2 the first major social division of labor. Three major divisions of labor

1. Division of labor: types, types and forms

2. Commodity production

1. The division of labor is a historical process of isolation, consolidation, modification of certain types of activity, which takes place in social forms of differentiation and implementation of various types of labor activity.

Types of division of labor:

1. natural;

2. technical;

3. public.

Natural division of labor- there is a segregation of labor by sex and age. This division of labor is called natural because its character flows from the very nature of man, from the delimitation of the functions that each of us has to perform due to our physical, intellectual and spiritual merits.

Technical division of labor- this is such a differentiation of people's labor activity, which is predetermined by the very nature of the means of production used, primarily technically and technologically.

For example, when the sewing machine replaced the needle, a different organization of labor was required, as a result of which a significant mass of people engaged in this type of activity was released. As a result, they were forced to look for other areas of application of their labor. Here, the very replacement of a hand tool by a mechanism required changes in the existing system of division of labor.

The social division of labor represents the natural and technical division of labor, taken in their interaction and in unity with economic factors(costs, prices, profits, method, supply, taxes, etc.), under the influence of which there is an isolation, differentiation of various types of labor activity. This type of division of labor is predetermined by the socio-economic conditions of production. For example, a farmer, having certain land plots engaged in both crop production and animal husbandry. However, economic calculations suggest that if some of them specialize mainly in the cultivation and preparation of feed, while others are engaged only in fattening animals, then production costs will be significantly reduced for both.

Sectoral division of labor- is determined by the conditions of production, the nature of the raw materials used, technology, equipment and the product being manufactured.

Territorial division of labor- characterized by the spatial distribution of various types of labor activity.

Varieties of the territorial division of labor are district, regional and international division of labor. Neither sectoral nor territorial division of labor can exist outside of each other.

Types of division of labor:

1. general;

2. private;

3. singular.

General division of labor- characterized by the isolation of large genera (spheres) of activity, which differ from each other in the shaping of the product.

It includes the separation of animal husbandry from agriculture, handicrafts from agriculture, and the separation of trade from industry.

Private division of labor- this is the process of isolation of individual industries within the framework of large types of production.

The private division of labor includes both individual industries and sub-sectors and individual industries. For example, within the framework of industry, such industries as mechanical engineering, metallurgy, and mining can be named, which in turn include whole line sub-sectors.

Single division of labor- characterizes the isolation of the production of individual components of finished products, as well as the allocation of individual technological operations.

The unit division of labor includes the detailed, node-by-node and operational division of labor. This division of labor, as a rule, takes place within individual enterprises.

Forms of division of labor:

1. differentiation;

2. specialization;

3. universalization;

4. diversification.

Differentiation consists in the process of isolation, "branching" of individual industries, due to the specifics of the means of production used, technology, and there. In other words, it is the process of dismembering social production into all new types of activity.

For example, before the commodity producer was engaged not only in the production of any goods, but also in their sale. Now he has focused all his attention on the production of goods, while their implementation is carried out by another, completely independent economic entity.

Specialization It is based on differentiation, but it develops already on the basis of focusing efforts on a narrow range of manufactured products.

For example, a commodity producer produced various types of furniture, but later decided to concentrate on the production of only bedroom sets, the manufacturer did not abandon the production of furniture, but reorganizes production based on the replacement of universal tools with specialized ones.

Universalization is the opposite of specialization. It is based on the production or sale of a wide range of goods and services.

An example is the production of all types and types of furniture and even the production of kitchen utensils, cutlery at one enterprise.

Diversification- under this form of division of labor should be understood the expansion of the range of products.

This is achieved in two ways:

1st - market diversification - it is characterized by the expansion of the range of manufactured goods, which are already produced by other enterprises.

2nd way - production diversification, which is directly related to scientific and technological progress, with the advent of qualitatively new goods and technologies. Within the framework of industrial diversification, one should distinguish between: technological, detailed and product diversification.

2. Commodity production and market relations.

Restricting ourselves to characterizing the division of labor, let us turn to commodity production. Any isolation of this or that labor activity causes the refusal to perform other types or labor functions. But, a person needs the whole range of goods to satisfy his needs. Moreover, these needs are constantly growing, changing and expanding.

Consequently, in order to satisfy one's needs in at least one product, the production of which was abandoned by one or another economic entity, it is necessary to enter into exchange relations with other economic entities that produce this product. Entering into exchange relations, each commodity producer, receiving some benefit from his counterparty, in return is forced to yield, to give away other benefits. There is an exchange of goods. Thus, commodity production is such a social form of production in which products are produced not for one's own consumption, but to satisfy the needs of others through exchange, sale and purchase on the market.

A commodity is a product of labor intended for exchange in order to satisfy social needs, i.e. the needs of not the commodity producer himself, but of any member of society.

Any commodity has an exchange value, or the ability to exchange in a certain proportion for other goods. However, all goods enter into exchange only because they can satisfy this or that need.

3. Barter and commodity circulation

Initially, people entered into a simple commodity exchange, or such relations of exchange in which the sale and purchase of goods coincided in time and took place without the participation of money. The form of such a commodity exchange is: T(product) - T(product). As a result of the development of exchange, ever new possibilities opened up for the isolation of types of activity, because the guarantee of obtaining the missing goods or products, from the production of which the commodity producer deliberately refused, increased. Thus, commodity exchange was replaced by commodity circulation, which is based on money - this is a universal purchasing tool that has the ability to exchange for any product. With the advent of money, exchange was divided into two opposite and complementary acts: sale and purchase. This created conditions that allowed the intermediary to join in the exchange. As a result, a new major division of labor occurred - the separation of trade into a special large kind economic activity. Thus, commodity circulation is an exchange relationship that is mediated by a monetary equivalent, which has the form: T(product) - D(money) - T(product).

