The following is an excerpt from “The Division of Rationalized Labor” by Michelle Jackson, now out at Harvard University Press.
Classical theories of the division of labor can be traced back to one simple proposition: specialization brings productive advantages. This is a proposition that appears in almost all of the classical treatments of specialization, and once it is accepted, a number of important implications follow.
First, the range of tasks undertaken by individual workers is likely to become narrower over time. Pin factories in which work is divided among specialized workers will produce more than pin factories in which workers take on a broader range of tasks, with the result that those in the business of producing pins are likely to alter their production processes to allow workers to become more specialized as time goes on. [Adam] Smith argues that there are several productive advantages associated with more-specialized workers. Most obviously, specializing in a given task means that a worker is likely to become more proficient in performing that task; performing the same task repeatedly builds the skills required to perform the task well. Specializing also saves the time required to switch tasks. Cleaning the wire requires different tools than drawing the wire and cutting the heads, and the tasks might need to be performed in different locations. A single person switching between tasks is therefore likely to be less productive than multiple people maintaining focus on individual tasks. And specialization makes possible the use of labor-saving machines: a device that replaces the whole process of manufacture is complicated to design and produce, but a device that replaces a single task is more viable. All three factors push in the direction of increasing task specialization at the level of the individual worker.
To Smith’s highlighted advantages of specialization, we may add another, first identified by Charles Babbage (1833), who argued that the most important productive advantage of specialization is that it makes it possible for the employer to purchase only as much labor of a given type as is required to produce the product. As Babbage writes (1864: 436), “By dividing the work to be executed into different processes, each requiring different degrees of skill, or of force, the master manufacturer can purchase exactly that precise quantity of both which is necessary for each process. Whereas if the whole work were executed by one workman, that person must possess sufficient skill to perform the most difficult, and sufficient strength to execute the most laborious, of those operations into which the art is divided.” This insight is particularly valuable, as it highlights the extent to which specialization is intimately connected to the degradation of work and a decline in worker power (e.g., see Marx 1867). The quote also suggests that specialization allows workers with different skill profiles to be parceled off into different specialized occupations, a feature that becomes increasingly important as the labor market transitions from manufacturing to services. This process will, once again, produce increasing task specialization at the worker level.
Second, occupations are likely to become more specialized over time. As individual workers specialize in performing tasks, so do all workers within a given field, and occupational boundaries shift. The occupation of “pin maker” no longer properly captures the work carried out by a given set of workers, and it is replaced by a larger set of more narrow occupations, such as “pin wire cleaner” and “pin head shanker.” Occupations across the occupational structure continue to divide, such that the tasks of the original occupations are distributed across a larger number of more specialized occupations. Specialized training regimens emerge alongside the new occupations, increasing the productivity of workers within the occupations and firming up the new occupational boundaries. Other forms of recognition—such as licensing, professional societies, and specialized academic fields—may develop, further solidifying the boundaries until the next round of specialization commences.
Third, the capacity for work to offer meaning to workers declines as specialization increases. This is a direct consequence of workers taking on a narrower range of tasks. Specialization brings increased efficiency and higher productivity, but it also reduces the connection between a worker and the end product of their labor, resulting in alienation. In the first volume of Das Kapital, for example, Karl Marx draws on David Urquhart to describe the “dark side” of the division of labor, writing, “To subdivide a man is to execute him, if he deserves the sentence, to assassinate him if he does not… The subdivision of labour is the assassination of a people” (1867: chap. 15, sec. 5). In Marx’s analysis, the division of labor makes possible the extraction of surplus value: when the labor to produce a given product is divided across many workers, no worker has a clear claim over the end product, and the profit on that product is instead claimed by the owner of the enterprise. For Marx, the increasing division of labor degrades the experience of work and facilitates worker exploitation.
A similarly pessimistic tone is adopted by Max Weber, in his discussion of the iron cage at the end of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905: 124). In considering the possible end point of rationalized capitalism, Weber writes, “No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self-importance. For the ‘last man’ of this cultural development, it might well be truly said: ‘Specialist without spirit, sensualist without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of humanity never before achieved.’” Weber’s vision of “specialists without spirit” draws on similar themes to Marx, acknowledging that excessive specialization implies some loss of humanity for those trapped in the highly differentiated system.
