Division of labor and its significance. The first and second social division of labor: causes, essence and consequences “Eastern” model of economic development

First, we need to describe how I understand the production process. I understand it differently than it is understood now, both by people who have an economic education and those who do not, but who are faced with economic issues in their activities. My understanding is not at all original - this is exactly how the representatives of classical political economy imagined the production process (labor process, production process). It’s just that few people remember this today.

At the beginning of the production process there is a certain object (a set of objects) to be transformed into the final product. This object may be some material that is in its natural state or has already been pre-processed. In any case, for a certain production process, this object is a raw material.

Further. These raw materials must be transformed into something else through the process of labor. However, the following should be understood here. According to J.St. Millu, a person, by his actions, with the help of his bodily powers (except in rare exotic cases), cannot transform the source material into something else. He can only move raw materials and intermediate products to where they are acted upon by the forces of nature that carry out such transformation.

Here it is necessary to expand this understanding, firstly, by explaining that the forces of nature can be both natural (as in the production of wine or other fermentation products) and pre-organized (a machine, and indeed any tool, is an organized force of nature), and in -secondly, that a person can move not only raw materials, but also organized forces of nature.

So, the production process is a certain sequence of movements of raw materials (intermediate products) and/or organized forces of nature carried out by a worker and ends with the receipt of a finished product.

This process occurs in real time. Let's depict it in a picture, which we will then work with (Fig. 32). I already drew similar pictures in the first lecture, only then the production process was already divided into operations, and now we have yet to understand how this happens.

I understand that this is a rather primitive representation of the production process; a lot more needs to be taken into account here, but unnecessary details will not change further conclusions at all, but will only complicate the presentation.

May be, external factors can you tell us how to do this? But if there is equilibrium in the market, then we will not receive any signals from the external environment. Prices appear fair and provide each worker with an income that takes into account the costs associated with training for the relevant profession.

We, of course, can formally cut the time during which the production process is carried out into some equal periods of time. Yes, but how much and what length? What is the reason for this? Why should the process of producing pins be divided into 18 operations, as A. Smith describes it to us? Why not 3? Or not by 100?

Of course, each of the artisans probably divides their work time into some meaningful segments. In this period I do one thing, in the next - another. At the same time, different artisans can divide the production process in completely different ways, in accordance with their subjective preferences. Unless, of course, they studied a profession somewhere in one place: in general, fragmentation into such semantic segments usually occurs during training and thus the assimilation of knowledge is facilitated. Although then each employee can contribute something of their own in accordance with their personal experience.

Here again, you can talk a lot and usefully about many things, but I won’t do that. We'll discuss some things later when our picture becomes clearer.

For now, let’s just formulate the following.

When there is equilibrium in the market, and the production process in a broad sense is carried out as a daily routine: raw materials are prepared (bought), processed, sold, the finished product - the manufacturer does not have any objective grounds for highlighting individual operations and giving them any special meaning.

What happens in the case of disequilibrium from the point of view of orthodox theory

This means that we must assume the presence of disequilibrium.

Suppose there is a situation of disequilibrium in the market: the demand for a certain product consistently exceeds supply. What happens in this case? Economics textbooks tell us the following.

First, prices for this product will increase, and the balance of supply and demand will quickly be restored. But will balance be restored? No, because in this case, workers in the relevant profession will begin to receive “excess” income compared to workers in other professions. That is, income that is not due to the costs of acquiring the necessary skills.

Then, at the next stage, some of those employed in other professions will begin to retrain. Young people who do not yet have a profession will try to acquire this particular profession. As a result, the number of people working in the relevant industry will increase, output will increase, prices will begin to decline, surplus income will gradually decrease to zero, and a new equilibrium will be established.

This reasoning has its weaknesses. They have long been well known and are often used to criticize traditional theory. What if everyone wants to retrain as manufacturers of, say, toothbrushes? Then at some point the production of brushes will increase many times over. Prices will not just drop, but collapse. At the same time, prices for all other goods will cheerfully skyrocket, crowds of artisans will again rush to retrain, with the same consequences. And the market, instead of reaching a new state of equilibrium, will go into a state of chaos.

In mathematical models where abstract “infinitesimal” deviations are dealt with, perhaps everything looks smooth77. But when you begin to describe processes in terms of economic reality, and even taking into account time lags, then everything looks a little different. The considerations I have given underlie most existing verbal theories economic cycle and crises. They differ only in the nature of the “shocks” taken into account and the mechanisms of “delay” of the reaction.

But my task now is different. I must show how market disequilibrium leads to the emergence of firms.

Let's look at a fairly simple and illustrative example. Suppose that a craftsman uses some expensive equipment, such as a machine, during the production process. Let us also assume that the level of division of labor in the system is such that the production of machine tools is a separate profession. That is, the machine is a commodity and is purchased on the market.

Let's highlight in our production process the period of time when the machine is used (Fig. 33).

The sequence of worker movements associated with the use of the machine will be separated into a separate operation. It turns out that this operation takes 1/8 of the total working time.

Under equilibrium conditions, isolating this operation does not make any special sense. Why does it take on a special meaning in conditions of disequilibrium?

What prevents artisans from other industries from quickly switching to the production of the notorious toothbrushes? We have already said - lack of knowledge and the need to spend time acquiring it. Fine! Let us assume that this factor does not play a significant role. The correct sequence of actions is so simple that anyone can master it in a few days.

But then people will be stopped by the lack of necessary equipment and machines. After all, machine tool production was initially also in equilibrium: as many machine tools were produced as were needed to compensate for those being retired and to ensure a small increase due to population growth. And then suddenly everyone needed machines.

Prices for them, of course, will rise, but it is unlikely that it will be possible to quickly increase their production. Machine tools are a bottleneck that prevents the industry from quickly responding to increased demand.

An existing artisan who already has a machine, if he realizes that he has a key resource for his industry, gets the opportunity to use this circumstance to his advantage.

What is needed for that? Make sure that the machine works not 1/8 of the working time, but throughout the entire working time. That is, increase the scale of production by 8 times. But this can only be done if the number of employees increases 8 times. Someone must do the remaining necessary operations.