Primitive communal model of economic development: the main stages of formation and features.

signs:

Low level of development productive forces and slow improvement

Collective appropriation natural resources and production results

Equal distribution, social equality

Absence private property, operation, classes and states

Low rates of development of society.

Stages:

Paleolithic (ancient stone age) - 3 million - 12 thousand years BC

Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) - 12 - 8 thousand years BC

Neolithic (new stone age) - 8 - 3 thousand years BC.

1-Early Paleolithic (before 100 thousand years BC). Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus, Neanderthals - gathering, fishing and driven hunting.

2-Middle Paleolithic (ended 40 thousand years ago). Cro-Magnon man along with Neanderthals. articulate speech. Getting fire. Stone technology.

3-Late Paleolithic (ended in the XII millennium BC). Matriarchy. public bans. A simple appropriating economy is hunting, fishing and gathering. The level of stone technology has increased. Labor as simple cooperation without division. Everything is collectively owned. Labor distribution of prey. Exchange between communities.

4-Mesolithic (XII-VIII thousand BC). Individual hunting. Improving weapons, the appearance of the bow. New methods in fishing. Lightening the weight and reducing the volume of stone tools. Appropriating economy of lower hunters, gatherers and fishermen. The principle of collectivization. Boat use. Exploration of new lands. Several of the closest clans began to unite into a tribe. Patriarchy.

5-Neolithic (VIII-IV millennium BC). First public division labor for agriculture and pastoralism. Then the second social division of labor - the allocation of craft from Agriculture- individualization of labor, the emergence and development of private property. The first craft is pottery. "Neolithic Revolution" - the emergence of new technology, forms of production and lifestyle, the development of new territories and their effective use. The origin of the exchange - because. there were surpluses of agricultural and handicraft industries. Transition to a sedentary lifestyle.

6-Eneolithic (4-3 thousand BC). The appearance of metal - copper, gold, bronze. The system of irrigated and plow farming, increasing property inequality.

The first and second social division of labor: causes, essence and consequences.

First division of labor:

Prerequisites:

The emergence and spread of agriculture in fertile areas, then the domestication of animals, which often gave more income than agriculture. Some tribes even completely switched to cattle breeding.

Essence:

In the total mass of primitive tribes, 2 groups were distinguished: cattle-breeding and agricultural.

Consequences:

1. transition to a sedentary lifestyle

2. growth in labor productivity

3. the possibility of accumulation of reserves (wealth)

4. origin of trade (in-kind exchange)

5. development of religion, art.

Second division of labor:

Causes:

The emergence of free time due to the growth of labor productivity (less time and energy was required to obtain food), the emergence and development of handicrafts.

Essence:

Separation of handicrafts from agriculture.

Consequences:

1. individualization of labor

2. development of private property

RESULT:

Transition to a manufacturing economy:

Variety of products intended for exchange

Expanded exchange system

The need to enter a universal equivalent.

Division of labor

Division of labor- the historically established process of isolation, modification, consolidation of certain types of labor activity, which takes place in social forms of differentiation and implementation of various types of labor activity.

Distinguish:

General division of labor by branches of social production;

Private division of labor within industries;

A single division of labor within organizations according to technological, qualification and functional characteristics.

It is the reason for the increase in the overall productivity of an organized group of specialists (synergistic effect) due to:

Development of skills and automatism of performing simple repetitive operations
Reduced time spent transitioning between different operations

The concept of the division of labor is quite fully described by Adam Smith in the first three chapters of his five-volume treatise An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

Allocate social division of labor- the distribution of social functions between people in society - and the international division of labor.

Social division of labor- this is the division of labor primarily into productive and managerial labor. (F. Engels "Anti-Dühringe" op., vol. 20, p. 293)

The division of labor led to modern world to availability vast multitude various professions and industries. Previously (in ancient times), people were forced to provide themselves almost completely with everything they needed, it was extremely inefficient, which led to a primitive life and comfort. Almost all the achievements of evolution, scientific and technological progress can be explained by the continuous introduction of the division of labor. Thanks to the exchange of the results of labor, that is, trade, the division of labor becomes possible in society.

From the point of view of business engineering, the division of labor is a functional decomposition of business processes. It is often possible to isolate such a part of the functions into a separate form, which then becomes possible to entrust to automation or a machine. Thus, the division of labor continues to occur today and has a close connection, for example, with automation processes. In the field of intellectual labor, its division is also possible and very useful.

The division of labor is the first link in the entire system of labor organization. The division of labor is the separation of various types of labor activity and the division of the labor process into parts, each of which is performed by a certain group of workers united according to common functional, professional or qualification characteristics.

For example, the main method of work in accounting is the division of labor of specialists. We distribute the work of employees by sections accounting under the guidance of leading experts and auditors, which allows to achieve maximum efficiency of their work. Thus, we dynamically combine experience in the field of accounting automation and experience in the field of administration of accounting services.