One consequence of a narrowing in the range of tasks that workers undertake, then, is a loss of humanity. But there may be other, more positive, consequences—namely, we may become more reliant on others to pro-vide for our needs (Durkheim 1893). These relations of dependence arise precisely because specialization renders individuals incapable of flourishing without cooperation with others. As functions are pulled out of the family and taken over by specialized institutions—such as schools, hospitals, and law enforcement—individuals become more reliant on society to develop and live to full capacity. For Durkheim, the solidarity-increasing benefits of specialization are even more important for society than the productivity benefits are. Individuals are pulled closer to one another and to society as a whole by virtue of their position in the division of labor.
As this brief review indicates, the classical theories of the division of labor have in common a rather straightforward prediction about the likely trajectory of specialization in modern industrialized societies. In short, we should expect more specialization rather than less. Individual workers will undertake a narrower range of tasks, and occupational boundaries will shrink around that narrower range. The narrowing of worker tasks and occupations is a clear prediction of classical theories, and the theorized consequences of specialization for workers and societies only underscore these predictions.
The accretion of labor
Today, there is no person specialized in drawing the wire. No person specialized in cutting the heads, or softing the heads, or heading the shanks. Today, pins are in large part produced by machines rather than people, and the increase in productivity relative to the eighteenth century is profound. The classical theorists of the division of labor would not have been surprised to hear these facts: one important advantage of specialization—from the employer’s perspective—is that tasks can be automated and the demand for labor is thereby reduced.
But at least some of the classical theorists might have been surprised to discover the job tasks of the present-day pin makers. Take, for example, the person ultimately responsible for drawing the wire, who would today be classified within the “Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic,” occupation. The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) program, which documents the work activities and skill requirements of occupations, lists sixteen key work tasks associated with the wiredrawing occupation (O*NET 2024). These tasks include those that Adam Smith would have had little problem recognizing, such as “adjust controls to draw or press metal into specified shapes and diameters” or “operate shearing mechanisms to cut rods to specified lengths.” Other tasks, such as “maintain an inventory of materials,” “test physical properties of products with testing devices,” and “troubleshoot, maintain, and make minor repairs to equipment” might have appeared more puzzling to the classical eye. The theorists might have quietly wondered why there was such a high degree of functional complexity in twenty-first-century wiredrawing and why so many tasks seemingly distant from the narrow act of drawing the wire were now central to the performance of this occupation.
If our classical theorist were to take a break from contemplating wire-drawing and sit down to read the New York Times, they might be confronted with other puzzling facts. In an article published on February 5, 2023, Ezra Klein quoted at length from a construction worker, who was reflecting on changes in his work over the past fifty years:
The safety features on jobs when I started in the industry were not even noticeable. Safety on a job today is incredibly different. You don’t walk across a beam, you walk around on a pathway marked for you to stay safe so you don’t fall off the side of the building. By the time I retired, one thing that took place every day, on every job site, was a mandatory 15 minutes of calisthenics before you start your workday. That’s totally nonproductive, but it led to fewer work site injuries during the day. . . . The level of reporting that you have to send to the government, to the insurance companies, to the owner, to show you’re meeting all the requirements on the job site, all of that has increased. And so the number of people you need to produce that has increased.
The loss of productivity noted by the worker and the introduction of job tasks that are seemingly unrelated to the narrow job of construction (e.g., “safety,” “calisthenics,” and “reporting”) are quite at odds with the classical predictions. Construction workers do not appear to be undertaking a smaller number of highly specialized tasks, and concerns about declining productivity in the construction sector are prominent (see Goolsbee and Syverson 2023; see also Klein and Thompson 2025: chap. 2).
Pin making and construction are far from exceptional. Across the occupational structure, workers are taking on an increasingly wide variety of tasks. In some cases, this functional complexity is the focus of approbation. In recent years, the Defund the Police movement has drawn attention to the diversity of tasks that police officers are expected to undertake.[…]
Even accounting for the human tendency to overestimate how special our present is relative to the past, the commentators are consistent in documenting the high functional complexity of contemporary occupations.
Contemporary occupations, then, exhibit a surprisingly high degree of functional complexity relative to classical predictions, and occupations have also increased in complexity over recent decades. The contemporary worker experience appears to diverge quite substantially from the specialized simplification predicted by the classical theories.
This excerpt has been adapted from “The Division of Rationalized Labor” by Michelle Jackson, published by Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2025 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Articles represent the opinions of their writers, not necessarily those of the University of Chicago, the Booth School of Business, or its faculty.
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