Of course, you can organize the work of 8 people in different ways. For example, so that each of them carries out a complete production process, but only with such a shift in time that as soon as someone needs a machine, the previous worker would have just finished using it, etc. (Fig. 34).

But, as is easy to understand, managing such an organized process is extremely difficult. It will always happen here that a machine is idle because someone didn’t have time to do something (how can you monitor him throughout the entire production process?), or several workers wait in line until the machine is free.

It's much easier to do things differently. Divide all working time into segments of equal length in 1/8 of the production process, group the movements made during these segments into operations and assign each to a separate worker (Fig. 35).

This, of course, has its problems. Operations formally allocated in time can have neither a logical beginning nor a logical end. The entire production process may need to be redesigned. But from the point of view of organizing current management, this approach is more appropriate. It is always known who is doing what, and if a failure occurs, the culprit is easy to identify and punish (remember our discussion about the tribal leader).

The question arises: where will the workers come from and how much should they be paid? As for workers, we assumed that we have a large number of those who want to work in this industry - because it brings in excess income. The only thing that prevents these people from fulfilling their desire is the lack of machines on the market and/or the high price of them.

Look: his, say, monthly excess income as a result of creating a company grows 8 times. I don’t know if it’s half or a quarter of this increase, but he can easily distribute some of it among his employees, and still remain a giant plus.

In this case, I assume the most lenient conditions for workers. Below we will see that even if at first the situation looks quite comfortable for hired workers, as it develops, the conditions of employment both within the industry and in the economy as a whole will worsen.

The creation of a company is a truly revolutionary act that changes the entire structure of the economy. Not immediately, but very quickly. A small pebble triggers an avalanche, its scale and energy constantly growing. And only quite recently, by historical standards, this process began to run out of steam, and today it has practically stopped.

It would seem that nothing special happened. Nothing has changed in product production technology. There is nothing in sight of what we are accustomed to calling scientific and technological progress. Production costs have not decreased, and with the assumptions I made about how to install wage hired workers, they even grew up a little. But at the same time, at one point in the economic space, production suddenly increased 8 times. The excess income of the former artisan, who has now become an entrepreneur, has also increased several times.

But this is just the beginning. Can these revenues be increased? Yes, but for this you need to hire 8 more workers and buy another machine. There won’t be any particular problems with the first one, but we assumed that there is a shortage of machines on the market and their prices are high. But this circumstance is unlikely to stop our entrepreneur.

Firstly, no matter how much the machine costs, an entrepreneur can easily save the required amount. Much faster than anyone else can do it. Secondly, in fact, the prices for machines are not at all prohibitive, at least from the point of view of our entrepreneur. The limit to the increase in the price of a machine is the amount of excess income that an individual artisan can receive in the current environment. If the increase in prices for machine tools “eats up” the entire excess income, then the demand for them will return to normal levels, there will be no imbalance in the market, and there will be no reason to increase the price.

But for our entrepreneur, even this “impossible” price for machines from the point of view of the market situation will not be an obstacle to his acquisition. His excess income is significantly higher. The machine in his hands is used 8 times more intensively than anyone else’s. He can buy machines more expensive than anyone else. From some point on, he alone will buy all the machines. Unless, of course, others decide to do the same thing as him.

Of course, starting a company is not such a simple act as I just described. At least from a cost perspective. The initial eight workers along with the machine must be placed somewhere, that is, a suitable building must be built or hired. It is necessary to sharply increase purchases of raw materials and other materials by 8 times. It is necessary to pay an advance to workers to pay for their labor before the first products they produce are sold. And at the same time be sure that there are channels through which the products can be sold.

For all this we need to find money. The entrepreneur himself may have something. He can get something on credit using the machine as collateral, since machines are becoming more expensive on the market. It is clear that the first entrepreneur will have to rely on his own own resources. His followers can already count on a more favorable attitude from the financial sector: they can point to already operating companies and, with numbers in hand, confirm the business plans they have developed. As long as the wave of demand continues and potential returns are high, there may even be something of a rush among lenders and investors. At the same time, most likely, newly created companies will immediately become larger and larger.

It is clear that sooner or later the wave of demand that pushed our entrepreneur and his followers to create companies will go down, and their ability to quickly, significantly increase production will greatly contribute to this. Supply and demand will begin to level out, and excess income, the presence of which provoked the changes, will decline. Eventually prices will fall below the equilibrium level for a period of time.

The last of those who decided to create a company (or increase its size by attracting loans) are likely to fail, since in the conditions of declining excess income they will have to service newly received loans. Their investors and creditors will also suffer losses.

When prices fall below the equilibrium level, and if such a decline is prolonged, as it most likely will be, individual artisans will be forced out of the market. Firms that will survive will have low debt at the time of the turning point and have managed to accumulate sufficient cash reserves, which will allow them to withstand the period of lower prices. In addition, as business conditions worsen, firms will begin to reduce the wage premium that I assumed they were willing to pay during the boom.

Let us assume, as this traditional economic theory tells us, that equilibrium is restored. But this new equilibrium will be qualitatively different from the equilibrium that existed before the appearance of the demand wave. In at least one industry, individual producers79 will be replaced by firms - structures with an internal division of labor.

So, we have looked at an example in which situation and how, without resorting to exotic assumptions, we can explain the emergence of a company. I chose the example with the machine solely for reasons of clarity and simplicity of presentation. Let's try to generalize.

Let's look again at our drawing, in which we depicted the production process. I said that the artisan has no reason to single out any operations as special.

But an outside observer may well do this. We can notice that for some operations it is required that the artisan has physical strength or some other natural qualities: vigilance, speed of reaction, etc.

We, especially if we know how other production processes are structured, can identify operations that are unique to this process. We can classify all operations. There are simple operations that can be performed by any person, as long as you tell him once what to do. Something like give-fetch-carry, etc. And complex ones that can only be performed by a person who has spent time training to do them correctly. It's about about such operations in which you need to constantly control your movements, correlating them with the position and condition of the source material, tools, etc. A person on the street cannot perform these operations, he will definitely break something or do the wrong thing. The ability to perform such operations is the essence of the craftsman's profession. In other words, here we are dealing with acquired differences.