DIVISION OF LABOR- differentiation, specialization of labor activity, coexistence of its various types. The social division of labor is the differentiation in society of various social functions performed by certain groups of people, and the allocation in connection with this ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Division of labor- DIVISION OF LABOR, differentiation, specialization of labor activity, coexistence of its various types. The social division of labor is the differentiation in society of various social functions performed by certain groups of people, and the allocation ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

DIVISION OF LABOR- (division of labor) The system according to which specialization occurs in the production process. It has two advantages: first, workers specialize in those types of work in which they have a comparative advantage (comparative ... ... Economic dictionary

Division of labor- (division of labor) Specialization of workers in the production process (or any other economic activity). Adam Smith (1723-1790), in his work The Wealth of Nations, described the division of labor as one of the greatest contributions to increasing ... ... Glossary of business terms

Division of labor- division of labor functions between members of the working team (link, team) in accordance with the division of the production process into constituent processes and operations. [Adamchuk V. V., Romashov O. V., Sorokina M. E. Economics and sociology ... ... Encyclopedia of terms, definitions and explanations of building materials

division of labor- Differentiation of the activities of people in the process of joint work. [GOST 19605 74] Topics of labor organization, production ... Technical Translator's Handbook

DIVISION OF LABOR- English. division of labour; German Arbeitsteilung. 1. A functionally integrated system of production roles and specializations within society. 2. According to E. Durkheim, a necessary condition for the material and intellectual development of society; source… … Encyclopedia of Sociology

Books

Justice in the national economy. Division of labor, G. Schmoller. Readers are invited to the book of the famous German economist and historian Gustav Schmoller, dedicated to the study of the problems National economy. In the first part of the book, the author tries ...

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

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

Further. This raw material must be transformed into something else as a result of the labor process. However, the following should be understood here. According to J.St. Millu, a man, by his actions, with the help of his bodily powers (with the exception of rare exotic cases) cannot transform the source material into something else. He can only move the raw material and intermediate products to where they are acted upon by the forces of nature, which carry out such a 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 tool, and indeed any tool, is an organized force of nature), and in secondly, that man can move not only raw materials, but also the 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 the worker and ends with the receipt of the finished product.

This process takes place in real time. Let's depict it in a picture with which we will work later (Fig. 32). I already drew similar drawings in the first lecture, only then the production process was already broken down 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, much more would have to be taken into account here, but unnecessary details will not change the further conclusions at all, but will only complicate the presentation.

Let's immediately define what knowledge is. Everyone recklessly uses this term, there is even a fashionable expression "knowledge economy", while usually no one takes the trouble to explain what is meant 76. In our case, by "knowledge" I will understand the knowledge of the correct sequence of movements regarding raw materials, intermediate and natural forces (organized and unorganized), taking into account the nature of the action of these forces, which (movements) make it possible to transform raw material into a final product.

The worker carrying out the production process must have knowledge in the sense that we have defined it. Obtaining this knowledge is carried out in the course of training, which also requires a certain amount of time.

In general, the more time it takes to master knowledge about a certain production process, the greater the amount of income received by employees per unit of average working time for all employees (subject to a balance of supply and demand in the market). This is a common assumption used in the concept of " human capital” in its unperverted microeconomic form, which all goes back to the same A. Smith.

As is clear from the preceding, we assume that there is a product-by-product division of labor in the economy. It developed within the framework of “pre-capitalist” social and administrative units, and then its participants joined the market. The concept of a profession is associated with the implementation of a complete production process for the manufacture (and sale) of a certain product (“baker” and “shoemaker” A. Smith).

The division of labor involves the fragmentation of the production process into separate operations performed by different workers.

Let's look at fig. 32. Does he give us any indications on what basis such division can be carried out? In the form in which it is now drawn, no.

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

Of course, we can formally divide the time during which the production process is carried out into some equal intervals of time. Yes, but how much and how long? What is the reason for this? Why should the pin production process be divided into exactly 18 operations, as A. Smith describes it to us? Why not 3? Or not 100?

Of course, each of the artisans probably divides the time of their work into some semantic segments. Here in this period I do one thing, 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 the profession somewhere in one place: in general, splitting into such semantic segments usually occurs in the course of training and thus the assimilation of knowledge is facilitated. Although then each employee can contribute something of his own in accordance with his personal experience.

Here, again, one can speculate a lot and usefully about many things, but I will not do that. We will discuss something later, when we have a clearer picture.

For now, we only formulate the following.

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

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

Hence, we must assume the presence of disequilibrium.

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

First, the prices of the commodity will rise, and the balance of supply and demand will quickly recover. But will the balance be restored? No, because in this case, workers in the relevant profession will begin to receive an “excessive” income compared to workers in other professions. That is, such income that is not due to the costs of obtaining the necessary skills.

Then, at the next stage, part 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 fall, the surplus of 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. But what if everyone wants to retrain as a manufacturer of, say, toothbrushes? Then at some point the production of brushes will increase many times over. Prices will not just fall, but collapse. At the same time, prices for all other goods will skyrocket, crowds of artisans will again rush to retrain with the same consequences. And the market, instead of coming to a new state of equilibrium, will go into a state of chaos.

In mathematical models, where abstract "infinitesimal" deviations are operated on, 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 of the existing verbal theories. business cycle and crises. They differ only in the nature of the "shocks" taken into account and the mechanisms of "delay" in the reaction.

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

Consider a fairly simple and illustrative example. Let's assume that a craftsman uses some expensive equipment, such as a machine tool, during the production process. Suppose also 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 single out in our production process the period of time when the machine is used (Fig. 33).

