Under the capitalist mode of production, there lies a division of labor that
is unique to capitalism. Although all societies divide labor, which could be
called, to use Marx's terminology, "the social division of labor," only
capitalism divides work into its simplest, most repetitive tasks. This may
simply be seen as only an attenpt to raise the levels of productivity, but to
view it in such a manner would be to oversimplify the problem inherent in the
division of labor in capitalist societies.
The capitalist division of
labor not only increases productivity, but is a system of control as well.
As the process of labor is dissected into minute parts, "the craft as a process
under the control of the worker" is destroyed and is reconstituted as a process
under the control of the capitalist. This, for the capitalist, ensures his
roll as management and allows for the fine tuning of his business for the sole
purpose of the accumulation of wealth under his control.
Another aspect
of this division is that it not only shapes work, but it shapes populations as
well. As the worker repetitively exectues his simple tasks, he is, as Adam
Smith predicted, reduced to a simple and ignorant form of humanity. No longer
is the worker proficient in skills once held by his ancestral craftsmen, but
instead he has been reduced to a being who is unable to produce anything in its
entirety. He may be called upon to cut a chair leg from a piece of wood or to
sharpen the point of a pin, but to ask him to build the entire chair or pin
would be a lesson in futility. Also, it should be noted that this process
devalues the worker. As Braverman points out in Labor and Monopoly Capital,
"dividing the craft cheapens its individual parts."