I repeat once again, for the artisan himself, all operations are equally important. If he does not place the raw materials in the right place, even if this is an elementary action, then all his ability to perform complex operations with these raw materials will not help him produce the finished product.

In both the case of natural and acquired qualities, we are talking about rare qualities, or, if you like, rare resources. In the detailed example of creating a company that I gave, the rare resource is the machine.

By analogy with the above example, we can now say that a firm is created as a result of an act of technological division of labor with the aim of intensifying the use of rare resources. If we define the possession of physical strength as a rare resource, then the division of labor is built around the “strong man.” At the center of the division of labor is an operation that requires physical strength to perform.

If we define a rare resource as the possession of certain acquired qualities, then the division of labor will be built around the operation that requires these qualities, around the “master”. I have already talked in detail about the machine. What can tell us which resource is truly rare? Market prices. Those resources that rise in price the most during a wave of demand are the rarest. Machines become more expensive - that means machines. There was a demand for strong men, their wages increased - this means that a natural advantage is rare. Tuition fees for any specialty are rising, which means that it is this acquired natural advantage that limits the possibilities of expanding production due to the wave of demand.

Let's look at rarity in more detail. The scarcity of resources is the initial premise of neoclassicism. But if I get a company from the rarity of a resource with an increase in demand, then in neoclassics nothing comes of it except rising prices. What's the difference?

For neoclassicals, the concept of rarity refers directly to the unit of the existing division of labor. They believe that if a rare resource is required during a production process, then this requirement applies to the entire process. Because they don't have a manufacturing process as such. It is collapsed to one point - I have always emphasized the static nature of the models used by orthodox economics.

Here lies one of the most significant dividing lines between neoconomics and traditional economic theory. I view the production process as a process and suggest that the concept of rarity can only apply to individual fragments of this process. And then we have the opportunity to divide labor “within” the production process.

To what extent can labor be divided? I, following J. St. Mill describes the production process as a sequence of movements that move something. Remember in the first lecture I said that the technological division of labor is limited to monitoring indicators and pressing a button at the right moment. That is, performing the simplest movement that you can think of.

Neoclassics uses a representation such as a production function to describe production (not a process).

There are factors of production: raw materials, capital (machinery and equipment), labor. You need to take all this in certain proportions, mix it - and the result is some final product. The quantity of this product depends on how much and in what proportions we take the original ingredients.

This idea seems very clear and simple. Until we think a little.

Everything is clear with raw materials. One can well imagine a warehouse in which bags of necessary substances or parts are stored.

But how can we imagine labor in this model (we won’t talk about capital)? Raw materials are included in the final product (with the possible exception of waste). And what is included in the composition of the final product from the labor factor? People in their natural form? Again, minus the waste. Generally speaking, the form of the production function does not exclude such an interpretation.

Let's not be so bloodthirsty. Let's assume that we are talking about working hours. Then in our warehouse we should also store a bag filled with days, minutes and seconds of “working” time.

Well, how else can we imagine the reality presented to us by the production function?

Someone (the owner of the company) takes a few handfuls of contents from a bag of raw materials, adds a handful from a bag of working hours, mixes and gets the final product.

It is not difficult to understand where such an image comes from in neoclassicism. In fact, it is implicitly assumed that what is stored in the warehouse is not bags of natural ingredients, but money. On one bag it is written: “money for the purchase of raw materials.” On the other is “money for the purchase of labor,” that is, really for paying for hours, minutes and seconds of working time. This money is combined in some proportion together, and the final product is obtained, which, again, is sold for money. The increase in money, if it can be obtained, goes to the owner of the company for the fact that he mixed it all in the correct proportion, carefully and thoroughly.

Everything here is clear and logical, but an attempt to transfer such a vision to the real production process, in which all factors participate in their natural form, seems absurd. Money is absolutely liquid, but factors of production are not, but since they are bought for money, the property of liquidity is assumed to be transferred to them. And most importantly, money in this model, in theory, should appear not before, but after the mixing of production factors. But the neoclassicists skillfully cover their tracks and mislead respectable citizens.

From the point of view of neoconomics, such a description of the production process also suffers from the drawback that it is not clear how the labor stored in bags, whether in the form of hours and minutes, or in the form of money, does not matter, can be divided. On the one hand, it can be divided: we can have different bags in which we store different labor, divided by profession, or rather, working hours and minutes of labor of different quality. Even more accurately, money to purchase various types of labor.

But all this makes sense when labor is already divided for some reason. But if we have a bag of undivided labor in our warehouse, then labor will remain as such.

It cannot be said that the representation of production in the form of a production function does not reflect any real phenomena at all. Only this happens in some very peculiar form.

Let's take the phenomenon of resource substitution. Actually, the main purpose of the production function in the general structure of neoclassics is precisely to describe the prerequisite for the possibility of substituting resources, as a result of which alternative ways using the same resources, between which (methods) one can make the “best” choice.

But how do we understand resource substitution? Can we assume that if a person with acute vision is required for some type of activity, he can be replaced by a dozen people with normal vision or a hundred people who are completely blind?

They will tell us: we don’t need to take everything literally. How else can we understand?

After all, in fact, it is possible to replace. If we have a production process in which acute vision is required only for a short period of time, we can organize the division of labor in such a way that a person with this quality constantly performs only the relevant operation, and all other operations are performed by workers without this quality possessors, even if they are blind.

If we now calculate and compare, we will see the following. Before the division of labor, the entire cost per unit of output was paid to a worker with keen eyesight. And under the conditions of division of labor, its share accounts for only a small part of the cost of a unit of finished product.

Formally, it turns out that a rare resource has been replaced by less rare resources. But in reality, in our country, the individual artisan is replaced by a company that produces many times more products. And the larger the company, the more products it produces per unit of time, the more a rare resource can be replaced by less rare ones. That is, different points on the curve describing the production function refer to completely different situations from the point of view of the division of labor.

