Concepts of Division of Labour

Abstract

The term ‘division of labour’ came to be widely used only in the eighteenth century when it emerged as a central theme in the writings of the school of ‘conjectural history’ during the period of the Scottish Enlightenment. In their discussion of the division of labour the Scots and other Enlightenment thinkers made some reference back to writings from classical antiquity and at first sight it appears reasonable to suggest that the roots of the concept of division of labour have to be sought in the social thought of classical Greece, and especially in the work of Plato, Aristotle and Xenophon. There is, indeed, a well-established tradition in the history of ideas which delights in finding remote origins and tracing direct chains of continuity across vast historical periods, and the concept of division of labour has not been immune to this form of treatment.1