Chapter 2. The Causes

What causes the progress of the division of labor?  [It is not a quest for happiness (see Chapter 1, not included here)]

Part 1. Moral/Dynamic Density

It is in certain variation of the social context that we must search for that which explains the progress of the division of labor.  The results of Book 1 allows us to immediately see what those variations are.

We have already seen how the organized structure and the division of labor developed as the segmented structure faded away.  So, it is either that this fading away is the cause of the development of the division of labor, or that the development of the division of labor is the cause of the fading away.  We know that the latter option won’t work because segmentation is an obstacle to the division of labor, and it must have weakened at least partially in order for the division of labor to arise.  Once the division of labor appears, it can contribute to the fading away of the segmental structure, but we only see it once the fading away has already begun.

But the fading of the segmented structure can have this consequence for only one reason.  Its waning allows individuals who were previously separated to come into more contact with others.  Social life, instead of being concentrated in like pods, becomes generalized.  Social relations multiply.  The division of labor develops when there are more individual people sufficiently in contact with each other to act and react upon one another.  We can call this relation and the active exchange resulting from it dynamic or moral density.  Thus, the progress of the division of labor is in direct ratio to the moral or dynamic density of society.

This relationship can only produce this effect if the real distance between individuals is itself diminished in some way.  Moral density cannot grow unless material density grows at the same time.  We can use material density as a measure of moral density.

The progressive condensation of societies in the course of historical development is produced in three ways:

1. Where early groups of people were spread out over large areas relative to their small population, population is concentrated among advanced peoples. Dispersion over a large area was necessary for the work of nomads, hunters, and shepherds. In contrast, agriculture requires a settled life, and presupposes a certain restriction of society in spatial terms, although there remain stretches of land between families.  As cities developed, condensation was even greater.  From their origins, European societies have seen a continuous growth in their density.
2. Thus, the formation and development of cities is key. Cities always result from the need of individuals to be in close contact with others. It is here that the social mass can contract more strongly than anywhere else.  New recruits arrive by immigration.  As long as social organization is segmented, cities cannot truly exist.  There are no cities in early-stage societies.^[1]
3. Finally, communication and transportation are made easier and faster. By decreasing the gaps separating segments of society, new forms of communication and transportation increase the density of society.

If condensation of society produces more division of labor, it is because it multiplies intra-social relations.  These relations will be even more frequent if the number of population rises.  In other words, if there are both more individuals who are at the same time more intimately in contact with each other, the effect is stronger.  Both social volume (the number of people) and social density (the concentration of people) increase the division of labor.

We offer the following proposition: The division of labor varies in direct ratio with the volume and density of societies; if the division of labor progresses in a continuous way in the course of social development, it is because societies generally get denser and more populous.

Part 3. Intensification of the struggle for existence

If labor becomes every more divided as societies become denser and more populous, it is not because there are more varied external circumstances, but because the struggle for existence is more ardent.

Darwin rightly observed that the struggle between two creatures is as active as they are similar. Having the same needs and the same objects, they are rivals.  So long as there are enough resources for both, they can live side by side, but when resources become insufficient for them both, war breaks out.  It is very different if the two creatures are of different species or variations.  Since they do not eat the same things or live the same kind of life, they do not disturb each other.  The chances of conflict diminish.  Animals and plants thrive when they differ.

People are the same. In the same town, different jobs can co-exist.  They each pursue different objects: the soldier seeks glory, the priest moral authority, the politician power, the person of business wealth, the scholar academic fame.  Each can attain her end without preventing the others from attaining theirs.  The optometrist does not struggle with the psychiatrist, nor the shoemaker with the hatter, nor the bricklayer with the cabinetmaker, nor the physicist with the chemist. Since they each perform different services, they can all perform then in parallel.

The closer the functions, however, the more contact and the more exposed to conflict.  Just as with animals that seek the same food, they inevitably seek to limit each other’s development.  The judge may never be in competition with the person of business, but the brewer and the vintner, the poet and the musician, do try to supplant each other.  And for those with exactly the same function?  They can succeed only to the detriment of others.

That said, it is easy now to understand how all concentration of the social mass, especially when accompanied by an increase in population, necessarily advances the division of labor.

[Specialization occurs as a cure of side-by-side conflicts]

The division of labor is a result of the struggle for existence, but it is a relaxed end to it. Because of the division of labor, would-be opponents are not forced to fight to death, but can instead exist beside each other. In addition, as it develops it provides the means of maintenance and survival to a greater number of people who, in more homogeneous societies, would be condemned to extinction.  [So, it is that in modern societies those that may be weak physically can still find a good position using their brain. Everyone has talents unique to them that can be put to use. No one need to be condemned as wholly useless]

Economists regard the division of labor differently than what we have discussed here.  For them, it is essentially about increasing production. But we have seen that greater productivity is only a necessary consequence of the underlying phenomenon. If we specialize it is not in order to produce more but to allow us to live under new conditions of existence [denser and more populous societies].