Division of labor makes modern societies possible, not merely more productive.

Evidence

The most remarkable effect of the division of labor is not that it increases output of functions divided, but that it renders them solidary. Its role… is not simply to embellish or ameliorate existing societies, but to render societies possible which, without it, would not exist.… It passes far beyond purely economic interests, for it consists in the establishment of a social and moral order sui generis. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 580

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Durkheim’s claim that an economic mechanism generates a sui generis moral order is the conceptual hinge Zuboff will twist against — if division of labor built solidarity, what does behavioral surplus’s division of learning do? Dense enough to sit with.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does Zuboff ever directly answer this template — whether surveillance capitalism’s equivalent ‘division of learning’ produces solidarity or destroys it?
• XREF: connects to: Society, through the division of labour, produces more than the sum of its parts.; Society exceeds its individual parts through collective labor and division of functions; Combined labor generates a social force exceeding the sum of individual efforts — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 246 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Individual diversity can be conceived as a division of labor among unique beings #expands (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 691
• Society, through the division of labour, produces more than the sum of its parts. #expands (0.72)
• Society exceeds its individual parts through collective labor and division of functions #expands (0.72)
• Combined labor generates a social force exceeding the sum of individual efforts #expands (0.72) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 246