The sequence of movements of the worker associated with the use of the machine, we single out in a separate operation. It turns out that this operation takes 1/8 of the total working time.

Under equilibrium conditions, the selection of this operation does not make any special sense. Why does it acquire special meaning in conditions of disequilibrium?

What is preventing artisans from other industries from quickly switching to the production of the notorious toothbrushes? We have already said - the lack of knowledge and the need to spend time getting it. Fine! We 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 the necessary equipment, machine tools. After all, machine tool production was also initially in balance: as many machine tools were produced as needed to compensate for those leaving and 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 the bottleneck that prevents the industry from responding quickly to rising demand.

An active 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 does not work 1/8 of the working time, but throughout the entire working time. That is, to increase the scale of production by 8 times. But this can only be done if the number of employees increases by 8 times. Someone has to do the rest of the 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 just finish using it, etc. (Fig. 34).

But, as it is easy to understand, it is extremely difficult to manage such an organized process. It will always happen here that the machine is idle because someone did not have time to do something (and how to follow it throughout the entire production process?), Or several workers are waiting in line until the machine is free.

Much easier to do otherwise. 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 instruct to perform each individual employee(Fig. 35).

Here, of course, there are problems. Operations formally distinguished by time cannot have either a logical beginning or a logical end. It may be necessary to redesign the entire production process. But from the point of view of the organization of current management, this approach is more appropriate. It is always known who is doing what, and if a failure occurs, the perpetrator is easy to identify and punish (recall our reasoning about the tribal leader).

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

Look: his, say, monthly excess income as a result of the creation of the company grows 8 times. I don’t know if it’s half or a quarter of this increase, but he may well distribute something among his employees, and still remains in a giant plus.

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

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

It would seem that nothing special happened. Nothing has changed in the production technology. There is nothing that we are accustomed to call scientific and technological progress. The cost of production has not decreased, and under my assumptions about how the wages of employees are set, they have even risen slightly. But at the same time, at one point in the economic space, production for no reason increased by 8 times. The super-incomes of the former craftsman, who has now become an entrepreneur, also increased several times.

But this is only the beginning. Can these incomes be increased? Yes, only for this you need to hire 8 more workers and buy another machine. There will be no particular problems with the first one, but we assumed that there is a shortage of machine tools on the market and their price is high. But this circumstance is unlikely to stop our entrepreneur.

First, no matter how much the machine costs, the entrepreneur can easily accumulate the right amount. Much faster than anyone else can. Secondly, in fact, the prices for machine tools are not at all exorbitant, at least from the point of view of our entrepreneur. The limit for the growth of the price of a machine tool is the amount of excess income that an individual craftsman can receive under the prevailing market conditions. If the increase in prices for machine tools "eats" all the excess profits, 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 raise 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 acquiring it. His extra income is much higher. The machine in his hands is operated 8 times more intensively than anyone else. He can buy machines more expensive than anyone else. Starting at some point, he alone will buy all the machines. Unless, of course, others think to do the same as he did.

Of course, starting a firm is not as simple an act as I have just described. At least in terms of costs. The original 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, 8 times increase the purchases of raw materials and other materials. It is necessary to pay an advance to workers in order to pay for their work before the first product they produce is sold. And at the same time be sure that there are channels through which the products can be sold.

All this needs money. The entrepreneur himself may have something. He can get something on credit secured by a machine tool, since machine tools are becoming more expensive on the market. It is clear that the first entrepreneur will have to rely on his own resources rather. His followers can already count on a more favorable attitude from the financial sector: they can point to already operating firms 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 buzz among lenders and investors. At the same time, most likely, newly created firms will immediately become larger and larger.

It is clear that sooner or later the wave of demand that prompted our entrepreneur and his followers to create firms will go down, and their ability to quickly increase production many times over will greatly contribute to this. Demand and supply will begin to level off, super-profits, the presence of which provoked the changes, will be reduced. Eventually, prices will fall below the equilibrium level for a period of time.

The last of those who decide to start a firm (or increase its size by attracting loans) are likely to fail, as they have to service newly received loans in the face of declining windfall profits. Together with them, their investors and creditors will suffer losses.

When prices fall below the equilibrium level, and if such a decline is prolonged, as it is likely to be, individual artisans will be forced out of the market. The firms that survive will be those that have low debt at the time of the turnaround and that have managed to accumulate sufficient cash reserves that will allow them to withstand a period of price decline. In addition, when the market deteriorates, firms will begin to cut 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 the balance will be restored. But this new equilibrium will be qualitatively different from the equilibrium that existed before the wave of demand. In at least one of the industries, individual producers79 will be replaced by firms - structures with an internal division of labor.

So, we have considered an example in which situation and how, without resorting to exotic assumptions, we can explain the emergence of a firm. I chose an example with a machine tool 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 craftsman has no reason to single out any operations as special.

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

We, especially if we know how other production processes are arranged, can single out operations that are unique to this process. We can classify all operations. There are simple operations, such that any person can perform, once he is told what to do. Something like give-bring-take-take, etc. And difficult, which can only be performed by a person who has spent time training to do them correctly. We are talking 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 from the street cannot perform these operations, he will definitely break something or do something wrong. The ability to perform such operations is the essence of the profession of a craftsman. In other words, we are dealing here with acquired differences.

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 it is an elementary action, then all his ability to perform complex operations with these raw materials will not help him to produce the finished product.

