Division of labour in Durkheim, Marx and Honneth: Contributions to a political economy of recognition

Abstract

This paper presents a discussion on how the concept of the division of labour within society appears in the work of Émile Durkheim, of Karl Marx, and of Axel Honneth. Historically, that notion has been related to Durkheim's De la division du travail social, but it was also a subject to which Marx and, more recently, Honneth directed their attention. In highlighting how those three authors conceptualise the division of labour, this paper intents to show that all of them, with their respective particularities, conceive modern societies as a normative order based on the principle of mutual recognition, which for its part is expressed in the historical process of the division of labour.