the pin factory example was much like assembly line, in that each worker only did one step, all day long.
- earthboundkid 7y agoThis is my sense of “full stack” development vs specialization. It’s more fun for you to do everything, but it’s better for the company if you’re a replaceable cog.