Both in the case of natural and in the case of acquired qualities, we are talking about rare qualities, or, if you like, rare resources. In the detailed example of the creation of a company I have given, a rare resource is a machine tool.

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 the possession of certain acquired qualities as a rare resource, then the division of labor will be built around the operation that requires these qualities, around the “master”. I have already spoken about the machine in detail. And what will tell us which resource is really rare? Market prices. Those resources that rise in price the most in a wave of demand are the rarest. Machine tools are getting more expensive - that means machines. There was a demand for strong men, their wages increased - which means that a natural natural advantage is rare. The tuition fee for any specialty is growing - which means that it is this acquired natural advantage that limits the possibility of expanding production due to a wave of demand.

Let's take a closer look at rarity. The rarity of resources is the initial premise of neoclassicism. But if I get a company out of the rarity of a resource with an increase in demand, then in neoclassicism nothing comes out except a rise in prices. What is the difference?

For neoclassicists, 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 the production process, then this requirement applies to the entire process. Because they don't have a manufacturing process as such. It is folded into one point - I have always emphasized the static nature of the models used by orthodox economics.

This is where one of the most significant dividing lines between neoconomics and traditional economic theory passes. I consider the production process as a process and assume that the concept of rarity can only apply to individual fragments of this process. And then we have the possibility of division of labor "inside" the production process.

How far can labor be divided? I, following J. St. Millem describe 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 time. That is, the execution of the simplest movement that you can think of.

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

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

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

With raw materials, everything is clear. One can well imagine a warehouse that stores bags with the necessary substances or parts.

But how to imagine labor in this model (we will not talk about capital)? Raw materials are part of the final product (with the possible exception of waste). And what is included in the composition of the final product from the side of the labor factor? People in their natural form? Again, except for waste. Generally speaking, the form of the production function does not preclude such an interpretation.

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

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

Someone (the owner of the firm) takes a few handfuls from the raw material bag, adds a handful from the labor time bag, mixes it up, 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 the warehouse stores bags not with natural ingredients, but money. On one bag is written: "money for the purchase of raw materials." On the other - "money for the purchase of labor", that is, really to pay for hours, minutes and seconds of working time. This money is combined in some proportion, 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 mixing it all in the right proportion, carefully and carefully.

Everything is clear and logical here, but only an attempt to transfer such a vision to the real production process, in which all factors participate in kind, seems ridiculous. Money is absolutely liquid, but the factors of production are not, but since they are bought with 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 disadvantage that it is not clear how the labor stored in bags, whether in the form of hours and minutes, whether in the form of money, it does not matter, can be divided. On the one hand, it can be divided: we can have different sacks in which different labor is stored, divided by profession, or rather, working hours and minutes of labor of different quality. Or rather, money for the acquisition of various types of labor.

But it all 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 such.

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

Take the phenomenon of resource substitution. Actually, the main purpose of the production function in the general structure of neoclassicism is precisely to describe the premise of the possibility of substituting resources, as a result of which alternative ways of using the same resources appear, between which (methods) you can make the “best” choice.

But what about resource substitution? Can we assume that if a person with sharp eyesight is required for some kind of activity, it is quite possible to replace him with a dozen people with normal vision or a hundred people who are completely blind?

We will be told: do not take everything literally. How else to understand?

In fact, it can be replaced. If we have a production process in which sharp 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 corresponding operation, and all other operations are performed by workers, such quality is not possessing, even if they are blind.

If we now calculate and compare, we will see the following. Before the division of labor, the entire value of a unit of manufactured output fell on a worker with sharp eyesight. And in the conditions of the division of labor, it accounts for only an insignificant part of the value of a unit of finished products.

Formally, it turns out that a rare resource has been replaced by less rare resources. But in reality, we have an individual artisan replaced by a firm that produces many times more products. And the larger the firm, the more it produces products 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 in terms of the division of labor.

Now we can give another definition for the technological division of labor: with its help, in the course of the expansion of production, a rare resource is replaced by less rare ones.

The emergence of the institution of the firm entails major 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 of labor is carried out in accordance with the cost of labor, which is lower than the contribution of labor to the output.

Why is labor compelled to accept the underestimation of its contribution? Marx answers 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, in the course of the so-called enclosures. And then, when the labor market took shape, the artisans began to lose their means of production, depreciating as a result of competition with large-scale industry, which has the opportunity to receive surplus value.

The weakest point of Marx's theory is the uncertainty with the quantitative understanding of the value of labor power. What determines its value? On the one hand, everything seems to be clear. It is about the amount of means of subsistence necessary for the physical survival of the worker. But this is not enough.

It is necessary that the funds received by the workers be sufficient for the reproduction of the workers as a class. Here Marx closely approaches Malthus, whom he did not much like. What Malthus left at the mercy of demographic processes and the law of supply and demand in the labor market, Marx tries to fit into the phenomenon of the value of labor power. It turns out that the capitalists, as it were, voluntarily tax themselves, either collectively or individually, to maintain the conditions of their existence.

But here already a very strong uncertainty appears, since the mechanism of such self-taxation and its magnitude are completely incomprehensible. Further, the uncertainty only increases. It turns out that, according to Marx, the value 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 employees was higher than in other countries. Here we get the widest scope for a variety of interpretations. That is, any specific value of the cost of labor can be explained by very vague categories. Much like an orthodox economic theory, when confronted with phenomena unexpected for it, resorts to historical and cultural explanations.