Now we can give another definition for the technological division of labor: with its help, during the expansion of production, rare resources are replaced with less rare ones.

The emergence of the institution of the company entails the most important social changes in the structure of society. We are talking about the formation of the labor market.

But before we consider this issue, I would like to formulate the problem as it traditionally exists in economics.

Marx created this problem, so let's start with him.

The Marxist concept is based on the concept of surplus value, which is formed as a result of the fact that the labor factor does not receive full remuneration for its contribution to the production of value (value) of the final product. Remuneration is carried out in accordance with the cost of labor, which is lower than the contribution of labor to the products produced.

Why is labor forced to accept the underestimation of its contribution? Marx responds to this with the following: because the worker is deprived of the means of production. And he tells us numerous stories about how individual producers were deprived of their means of production, in particular, during the so-called enclosures. And then, when the labor market developed, artisans began to lose their means of production, which depreciated as a result of competition with large industry, which had the opportunity to obtain surplus value.

The weakest point of Marx's theory is the uncertainty with the quantitative understanding of the cost of labor. How is its size determined? On the one hand, everything seems clear. We are talking about the amount of subsistence necessary for the physical survival of the worker. But this is not enough.

It is necessary that the funds received by workers are sufficient for the reproduction of workers as a class. Here Marx comes close to Malthus, whom he did not greatly favor. What Malthus left to demographic processes and the law of supply and demand in the labor market, Marx tries to incorporate into the phenomenon of the cost of labor power. It turns out that capitalists seem to voluntarily tax themselves, either collectively or individually, to maintain the conditions of their existence.

But here a very strong uncertainty already appears, since the mechanism of such self-taxation and its magnitude are completely unclear. Further uncertainty only increases. It turns out that, according to Marx, the cost of labor power also depends on historical and national characteristics. It is clear why he needed this - to explain the fact that in England the level of income of hired workers was higher than in other countries. Here we have the widest scope for a variety of interpretations. That is, any specific values ​​of labor costs can be explained through very vague categories. Much like orthodox economic theory, when faced with unexpected phenomena, resorts to historical and cultural explanations.

At the same time, Marx admits that real wages (the price of labor) can change under the influence of market conditions. The fact that it fluctuates precisely around the cost of labor power is not substantiated in any way, but is simply postulated.

In neoclassical theory, the problem of the value of labor evaluation is solved simply. Labor is a limited resource, just like the natural resources and capital needed for production. As a result of solving the problem of optimal use of limited resources for various ways of using them (let me remind you here of my comments about the production function), each of the mentioned factors receives its own “fair” assessment. So no exploitation of labor by capital exists and cannot exist.

However, opponents of the orthodox theory have their own objections to this scheme. We are talking about unemployment. That is, they say, labor is not a limited factor of production, it is always in abundance. In this regard, Marx introduced the category of “industrial reserve army of labor,” the existence of which he justifies in his theory of accumulation.

And if there is a surplus of labor - and it really does exist - then the formation of the assessment of labor occurs according to different rules.

However, orthodox theory has developed a layered line of defense against this objection. It is assumed that there is voluntary unemployment. The natural level of unemployment is highlighted, and the possibility of the existence of structural unemployment is recognized. Points out the distortions that are introduced into the labor market social politics states and the activities of trade unions.

In general, if we take an unbiased look, we will see a kind of symmetry. In Marxism, the weak link is the cost of labor, and there is a lot of reasoning around this concept. Neoclassicism has the same picture with limited labor supply. And all because both theories are structurally similar, differing only in details, albeit significant ones.

The division of labor in a company devalues ​​the knowledge of workers, which creates the possibility of their exploitation.

So, does exploitation exist in a capitalist economy or not? Who is more right: Marx or the neoclassics?

What is a craftsman's primary means of production? If we remember what I said above about the production process, it is knowing the correct sequence of movements that turns raw materials into a product that can be sold in the market. Well, or human capital, that is, the expenditure of time, and possibly other resources that were needed to obtain this knowledge.

Here we are faced with what Marx called the dual nature of labor and what he considered his main discovery in political economy. In my opinion, this self-assessment is largely fair, although he himself did not finalize this concept.

On the one hand, the artisan performs simple operations, simple movements, because any complex movement can be represented as a sequence of simple ones, and in this capacity does not differ from representatives of all other professions and industries (this is what Marx expressed with the category “abstract labor”).

On the other hand, he controls the sequence of operations performed with the help of acquired knowledge, which allows him to produce a specific useful commodity, use value (“concrete labor” in Marx’s terminology).

For an individual producer, abstract labor undoubtedly plays a leading role in his daily activities. He gets tired because he goes through the motions throughout the day, and not because he knows their correct sequence. And the income he receives, from his point of view, compensates him for this fatigue and expenditure of physical energy. Again, if he wants to increase his income, then he must make more moves. But he doesn’t need to “increase the amount of knowledge.”

Now let’s remember how the division of labor works in a company. The production process is divided into separate operations. Some of these operations are complex and require the person performing them to have knowledge. Other operations are simple: they do not require any special knowledge. It is enough to show a person once where, where and what he should carry - and he will do it constantly.

When I described the case of creating a company, I did not specifically dwell on the issue of remuneration for workers. I simply assumed that those who want to work in this industry, but cannot claim the increase in income associated with disequilibrium in the market, become hired workers.

In reality, the situation is more complicated. Let’s imagine that we have production processes, professions or types of products ranked by profitability per hour of working time from top to bottom. That is, at the top are the professions that require the greatest human capital. Below are professions that produce products that do not require special knowledge.

Let's assume that the formation of the company occurred in an industry located somewhere in the middle of our list. Then the owner of such a company can do profitable proposition artisans at the bottom of the list. Or rather, not even for those who have already mastered the profession, but for “young men thinking about their lives” and wanting to start earning money as soon as possible. There is no need to waste time studying, he will tell them. Come to my factory, I’ll quickly show you what to do, and work, and you’ll get the same amount. Well, or a little less, but right away.

