Division of labor

[Redistribute the Rep]

So it's my understanding that in a communist society there will no longer be division of labor, as in one can just go paint a house if he feels like it. But what about jobs that are more specialized like doctors and engineers? People will need to spend many years training for some things so won't they almost exclusively do those jobs? So where exactly is the line drawn between having division of labor and not having it?

[Five Year Plan]

The abolition of the division of labor isn't meant to suggest that just everybody will be performing open heart surgery. It's a reference to the way in which capital accumulation no longer drives job assignments. So, under communism, it is likely that heart surgeons can work only a few days a week doing that task, if they so choose, in order to devote much of their time to other pursuits (gardening?). And with greater resources to permit in-depth education to more people, there will in all likelihood be enough surgeons to make this a realizable goal, without sacrificing the health needs of society. This will be the case until we get robots to perform all these medical procedures, like in the movie Prometheus.

[ckaihatsu]

The 'doctors' and 'engineers' question is often held out as a technical *fetish* -- these types of work roles are meant to be mystifying and inscrutable, and thus are perfect for commodification under present-day conditions.

By contrast, 'house-painting' is something that anyone can do more-or-less readily, of course -- I'll contend that *most* work roles in the world are more like house painting than they are like brain surgery, or whatever other kind of "bedazzling" speciality.

(And, also, 'doctors' and 'engineers' only begs the questions of 'health' and 'infrastructure', respectively.)

From past threads:





You're [...] having to use a very *specialized* instance of a technical procedure, one that is particular to a person's life, is individually physically exacting, and is time-sensitive. Outside of the procedure of surgery, many more *regular* technical processes are *non*-life-sensitive, *non*-individual-specific, and *non*-time-sensitive.





[I] maintain that 'specialization', as into life-long careers, would disappear as any given situation in time could be identified and addressed in a common, collective, cooperative kind of way.

[Redistribute the Rep]

The abolition of the division of labor isn't meant to suggest that just everybody will be performing open heart surgery. It's a reference to the way in which capital accumulation no longer drives job assignments. So, under communism, it is likely that heart surgeons can work only a few days a week doing that task, if they so choose, in order to devote much of their time to other pursuits (gardening?). And with greater resources to permit in-depth education to more people, there will in all likelihood be enough surgeons to make this a realizable goal, without sacrificing the health needs of society. This will be the case until we get robots to perform all these medical procedures, like in the movie Prometheus.

Ok but at what point does a society with division of labor become a society without division of labor? Isn't it already the case that people for the most part don't spend all their time doing the same thing?

[Blake's Baby]

Not really, I don't think. Most people do a job and continue to work in that or a related field for most of their working lives. Sure, if you go to university you might work in a bar or a restaurant while you also study chemistry or medieval poetry, but once you leave most people I think would tend to stick to their field, whatever that is. That woul isappear. No reason why you shouldn't study both chemistry and medieval poetry, and then gain skills in electrical maintainance and piloting helicopters. Because witholding knowledge gives you no advantage in communist society learning would be seen not as a drain on resources but a furthering of social advancement (advancement for society, that is, not avancement of the individual in society).

Furthermore, in your job currently, there is a division of labour between yourself and your line manager (who might be able to do what you do but might not), who organises the workflow, and your co-workers who will have their own specialisms... these may be more-or-less jealously-guarded or segregated as far as knowledge and techniques go, that I guess depends both on the industry and the ethos of the employers.

The point is under communist prouction there wouln't be 'bosses' and 'workers', we'll all be organising our workflow and co-operating to fulfil the 'orders' that are coming to our workplaces, and we'd (as far as is sensible) share and rotate tasks, an learn each others' 'jobs' too. OK, no-one in their right mind is going to let me fly the helicopter because I don't know how to do it at the moment, but there's no reason I can't learn how, and in the meantime I can do other things as I increase my skills in electrical engineering, first aid techniques or whatever else.

[bropasaran]

So it's my understanding that in a communist society there will no longer be division of labor, as in one can just go paint a house if he feels like it. But what about jobs that are more specialized like doctors and engineers? People will need to spend many years training for some things so won't they almost exclusively do those jobs? So where exactly is the line drawn between having division of labor and not having it?
Managerial jobs, that is- positions of being above other people, organizing their work, commanding them- will be abolished. That includes all technocracts- economic managers, political bureaucracts, and intellectuals. Concerning other jobs people would get specialized or unspecialized as much as they want, it's going to be a society of total freedom.

[ckaihatsu]

Managerial jobs, that is- positions of being above other people, organizing their work, commanding them- will be abolished. That includes all technocracts- economic managers, political bureaucracts, and intellectuals. Concerning other jobs people would get specialized or unspecialized as much as they want, it's going to be a society of total freedom.


In a world free of commodification there would be incentive at the individual level to *de*-specialize, since one would be seen as more capable of participating in (default) collectivist endeavors, because the administration of such would *not* be specialized -- no division of labor in that regard, as you're pointing out.

In other words the interconnectedness of all tasks would grow tremendously, and one would have to have a good general knowledge across *all* fields to be more politically / socially active and effective in the coordination of such.