At the same time, Marx admits that real wages (the price of labor) may 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 simply postulated.

In neoclassical theory, the problem of the value of labor evaluation is solved simply. Labor power is a limited resource, just like the natural resources and capital needed for production. As a result of solving the problem of optimal use limited resources in various ways of using them (I recall here my remarks about the production function), each of the factors mentioned 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. It's about unemployment. That is, they say, labor is not a limited factor of production, it is always in excess. On this occasion, Marx introduced the category of "industrial reserve army of labor", the existence of which he substantiates in his theory of accumulation.

And if there is an excess of labor force - and it really exists, then the formation of the assessment of labor force occurs according to other 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 singled out, the possibility of the existence of structural unemployment is recognized. It points to the distortions that the social policy of the state and the activities of trade unions bring to the labor market.

In general, if we look with an open mind, we will see a kind of symmetry. In Marxism, the weak link is the cost of labor, and a lot of reasoning has been heaped around this concept. In neoclassicism, the same picture with a limited supply of labor. And all because structurally both theories are similar, differing only in details, although essential.

The division of labor in the firm devalues the knowledge of employees, which creates the possibility of their exploitation.

So after all, does exploitation exist in a capitalist economy or not? Who is more right: Marx or neoclassicists?

What is the main means of production of an artisan? If we remember what I said above about the production process, it is knowing the correct sequence of movements, as a result of which the raw material turns into a product that can be marketed. Well, or human capital, that is, the time spent, and possibly other resources that were needed to get this knowledge.

Here we are confronted 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 craftsman performs simple operations, simple movements, because any complex movement can be represented as a sequence of simple ones, and in this quality does not differ from representatives of all other professions and industries (this is what Marx expressed by 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 product, use value ("concrete labor" in Marx's terminology).

For the individual producer, within the framework of his daily activities, the leading role is undoubtedly played by abstract labor. He gets tired because he performs movements during 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, the expenditure of physical energy. Again, if he wants to increase his income, then he must make more moves. But he does not need to “increase the amount of knowledge” at all.

Now let's remember how the division of labor in the company works. The production process is divided into separate operations. Some of these operations are complex and require the person performing them to be knowledgeable. 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 all the time.

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

In fact, the situation is more complicated. Imagine that we have production processes, professions or types of products ranked in terms of profitability per hour of working time from top to bottom. That is, at the top are the professions that require the most human capital. At the bottom are professions that produce products that do not require special knowledge.

Let's assume that the firm's formation took place in an industry somewhere in the middle of our list. Then the owner of such a firm can make a profitable offer to the artisans at the very bottom of the list. Or rather, not even for those who have already mastered the profession, but for “young men who are considering life” and who want to start earning as soon as possible. No need to waste time studying, he would tell them. Come to my factory, I will quickly show you what to do - and work, and you will receive the same amount. Well, or a little less, but immediately.

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

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 of individual producers, due to the size of their human capital. If you hire them, they will have to provide wages no less than the industry average, even if they do simple work (otherwise no one will go). The benefit in this case will be only in the fact that it will not be necessary to share with employees the super-incomes that are formed in the conditions of imbalance in the market.

We immediately assume that the owner of the firm 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 profit to their owners without the assumption I made about the existence of an imbalance in the market. But I, unlike the neoclassicists, always try to reason within the rigid framework that the neoclassicists themselves have established. F. Knight said that there should be no collusion, that is, no one can use any additional information other than that contained in prices - well, I am trying to honestly fulfill this requirement. Although, of course, I understand that in reality this hard restriction may not be met and even definitely not.

But I digress. See what's happening with us. Previously, according to the assumptions made, the condition for the income of any participant economic system there was a preliminary mastery of some knowledge. With the emergence of the company, it becomes possible to receive income without using knowledge, but simply by following the instructions of the owner of the company.

So, in the firm, the duality of the labor process, discovered by Marx, is realized in its purest form. Knowledge (concrete work) becomes the property of the owner of the company, the entrepreneur, and then the company itself. Workers, on the other hand, focus on performing simple operations, the meaning of which they do not know, and are not very interested in. Their work is abstract. And this splitting 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 have assumed, is also determined by specific labor. The income of workers is determined by the situation in the abstract labor market. How this happens, we will see below.

So Marx was right! Exploitation in a capitalist society, if we mean by this expression a society in which firms play a leading role, does exist. And at the heart of this exploitation is indeed 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 wage workers.

Let me reiterate the premises of our analysis. We have a list of professions ranked by income per unit of working time. The firm is created in an industry that employs artisans from the middle of this list, and workers are hired from among the representatives of the least profitable professions.

It may be objected to me that the transfer of artisans from one branch to another will lead to a drop in supply in the first of these branches, the prices of the corresponding products will rise, and the workers will quickly return to their former profession.

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

And only if the demand for labor is high, active 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 a while. Yes, people who know the profession will start to leave the factory. But those who do not know the profession are unlikely to do so. For them, this will mean for the time being the rejection of the correct income already received.

Again, the owner of the firm, in the event of a threat of an outflow of workers, can increase the level 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 going to master this profession will go to the factory, and then those already employed in the industry.

Now the motivation to gain knowledge in this industry will also be broken. 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 rating 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, after a while will lead to an imbalance between supply and demand and an increase in prices. That is, there will be a powerful wave of demand, which will be impossible to satisfy quickly.