Look - the deal on both sides is fair and mutually beneficial. The worker gets the opportunity to immediately start earning money and not waste time acquiring human capital. He receives income for being “tired,” but he already believed that his income was determined by the amount of physical work he did.

And the owner of the company gets the opportunity to hire workers on the cheap. "Cheap" means the following. In the industry in which the company operates, there is a certain level of income for individual producers, determined by the amount of their human capital. If you hire them, they will have to provide earnings that are no less than the industry average, even if they do simple work (otherwise no one will come). The benefit in this case will only be that there will be no need to share with employees the excess income generated in conditions of imbalance in the market.

Here we assume that the owner of the company has an additional opportunity to hire workers from other industries where the industry level of income is lower.

Generally speaking, this reasoning leads us to the conclusion that firms can be formed and bring profits to their owners without the assumption I made about the presence of imbalances in the market. But I, unlike the neoclassicists, always try to reason within the strict framework that the neoclassicists themselves established. F. Knight said that there should be no secret collusion, that is, no one can use any additional information other than that contained in the prices - well, I’m trying to honestly fulfill this requirement. Although, of course, I understand that in reality this strict restriction may not be fulfilled and is not even definitely fulfilled.

But I digress. Look what's happening here. Previously, according to the assumptions made, the condition for obtaining income for any participant in the economic system was the preliminary mastery of some knowledge. With the emergence of a company, it becomes possible to earn income without using knowledge, but simply following the instructions of the owner of the company.

So, in the company the duality of the labor process, discovered by Marx, is realized in its pure form. Knowledge (specific work) becomes the property of the owner of the company, the entrepreneur, and then the company itself. Workers focus on performing simple operations, the meaning of which is unknown to them, and they are not very interested. Their work is abstract. And this division of labor is the prerequisite for what Marx called exploitation.

The income of an entrepreneur is determined by specific labor - nothing changes here; the income of an individual producer, as we assumed, is also determined by specific labor. The income of workers is determined by the situation on the abstract labor market. We will see how this happens below.

So Marx was right! Exploitation in a capitalist society, if by this expression we understand a society in which firms play a leading role, does exist. And the basis of this exploitation really lies in the deprivation of workers of the means of production, if by means of production we mean knowledge.

The creation of firms destroys the system of motivation for acquiring knowledge, leaving only simple operations to the share of hired workers.

Let me once again recall the premises of our analysis. We have a list of professions ranked by income per unit of working time. The company is created in an industry in which artisans from the middle of this list are employed, and workers are hired from among the representatives of the least profitable professions.

It may be objected to me: the transition of artisans from one industry to another will lead to a fall in supply in the first of these industries, prices for the corresponding products will rise, and workers will quickly return to their previous profession.

To this I will answer the following. First of all, young people will go to work for hire, those who are still planning to learn a craft.

And only if the demand for labor is high, existing artisans can join them.

Yes, a reduction in the number of people willing to learn a low-income craft will lead to a decrease in supply. But not immediately, but after some time. Yes, people with professional skills will begin to leave the factory. But those who do not know the profession are unlikely to do this. For them, this will mean temporarily giving up the reliable income they already receive.

Again, the owner of the company, in the event of a threat of outflow of workers, can increase the level of wages. For him, this will mean a decrease in profits, but not its complete disappearance. At the same time, if wages increase so much that they become attractive for representatives of the profession that is second from the bottom on our list, then those who were planning to master this profession will go to the factory first, and then those already employed in the industry.

Now the motivation to gain knowledge in this industry will also be disrupted. If we continue our reasoning further, we will see that the motivation to acquire knowledge will be destroyed in all industries that are in our ranking below the one in which firms are formed.

Again, let's look at the industries at the bottom of the list. The outflow of workers, as we have already seen, will, after some time, lead to an imbalance between supply and demand and a rise in prices. That is, a powerful wave of demand will arise, which will be impossible to quickly satisfy.

Thus, conditions for creating companies will appear in these industries. If firms are created in them, then in these industries the motivation to acquire knowledge will be completely destroyed: the individual producer will be uncompetitive with the firm. Let's not forget about the natural division of labor, what A. Smith told us about productivity growth. We will return to this issue a little later.

So, we have seen that the emergence of firms initiates a process in which the aggregate of individual producers turns into a labor force. At first, this process affects young people, those who are still planning what profession to master. They suddenly find out that in order to earn a living, they do not need to spend time acquiring a profession.

This process also affects workers who already have a profession. In the industry in which firms are created, this happens almost immediately. Individual producers are unable to compete on equal terms with capitalist enterprise. As long as the industry is affected by the wave of demand, they can somehow survive. When the wave of demand subsides, they are forced to leave their profession and either learn a new one, or go to work in a factory, accepting a decrease in income.

At the first stage of the transition to factory production, when changes cover only a small part of the production system, and individual producers dominate, whose income is determined by their knowledge and skills, wages of hired workers may increase in certain periods.

However, this wage growth is “poisoned”. Its consequence is an increase in the number of participants in the economic system who have refused to master the knowledge and skills necessary for craft production, and increased competition between labor carriers.

In addition, let us not forget that this increase in wages is caused by an increase in income in industries that have not made the transition to the factory system. This means that in such industries conditions appear (in the sense of incentives) for the transition to a system where knowledge is concentrated in firms, and workers begin to perform simple operations.

When the number of workers who do not know any profession, or those whose professional knowledge has become unnecessary, reaches a critical level, wages begin to decline. I will not talk here about the transition to the widespread use of female and child labor. This is not in my model, but in reality, as we all know well, it was.

So, initially the value of labor power (we will use this term, although, as we see, we are not talking about something uniquely defined) is really determined by the historical level of income of artisans in a given territory. And probably this level of income was quite sufficient to ensure the survival of artisans and demographic reproduction. However, further dynamics of wages are determined by the specific parameters of the process of formation of firms in the economy, that is, they are increasingly determined by market conditions.

Let us not forget that when we describe economic processes, we never tie them to any “closed” economy, so we must take into account a significant number of factors. I don’t want to say at all that it’s impossible to take them all into account - it’s just that it will now take us too much time. So for now we will limit ourselves to just what has been said.

