In this analysis of the topic in the first chapter of ‘Capital’, Volume 1, Marx pin-points two types of division of labour, namely, social division of labour and division of labour in manufacture. Social division of labour is a process that is bound to exist in order that members of a society may successfully undertake the tasks that are necessary to maintain social and economic life. It is a complex system of dividing all the useful forms of labour in a society. For instance, some individuals produce food, some produce handicrafts, weapons and so on. Social division of labour promotes the process of exchange of goods between groups, e.g., the earthenware pots produced by a potter may be exchanged for a farmer’s rice or a weaver’s cloth. Such exchanges spur on or provide an impetus to specialization. Division of labour in industry or manufacture is a process, which is prevalent in industrial societies where capitalism and the factory system exist. In this process, manufacture of a commodity is broken into a number of processes. Each worker is limited to performing or engaging in a small process like work in an assembly line. This is usually bring, monotonous and repetitive work. The purpose of this division of labour is simple; it is to increase productivity. The greater the productivity, the greater the surplus value generated. It is generation of surplus value that motivates capitalists to organise manufacture in a manner that maximizes output and minimizes costs. It is division of labour, which makes mass production of goods possible in modern, industrial societies. Unlike social division of labour where independent producers create products and exchange them with other independent producers, division of labour in manufacture completely divorces the worker from his product. Marx also elaborated on the implications of division of labour in manufacture.

Division of labour in manufacture help to generate more and more surplus value leading to capital accumulation. Marx tackles a crucial question, namely, who takes away to profits? Not the workers, says Marx, but the capitalists. Not those who actually produce, but those who own the means of production. According to him, division of labour and the existence of private property together consolidate the power of the capitalist. Since the capitalist owns the means of production, the production process is designed and operated in such a way that they capitalist benefits the most from it.

According to Marx with division of labour in manufacture workers tent to lose their status as the real creators of goods. Rather, they become mere links in a production chain designed and operated by the capitalists. Workers are separated from the products of their labour; in fact, they hardly ever see the end result of their work. They have no control over its sale and purchase. For example, does a worker in an assembly line in a factory producing washing machines really get to see the finished product? He/she might see it in an advertisement or a shop window. The worker will not be able to sell it or afford to buy it, having been merely a small part of the production of that machine. The actual control over it is exercised by the capitalist. The worker as an independent producer no longer exists. The worker has become enslaved by the production process.

The capitalist system characterized by division of labour is one where workers stop being independent producers of goods. They become suppliers of labour-power, which is needed for production. The worker’s individual personality, needs and desires mean nothing to the capitalist. It is only the worker’s labour-power, which is sold to the capitalist in exchange for wages that concerns the capitalist. The working class is thus stripped of its humanness and labour-power becomes a more commodity purchased by the capitalist, in Marx’s view leading to Dehumanization of the Working Class. Thus the worker is robbed of all control over his/her work. The worker becomes alienated from the products he/she is creating; from the production process he/she is a part of, from fellow workers and from society at large.

Marx holds that social division of labour has to exist in order that the material conditions of human life may be met. But it is division of labour in production that has to be reorganized. It is only when private property is abolished through the revolution of the proletariat that the workers can gain freedom from the alienative division of labour that has been thrust upon them.

The establishment of a communist society according to Marx will enable workers to own and control the means of production. The reorganised production process will enable each individual to realise his/her potential and exercise creativity. Marx and Engels describe their vision in the following words:

“In communist society where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic” (German Ideology,) .

In this above discussion, we saw how Marx distinguished between social division of labour and division of labour in manufacture. Social division of labour is essential for the basis of material life in all societies. Division of labour in manufacture, however, comes into existence with the development of industrialisation and capitalism.

The existence of division of labour in manufacture has the following implications, namely,

•  Profits accrue to the capitalist
•  Workers lose control over what they produce
•  Dehumanisation of the working class takes place
•  Alienation takes place at all levels.

In order to handle these problems. Marx preaches the ‘revolution of the proletariat’, which will do away with private property and transfer the ownership of the means of production in the hands of the workers. This will result in the production process being designed and operated by the workers themselves, enabling workers to give scope to their creativity, and excell at a variety of tasks. They will not be forced into a boring exploitative routine.