Thus, the conditions for the creation of firms 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 not be competitive with the firm. Let's not forget about the natural division of labor, about 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 sets in motion a process in which the pool of individual producers becomes labor power. At first, this process affects the young, those who are just planning what profession to master. They suddenly find out that in order to earn a living, it is not at all necessary to spend time acquiring a profession.

This process also affects workers who already have a profession. In the industry in which firms are established, this happens almost immediately. Individual producers are unable to compete on an equal footing with the capitalist enterprise. As long as the industry is under the influence of a 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, resigned to 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, the wages of employees may increase in certain periods.

However, this increase in wages 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 handicraft production, and increased competition between the carriers of the labor force.

Moreover, let us not forget that this rise in wages is due to the rise in income in industries that have not made the transition to the factory system. And this means that in such industries there are conditions (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 well know, 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 historically established 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, the further dynamics of wages is determined by the specific parameters of the process of formation of firms in the economy, that is, more and more determined by market conditions.

Let's 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 do not want to say that it is impossible to take them all into account - it's just that it will take us too much time now. So for the time being, we will limit ourselves to what has been said.

So, hopefully, we have understood how and why a technological division of labor can occur. Now it is 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 result of the production process, he probably tries to perform as best as possible. He treats them with the utmost attention, thoroughness, tries to come up with new methods of action that speed up work and improve the quality of the resulting product.

For other operations, his resources of attention and thoroughness are simply not enough. He performs them automatically, without much thought.

The worker, who is busy only with the execution of a single operation, is focused on doing it with the least amount of effort and faster. In this case, he gets additional time for rest, and if the company has established some kind of piecework wages for this operation, then the opportunity to earn extra money.

The performance of various operations may require various manifestations of "dexterity" from the performer, as A. Smith calls it. The craftsman can, of course, train himself in these various types of dexterity, but, again, most likely he prefers to focus on the key operations from his point of view. The partial worker, by the very fact that he is constantly engaged in one operation, will train himself in the dexterity necessary for this particular type of operation.

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

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

The production process is always associated with uncertainty. The quality of the raw material may vary, and the condition of the tool, equipment, and other production conditions may also vary depending on a variety of related circumstances. It is very rare that the course of a production process is unambiguously defined in all its details. It should be considered as probabilistic. The craftsman must constantly evaluate the totality of random circumstances and adjust his actions in accordance with them. The situations faced by the worker, both during the production process itself and during the performance of individual operations, can be infinitely varied.

Therefore knowledge can never be absolute. It is never enough. There can always be situations that no one has taught in advance, and the artisan has to figure out how to correct his actions. If some situations occur often enough, then through trial and error, a the best way action, which is remembered and is part of the knowledge of the artisan.

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

All this - an increase in the level of attentiveness and thoroughness, the development of dexterity and the use of 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 single operation in many cases, it turns into an independent profession, requiring the employee to possess certain natural, natural qualities and / or preliminary training.

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

Why potentially? Under conditions of equilibrium, 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 a certain product. Then firms appear in the relevant industry, within which, due to the technological division of labor, rare resources are “replaced” by less rare (or rather, not at all rare) resources.

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 scarce resources. If this scarcity of resources becomes relevant again, a new act of technological division of labor becomes relevant, and the cycle repeats itself.

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 of 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 when we consider issues of scientific and technological progress.

In conclusion, I would like to dwell on the main premise of my model of the division of labor. We are talking about a stable imbalance in the market, which initiates the 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, this is all we can say about this. A more detailed answer will require consideration of many additional aspects of economic development, both theoretical and actual, which would increase the volume of presentation several times over. So let's stop there for now.

63. Actually, we have already done these arguments in the fourth lecture. In it, the tribe figured 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 asymmetry of information. We know success stories, products that have found their consumers and brought success to their creators. And we know practically nothing about the losers. And they rarely try to remind themselves of themselves.

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

66. Here it is necessary to make a reservation - the division of labor, not related to the different quality of the natural resources used (see lecture six), although additional conditions are also required there.

67. And what could guide a craftsman before the publication of A. Smith's book? True, Marx argued that the role of the division of labor was known even before Smith. But it does not change anything. Anyway, that role was discovered post factum, when the division of labor had already reached a certain level.

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

69. R. Coase gives the following reasoning: “ Economic theory argues 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 all this is not applicable. 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 told 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 in relation to this industry, but as Common Market sales for all goods in general, so the size of the market is limited and determined by the volume of 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 some kind of balance, in the sense that various types of productive activities should have certain proportions to each other ”(Young E. Increasing returns and economic progress, 1928).

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

72. The wording belongs to N. Vyacheslavova.

73. If someone thinks that this is a caricature, he is deeply mistaken. This is exactly how they present themselves.

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

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

76. Although there are vivid examples in Western literature when the term “knowledge” is problematized. As many will remember, Sherlock Holmes did not consider the statement that the Earth revolves around the Sun to be knowledge, since it does 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 feedbacks, then it can turn into a system with positive feedbacks. It all depends on the initial parameters.

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

79. Let's not forget that it will be easier for a firm, compared with an individual manufacturer, to withstand the increase in 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 train those who want a new profession. Neoconomics, not excluding this method, also offers the second - 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. Luxembourg did a lot here.