So, I hope we have understood how and why the technological division of labor can occur. Now it's time to return to the natural division of labor.

Does the artisan perform all the operations that make up the production process in the best possible way? Most likely no. Some operations, namely those that most determine the outcome of the production process, he probably tries to perform as best as possible. He treats them with maximum attention and thoroughness, and tries to come up with new ways of doing things that speed up the work and improve the quality of the resulting product.

His resources of attention and thoroughness are simply not enough for other operations. He does them automatically, without much thought.

A worker who is occupied only with performing a particular task is focused on doing it with the least amount of effort and faster. In this case, he receives additional time for rest, and if the company has established some kind of piecework wage for this operation, then the opportunity to earn extra money.

Performing various operations may require different manifestations of “dexterity” from the performer, as A. Smith calls it. A craftsman can, of course, train himself in these various types of dexterity, but, again, most likely he prefers to concentrate on the key operations from his point of view. The part-time worker, by the very fact that he is constantly engaged in one operation, will train himself in the dexterity necessary precisely for this type of operation.

In addition, the owner of the company will entrust the performance of certain individual operations to those employees who have suitable physical characteristics and initially possess the necessary inclinations.

Workers engaged in one operation also develop new knowledge. What is it about?

The production process is always associated with uncertainty. The quality of the raw material may vary, the condition of the tools, equipment and other production conditions may also vary depending on many related circumstances. Very rarely is the course of a production process clearly defined in all its details. It should be considered probabilistic. The craftsman must constantly evaluate the totality of random circumstances and adjust his actions in accordance with them. The situations that an employee encounters, both during the production process itself and during the performance of individual operations, can be endlessly varied.

Therefore knowledge can never be absolute. It's never enough. Situations can always arise that no one taught in advance, and the artisan has to figure out how to adjust his actions. If some situations occur quite often, then through trial and error it is developed best way actions, which is remembered and is part of the knowledge of the artisan.

A worker who constantly performs the same operation encounters different situations several times more often during the same time than an artisan who performs the entire production cycle. Accordingly, he develops new knowledge faster, and his knowledge is broader than that of an artisan, since it relates to a wider range of possible situations.

All this - increasing the level of attentiveness and thoroughness, developing dexterity and using workers who have the necessary initial physical data to perform certain operations, the formation of new knowledge (in a narrower area, but also deeper) - leads to the fact that the performance of a separate operation in many In cases, it turns into an independent profession that requires the worker to possess certain natural qualities and/or preliminary training.

So what do we see? Let's take the starting point of our reasoning. A worker (artisan) can participate in the production process only if he has a certain profession. Thus, we are dealing with some structure of potentially scarce resources.

Why potentially? Under equilibrium conditions, this “rarity” does not manifest itself in any way. It becomes relevant only if we are faced with a situation of a sharp increase in demand for some product. Then, in the corresponding industry, firms appear within which, due to the technological division of labor, rare resources are “replaced” with less rare ones (or rather, not at all rare).

However, in the future, on the basis of the operations into which the production process is divided, a new structure of professions is formed. That is, we again have the problem of potentially rare resources. If this scarcity of resources becomes relevant again, a new act of technological division of labor becomes relevant - and the cycle repeats again.

From our point of view, the constant repetition of such cycles of transition from the technological division of labor to the natural and again to the technological is the core economic development over the past 250 years.

We can talk about the division of labor, its conditions and consequences for a very long time. We will talk about some aspects later when we consider issues of scientific and technological progress.

In conclusion, I would like to address the basic premise of my model of the division of labor. We are talking about a persistent imbalance in the market, which initiates a restructuring of the economic structure.

Where does it come from? To a first approximation, we already have the answer to it. It appears as a result of the interaction between various reproductive circuits or markets. That is, it is generated by the activities of the financial sector.

Actually, that's all we can say about this for now. A more detailed answer would require consideration of many additional aspects of economic development, both theoretical and actual, which would increase the volume of presentation several times. So let's stop there for now.

63. Actually, we have already made these arguments in the fourth lecture. In it, the tribe appeared as an example of a reproductive circuit - I had in mind exactly the description that we are now discussing.

64. We must not forget that we are dealing with information asymmetry. We know success stories, products that found their consumers and brought success to their creators. And we know practically nothing about losers. And they themselves rarely try to remind themselves.

65. Of course, the loss of the level of division of labor was due to other, more fundamental reasons. But the rapid speed of the process was due precisely to the disappearance of the “leader.”

66. A reservation should be made here - the division of labor is not related to the different quality of natural resources used (see lecture six), although additional conditions are required there.

67. What could a craftsman be guided by before the publication of A. Smith’s book? True, Marx argued that the role of the division of labor was known before Smith. But it does not change anything. All the same, that role was discovered post factum, when the division of labor had already reached a certain level.

68. I mean individuals, not companies. Firms are a completely different matter; we will talk about them later.

69. R. Coase gives the following reasoning: “Economic theory asserts that the allocation of factors of production between different uses is determined by the price mechanism. The price of factor A becomes higher in X than in Y. As a result, A moves from Y to X until the price difference in X and Y disappears (because it does not offset other comparative advantages). But in the real world we find that in many areas none of this applies. When a worker moves from department Y to department X, he does so not because of a change in relative prices, but because he is ordered to do so.”

70. “It is necessary to look at the market not as a sales market for individual products of a certain industry, and, therefore, as external to this industry, but as a general sales market for all goods as a whole, therefore the volume of the market is limited and determined by the volume production. If this conclusion requires clarification, then the concept of the market in this sense is a set of productive activities interconnected by trade, which carries the idea of ​​​​the need for a certain balance, in the sense that various types of productive activities should have certain proportions to each other" (Young E. Increasing Returns and Economic Progress.

71. Generally speaking, I have ambivalent feelings here. On the one hand, it is clear that Young independently came to his conclusions, using only Smith’s idea. On the other hand, if he knew history well economic knowledge, he would have understood that he was rediscovering what was a fairly trivial thought for classical political economy. “The larger the scale of the enterprise, the deeper the division of labor can be achieved. This is the main reason for the emergence of large factories,” wrote J. Stuart Mill 80 years before him.

72. The wording belongs to N. Vyacheslavova.

73. If anyone thinks that this is a caricature, he is deeply mistaken. This is exactly how they imagine everything.

74. Babbage C. Economy of manufactures and machinery. 1832.

75. I don’t really like the terminology itself in this case, since it implicitly, at least in Russian, introduces a hierarchy different types costs, dividing them into important and not very important.

76. Although in Western literature there are striking examples when the term “knowledge” is problematized. As many remember, Sherlock Holmes did not consider the statement that the Earth revolves around the Sun to be knowledge, since it did not help him in any way to catch criminals.

77. And even then not always. Learning takes time, which means that all reactions occur with a delay. It is known that if a delay is introduced into a system with negative feedback, it can turn into a system with positive feedback. It all depends on the initial parameters.

78. This assumption is not necessary. It is made for clarity of the model, otherwise the presentation would be too complicated.

79. Let’s not forget that, compared to an individual manufacturer, it will be easier for a company to withstand rising prices not only for equipment, but also for raw materials. And raw materials, under the influence of a wave of demand, will also rise in price.

80. The orthodox theory in such a situation offers us only one way to earn money - to open courses to teach those who want a new profession. Neoconomics, without excluding this method, also offers a second one - to organize the division of labor.

81. If we talk about the contradictions between the volumes of Capital, then I would just draw attention to the contradiction between the first and second volumes: between Marx’s theory of accumulation and his theory of expanded reproduction. However, R. Luxemburg did a lot here.

82. As S. Winter, already quoted by me, rightly noted with his co-author R. Nelson, “it is firms, and not people working for firms, that know how to make gasoline, cars and computers.”

83. Here lies the main difficulty in analyzing the phenomenon of division of labor. At any given time we observe only the natural division of labor. Acts of technological division of labor take place simultaneously and within local units - firms.

2. The very beginning of the division of labor

“With the advent of the ready-made man, an additional new element arose - society,” noted K. Marx.

Since it was found that the means of exchange were present in public life Before state formations, including the great empires of antiquity, research is forced to delve into the economy of the primitive communal system in order to discover the origins of money not among the inhabitants of castles and temples, but in the communities of primitive shepherds, hunters and farmers.

Exchange of goods, as well as other methods social regulation economic life within primitive society, contributed to the intertwining of individual, group and local needs, the formation of a single social interest. When we define a person as a social animal, behind this general statement there is a complex of very specific human properties expressed in behavior.

Ethnographer Pierre Clastré cites a fact demonstrating one of the options for a reproducible social connection. The South American Indians - the Guayaks - have a taboo on hunted game or animals: a hunter cannot eat what he has shot or caught. He must exchange his catch for other food with one of the members of the tribe.

The famous English sociologist and ethnographer B. Malinovsky mentions the custom of the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands to give part of the harvest and hunting spoils to the “sister’s husband,” even when the sister is not really there.

Of course, when talking about product exchange in a primitive society, one should not assume that it was isolated into some independent sphere of activity. Here it is necessary to avoid transferring modern ideas to antiquity. The exchange of activities and products of labor at the local level, within the community and clan served as a model of interclan and intertribal exchange. Only if one adheres to the incorrect initial hypothesis of individual hunting and gathering can one develop thoughts about a hostile attitude towards strangers as the main psychological background of external contacts.

But isolated primitive communities are either fiction or the result of a confluence of unique circumstances. Human society could not have been formed either from lone hunters and gatherers, or from herds warring with each other.

The history of the division of labor has long been dominated by the “three-stage theory,” which was finally formalized in the book of the French archaeologist Gabriel de Mortillier, entitled “The Origin of Hunting, Cattle Breeding and Agriculture” and published in 1890. He summed up the views that had developed back in Ancient Greece, according to which three forms of economic management have successively replaced in the history of mankind: hunting-gathering, pastoralism and agriculture. The latter was considered the highest by the ancient Greeks, because they themselves were predominantly farmers.

Criticism of the three-stage theory began already in 1892 in the work of the German geographer Eduard Hahn, “Forms of Land Economy,” who, however, did not propose another, more correct theory. Since the theory of the three stages was adhered to by such authorities as A. Smith and J. J. Rousseau, E. Khan's correct remarks about this theory simply began to coexist with it, without undermining or refuting it.

What are these comments?

Agriculture is much older than cattle breeding, and in many places it developed independently from gathering. Academician N.I. Vavilov identified seven centers of origin of agriculture, believing that some of them should be considered primary. V. S. Titov proposes to consider three as primary: Western Asian, including Egypt and Mesopotamia, Indo-Chinese and Central American.

The domestication of animals occurred more among farmers than among hunters, since hunters did not have food supplies. Agriculture, which developed from gathering, gave impetus to the transition from an appropriating economy to a producing one, from an economy of immediate consumption to an economy in which there are stocks and distribution of consumption over time.

Interpretation of the statements of the classics of Marxism-Leninism in this regard requires that the researcher determine his position in advance: whether new data from history, ethnography and archeology convince him or not that the theory of the three stages is incorrect.

F. Engels wrote: “The shepherd tribes stood out from the rest of the barbarian masses - this was the first major social division of labor” (Marx K., Engels F. Soch., vol. 21, p. 160). The importance of this thought was emphasized by V.I. Lenin (Pol. collected works, vol. 39, pp. 67–68). But the high level of research culture did not allow either F. Engels or V.I. Lenin to write that the shepherd tribes separated from the tribes of hunters, and thereby fetter their own conclusions by attachment to one of the potentially correct theories.

Elsewhere, F. Engels speaks of “the division of labor between pastoral peoples and the remaining tribes that do not have herds.” Nowhere does he call these tribes hunting tribes, despite the fact that Adam Smith himself stated this directly and unequivocally.