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

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

Chapter 7. PART 2: TECHNOLOGICAL DIVISION OF LABOR. DIVISION OF LABOR

The social division of labor based on private property and exchange embraced the entire structure of production and market relations within society. However, only under the conditions of capitalism did the international division of labor embrace the peoples and countries of all continents, linking them together by the world market.
The formation of the international division of labor has gone through several historical stages, during which the nature and forms have evolved and changed, even in the capitalist system itself. With the formation of the socialist system and its expansion after the Second World War, a certain specific distribution of production functions between countries and peoples took place, which led to a significant change in the worldwide division of labor.
Early 60s. marked a new stage in the division of labor in connection with the collapse of the colonial system of capitalism and the formation of new independent states in Asia, Africa, Latin America and left a noticeable imprint on the international division of labor, highlighting these countries as producers and suppliers of raw materials and food products to the world market. Thus, by the end of the 60s. the structure of the global division of labor was formed, consisting mainly of three links: industrialized Western countries (manufacturers and suppliers of high-tech products), socialist countries (manufacturers and suppliers of goods for the mining and manufacturing industries), developing countries(suppliers of raw materials and food products). At the same time, it should be noted that the international division of labor in the 16th-18th centuries, during the period of geographical discoveries and the formation of the colonial system of Western countries, was distinguished by its specificity, and the division of labor between peoples was just beginning to emerge.
The international division of labor between the mother countries and colonies of the first and second half of the 20th century differed in a similar way, when the old colonial system of distribution of duties essentially lost its significance. At the same time, all changes and evolutionary processes in the international division of labor were carried out within the framework of the capitalist market economy.
The basis of the division of labor and the development of the world market is the trade exchange of all countries of the world. But in the post-war period, the exchange of services and capital was added to the commodity exchange. World market, reflecting the intensive development of international economic relations, is a rather rich network of links between different types of division of labor as a reflection of the need for universal coverage of the whole world by the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution, massive, expanded reproduction. The role of the world market is increasingly manifesting itself as a model of the economic model of communication between peoples and states striving for economic and political stability, the resolution of interstate relations.
Within the framework of the modern world division of labor, the so-called old capitalist countries turned out to be the most developed. Western Europe, USA, Canada, Japan. From the beginning of the 70s. a group of "Asian tigers" (Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan), as well as Brazil and some oil-producing countries in the Middle East. At the same time, it should be noted that, despite the increase in foreign trade turnover of developing countries based on economic dependence on Western countries, their share in world trade during the 70-90s. tended to decrease. As for the socialist countries, until the end of the 80s. the absolute value of the trade turnover between them almost tripled, but in the world turnover it practically remained unchanged.
The worldwide division of labor, which combines several types of international distribution of duties in single system, enables each partner to benefit from the rational distribution of their productive forces, regardless of the natural factor. However, such a process is usually hindered by trade barriers as a manifestation of discrimination of some countries in relation to others, unbalanced pricing that forms price scissors between industrialized and developing countries within the world market.
The dynamic growth of the production of individual countries ("Asian tigers", small countries of Western Europe, Brazil, Argentina in the last 10-15 years), an increase in their scientific, technical and economic potential creates conditions for mutual interest in the development of the market on the basis of a further division of labor. Within this framework, the concept of developing the industry for the market is being implemented more and more effectively. As a result, the structure of exports was increasingly saturated with goods from the manufacturing industry: engineering, instrumentation, electronics, textiles, and footwear. In practice, the international division of labor is aimed at realizing the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution and is both a universal way of developing productive forces and a social factor acting as a basis for the natural factor in the location of production. If world trade testifies to the existence of a world market, and the latter makes it possible to discover the world division of labor as the source of the movement of international exchange, then the entire chain that forms is a concrete proof of the latter.
The intensive course of the internationalization of the productive forces during the 60-90s, the production itself, which is characteristic of any country, but not the same everywhere, regardless of the social system, required direct expression of the links in the system of the worldwide division of labor and their consideration in the formation of national industries.
At present, almost every country keeps records of the universal ties of its economy with the main groups of states in the world economic exchange and its own contribution to such cooperation.
However, most countries do not separate their economic programs from the intensification of all-round cooperation within the framework of the world market on the basis of the existing mechanism of the international division of labor.
The development of traditional forms in the division of labor between peoples and countries is now complemented by integration processes and the activities of transnational corporations. These processes express the intensity of exchange and the growing mobility of factors of production relative to national territories.
New forms of economic communication could not be confined within the framework of each country or grouping of countries, and therefore they reached global boundaries, opening up additional opportunities for mutually beneficial economic, scientific and technical cooperation for states, regardless of their belonging to a particular social system.
Such forms in the 70-80s. and became compensation agreements and industrial cooperation in the form of the creation of mixed companies or joint ventures. economic mechanism compensation agreements is that one partner provides the other with the necessary equipment on credit, financial resources for the construction of mining, energy or chemical enterprises, as well as plants and factories in some manufacturing industries. In response, the debtor compensates the funds received by deliveries of products built with the help of foreign loans to the enterprise.
Industrial cooperation involves the creation of joint ventures for the production of certain goods that are sold in a certain quota in the countries that have created a joint venture. These forms were widely used by the socialist and developing countries, receiving some new technologies from the capitalist countries. In turn, the capitalist countries, within the framework of the global division of labor, have also widely created and are creating joint ventures at the level of individual corporations and companies. All this became possible with the accumulation of historical experience, thanks to the art of managing and multiplying the economic potential of individual countries.

2 the first major social division of labor. Three major divisions of labor

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

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