Currently, according to archaeological data, the history of the division of labor can be schematically described as follows. 10 thousand years ago, tribes emerged from among hunters and gatherers and began cultivating cereals. This contributed to a significant increase in food production and created conditions for population growth. The growing population stimulated the processes of settlement of new, less adapted territories. In parallel, there was a redistribution of power, in modern terms - a delegation of powers from the tribal level down to the level of the clan and patriarchal family.

The production economy appeared for the first time, presumably, in Western and Central Asia, between the Mediterranean Sea and Iranian Khorasan. The outflow of surplus population took place through Kurdistan and Turkmenistan, as well as through the Balkans.

During the Middle Bronze Age, people from the central agricultural zone settled between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers and settled east to the Minusinsk Basin and west to the upper reaches of the Dnieper. During the resettlement, a gradual separation of the pastoral tribes from the “tribes without herds” occurred.

Thus, “the first major division of labor is the separation of tribal collectives with a producing economy from the environment of the appropriating economy (VIII-VI thousand years BC). The second major division of labor should be considered the separation from the tribes with a producing economy of the pastoral way of life - the latter third of the 3rd millennium BC."

At the time when the book “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and State” was written, nothing was known about the Neolithic Revolution. All the more surprising is the flexibility of Engels’ formulation, which allowed for its possibility.

“The first social division of labor made regular exchange possible. Firstly, agricultural-pastoral tribes produced means of subsistence that were qualitatively different from the gathering tribes, and, secondly, they could produce more of these means than they needed to maintain life. This surplus was still small, but its existence was already of great importance,” writes the Soviet historian I. N. Khlopin and adds: “Complete isolation was never real, either between neighboring tribes or in stages.”

Therefore, one cannot subscribe to this opinion: “With the advent of craft as a branch of the economy, rudimentary commodity production arose. Craftsmen stop wandering and settle in certain places.”

It is generally accepted by modern historical science that the division of labor is in one way or another connected with the Neolithic revolution, which accelerated the development of productive forces. But the origins of the division of labor go back to very ancient times and concern, as one would expect in accordance with Marxist ideas, the specialization of tools.

In England, in the county of Norfolk, in the early Neolithic era there were mines where flint was mined. It is precisely established that mass production of stone axes was carried out there until the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. The beginning of work in the mines dates back no less than the 5th millennium BC.

The production of axes was clearly specialized, although researchers still do not understand everything about the division of labor at that time. In particular, the primary processing of the flint ax was carried out directly in the mine. This is evidenced by the accumulations of chips (waste) preserved there. Thus, it was no longer the raw material that was brought to the surface, but the semi-finished product.

Finished products from such mines have been discovered hundreds of kilometers away. “It is possible that in the early period they were exchanged with neighboring villages and each time ended up several kilometers further,” writes John Wood in the book “The Sun, the Moon and Ancient Stones.” This assumption is belied by the significant production volumes: “However, the mines at Grimes Graves produced a significant number of axes, and their production would quickly cease if there were no constant distribution routes. Either traders left there with ready-made axes, or communities in need of axes acquired the required number of them is right next to the mines.”

Thus, specialization in the production of tools inevitably leads to the conclusion about the development of trade, exchange of goods and trade routes.

There is no doubt that whatever this medium of exchange was, it was unlikely to resemble modern money. The above shows how many variations - in terms of material, scope, form, rules of application - can be allowed while maintaining the functions of money. A common opinion says: “In ancient times there could only be embryos of signs of value.” From the content of the previous chapters it follows that these “embryos” contained the possibility of performing at least two functions of money: a measure of value and a medium of exchange. The performance of these functions by any product of labor leaves no room for the idea that the early stages of economic development were based on the wise (or foolish) decisions of tribal leaders. Together with man, society arose, and with society, economy. Further development proceeded according to objective economic laws, to which all members of society are equally subject, regardless of the functions they perform.

It would seem that what do we care now about the role of tribal leaders or elders in ancient times? Is this really relevant? It turns out yes. Modern monetarists believe that since ancient times, economic life owes the direction of its development to the decisions of “strong” people. Since this is so, why not determine the direction of development modern economy to the president, who is guided by private logical conclusions, and not by knowledge of the objective laws of social development. The irony of the development of bourgeois economic theory here is that the mouthpiece of monetarism, the Chicago Journal of Political Economy, regularly publishes works on the economics of primitive society. Often these articles express interesting thoughts directed against the original monetarist concept of the susceptibility of any economy to the decisions of an individual.

Here is an article by Richard Posner discussing F. Pryor's book The Origins of Economics. A variety of topics are offered for researchers of primitive economics: an econometric analysis of the wedding price among the Eskimos, determining the price of information in the absence of a market among primitive tribes, the amount of food stored for the winter or rainy season, and much more. But it’s not the list of proposed works that matters. Posner literally shouts: when applying econometric methods to the primitive economy, do not consider the redistribution of products by leaders as the main model, this is anti-economic. I can’t even believe that it is in this magazine that the main anti-economic ideas are promoted - neo-voluntarism, which involves arbitrary intervention in the sphere of monetary circulation. R. Posner identifies two anti-economic approaches to the primitive economy: substantivism and formalism. He calls the first formless (what comes out of statistics is good). The second approach is when the researcher trusts the accepted rules of economic behavior and studies them, and not actual economic life. Both approaches are characterized by the absence of “a preliminary formulation of the economic theory of primitive society. Both come down to checking whether the hypothesis put forward is confirmed by the available data.”

Well, why not attack the neo-petarianists? Published in a journal that constantly publishes more and more new works by neo-monetarists, theorists of “supply-side economics” and “rational expectations”, it testifies to the serious separation of bourgeois economic thought from research in the field of cultural history.

“We cannot assume,” writes Posner, referring to Pryor’s book, “that in primitive society all products were distributed by persons occupying a high position.” An economy that depends on the psychology of individuals cannot exist. In the opposing ideas there is something of a child’s opinion about the structure of social life: no matter how much the children quarrel over toys, the teacher will come and settle everything. But in real economic life there are no “educators”, and society is governed by objective laws of development, no less strict than the laws of physics and chemistry. And an essential element of social relations has always been the exchange of labor products using a wide variety of means of such exchange.